The Moon Goddess' Chosen

437 Not Some Wind of Change

“What are you talking about?” Wyatt gave her a wolfish grin. Curiosity suddenly filtered into his mind, along with wonder… ‘Did she hit her head or something?’

When Lina started explaining, his thoughts vanished.

“You’ve been tired for a while now. I could see that but I still pushed you to keep following. Honestly, I thought you would be more of a burden and complain about it.

But you remained quiet and endured it all without losing your step. You didn’t slow down once even when a normal person would have simply collapsed from exhaustion. You’ve made it this far. I’m grateful for that… and impressed,” the girl explained.

“I still had some energy…”

“Don’t lie… I might just push you harder just to see you collapse for real,” the princess sighed, “I want to make it to the Great Arena more than anything. But the moment I realised I had the two of you with me, it wasn’t just me running anymore. I have been paying attention.

I know when you’re actually tired and when you’re simply pushing past your limits. To push past one’s limits, one doesn’t require any physical strength. At that point, there is none of that left in the tank. All that’s left is pain and weakness.

Strength loses meaning and what keeps them going is no longer a matter of how strong they actually are. The more they push themselves, the harder it gets no matter who they are.

A single step bears the weight of a hundred. At that point, the strong and weak reach a line that clearly defines them. The will to keep pushing past their limits. That is the strength that can keep someone fighting even when their bodies have completely given up…

.....

To me, that’s true strength. Anyone can claim to be able to handle themselves in a fight but most would rather avoid the fight entirely. You pushed past your limits in ways even I’m yet to achieve and for that… I am impressed,” Lina finally went silent after speaking.

The alpha’s thoughts started to swirl. Was this kind of thinking even supposed to be valid? The werewolves were a community that ranked its members on strength and their ability to protect. This was the same thinking they’d used to put Lina down in the past.

And yet, what she had just said to him made all the sense in the world. It wasn’t like him to do something that would exert him as much as he had done today. Wyatt felt much more pain than he was letting them know. His muscles were sore and burned like hot coals but he wouldn’t let them know.

At first, he didn’t want to be embarrassed by showing weakness but knowing that Lina had known all along changed everything. “It doesn’t really matter. I couldn’t stop moving. I got myself in this situation in the first place.”

Lina chuckled at this, “Do you think Bree would have fared any better? Or do you think she would have persevered as you have?”

This question struck so many cords. He was being compared to the common werewolf… and it was making sense. Bree was ready to travel across the world for her alpha. This was loyalty…

This was… strength.

The man turned to Crysta and noticed the same kind of devotion. Crysta was tired as well. No doubt about it… but all she had done this whole time was complain about how she was slowing down the princess and even then, she was trying her best to do even better. She was pushing herself beyond the limits of a delta.

Hearing Lina speak like someone more experienced than him irked him a little bit, but the resemblance she now bore with her lost sister made it look like she was trying to fill her shoes… and she fit them perfectly.

Lina was insanely fast and had monstrous endurance, no doubt it was the same endurance her sister bore. A question formed within his mind, one that was entirely beside the point, “You sound so much like her… Insanely strong, stubborn and strong-willed, yet soft, painfully kind and considerate. Can I ask you something?”

Lina nodded.

“Who was faster between the two of you? I remember the two of you racing before. You were identical. I was never able to figure out which of you had won.”

“Oh, that… yeah, Katie was definitely faster than me that time. But then again, she had that ability that allowed her to change her wolf to look more like mine. If she didn’t have that, she wouldn’t stand a chance,” Lina chuckled to herself.

Wyatt tried to dismiss what the princess was trying to say to him, but it proved impossible. It was nothing like he found himself to be. He didn’t want to help this princess win the Trials as much as those that followed her.

His reasons for having joined this party were still his and his alone but he’d never thought the princess would end up complimenting him like some sort of humble devotee.

Even then, he felt something shift deep within his cold being. The princess had just expressed her gratitude towards his actions. He’d done something worthwhile in his life. Something the princess could genuinely thank him for. And he liked being appreciated. His muscles still burned… but now, it was more bearable.

It was worth it.

“I will admit that at the moment, you… along with Crysta are much stronger than I am. But don’t mistake that for some sort of wind of change blowing through your little fantasy world.

Wolves are strong and strength is what matters to our kind. It’s why the deltas were never given the power to rise above the alphas and why the alphas don’t have the power to rise above the royals. It’s just how it works,” Wyatt shifted into his human form and walked away from the girl. His leg had a slight limp to it, indicating more injury than he liked to show.

When Lina turned to him, Crysta gestured for her to stop, adding a slight bow to her request. Lina found that the show of submission made her more accepting of her request, only proving Wyatt’s point. Which is why she wouldn’t accept it.

“Werewolves are social creatures. We survive in packs and a pack is only as strong as its weakest member. How can you not see that? When are you ever going to start acting more like an alpha and less like a brat?” Lina yelled at him.

She might have looked like Katie but her patience was thinner… a lot thinner.

“Oh? Do I act like a brat to you? Or has the time with those weaker than us really made you that blind to the way things work?” Wyatt spat, “Don’t answer that. This conversation is over.”

Lina wanted to argue… to smack the man for his one-track mind. Were all men in power like this? No, Lina knew that wasn’t the case. Her brother wasn’t like that. He was… Lina couldn’t find the words. Drake hadn’t exactly been himself.

But before his change, he’d been… kind, considerate and caring towards everyone.

Why couldn’t Wyatt see that he was wrong about everything? That his misconception about their society didn’t get him more followers but got him hated by his subjects instead. Even if he was never demoted by his sister, he would have made the worst alpha in history with his attitude.

She wanted to drill the lesson into his mind. To make him understand the part about him that was so repulsive that Katie had taken away his claim to becoming his father’s heir. When she took a step forward, Crysta abandoned her place around the setup for the campfire and embraced Lina.

‘No, Lina, you cannot attack him. It will only prove his point,’ Crysta tried arguing through the mind link.

‘If I do nothing, he learns nothing at all either. I have to tell him just how stupid he’s acting and beat it into his thick skull,’ the princess argued, gritting her teeth in anger.

‘That will only make him resent you more. You’ll look no different from him when he used to beat you,’ Crysta tried, ‘You’ll look no different from me when I used to…’

Lina’s impulses froze at that moment. Crysta continued to hold her friend, this time with a different reason to hold her, ‘It wasn’t violence that made me realise I was doing the wrong thing. It was you and your sister.

She never cared for the quarrels that were going on through the pack. She only looked at the bigger picture and in the end, she saved us back at that reserve when we were fighting each other.

And you… even after everything we did, you never once looked back on it all. Even when you gained the power and confidence to fight back. You didn’t. You just humbly moved on. It’s actions like that make a difference. You said it yourself.

In the end, strength doesn’t matter. Someone’s will to keep moving forward is what makes the difference between someone that’s weak and another that’s truly strong.’

Lina hugged her friend back, ‘There you go again. Saving me. What would I do without you?’