The Characters of Clayton, Rya, Kennedy, Dallas, and the Valentines belong to Rachelle. The character of Cora is expanded on with Permission from Rachelle, and is written for the pleasure of the International Wildflower Pack, the WhiskeyQueenn fandom. #WildflowersUnited #iwp   

: Thanks Whiskeyqueenn Rachelle for sharing your creativity 

and inspiring this side story.: 

More than a Wolf

Mark's pov

Cora was definitely on the warpath, she was refusing to talk to me. I went over to Ms Gretchen's house to finish cutting up the dead tree I had cut down. I had at least a cord of wood to finish splitting. Ms Gretchen had come home, offered me a glass of iced tea, then chewed my ear half-off before telling me to go run around the lake. My wolf obeyed the old midwife without hesitation and here I was. He was running and I was thinking.

Everyone was telling me how to handle Cora, from their Alpha to her brother, even that strange Chinese wolf, everyone had suggestions of how I was to handle her, and I had had it with all of them. Usually, I only half-listened, Cora's behavior didn't make sense to me. I just wanted to leave, I wanted to go home to the peace of the range. To take Shotgun, ride out and stay out with the cattle 'till the first snows. I had two colts I was about ready to start training into cutting horse. Merle and Miles were working with them now but I needed to be home by summer's end. And if today was any indication, I would be going home alone. 

I longed for the openness of the Sky Pack lands and to get out of these claustrophobic trees but my wolf wouldn't let me leave. He did not care how unhappy or uncomfortable I was. He was not leaving his pup or his mate. He would let her kill us if she wanted to and she almost had. She had woken up from her coma, overhearing our conversation with Dr Dallas about taking our pup to Big Sky to have milk enough to feed her, and she thought I was trying to steal our pup from her. I had heard pregnant she-wolves were psycho-protective of their pups, but to try to kill their own mates to protect them. She had almost ripped out my throat, less than a quarter of an inch had separated her claws from my death.

When I told my father what had happened, the old wolf had laughed and said I was lucky to still have my head, that my mama was worse when she was pregnant. I couldn't remember, the only thing I remember about her being pregnant was Blessing's birth. When I got here and saw Cora dying, it was like all the horror of that day returned. The ranch house burning, the ranch hands/ pack warriors and my grandfathers fighting. I had rode in when I saw the smoke, Ironhide had bolted at the smell of unfamiliar wolves. I heard my baby brother crying, he was covered in blood, his leg was crushed. In the chaos, no one had noticed me carrying Martin around. 

Next I found Grandma Rose in her garden, throat cut with silver. Mama called me, she was leaning against the old well, she had been stabbed with silver too. There was so much blood. She dropped her claws and choked back her screams as she ripped herself open.  Mama wrapped Blessing in her sweater and told me to run. She wanted only to save her children. I looked back to see her kneeling in the puddle of her own blood before the smoke got too much.

 I ran to the old soddy and crawled inside, praying to the Goddess that we would go unnoticed, we did. Dad rallied the pack and Big Sky survived. Nearly three hundred Sky wolves died and almost twice that many of the enemy, and Blessing became a symbol for hope for us all and my source of sanity. Seventeen years and the nightmare was always the same until I left Cora. Now when I slept, each time I dream, I looked back and I see Cora kneeling in head down, covered in her own blood, just like that day in Flatirons.

I ran away from her like the coward I had been since I was eight. Today, I had watched her through the glass refusing to believe that I had not rejected her and after hearing her side, the Chinese wolf had said I wasn't worth enough to be her mate. I had never met someone so fiercely loyal to a wolf who was not their mate or their kin. I knew there was no sorted history between them because when we became mates, I was her first as she was mine. But she didn't believe that now, all because Blessing was teasing me. The single she-wolves of our pack were always looking for a reason to call one of us brothers, always hope we'd pick one of them to be Luna. Only Miles played the field, the rest of us waited for our mates. Well I had waited and I had gotten Cora, the most difficult female I had ever met and the strongest too.

The way Ms Gretchen explained things about Cora this afternoon, made me listen, really listen. I learned a lot but I still didn't understand her. I had never had a friend I would give up everything for, I mean I have friends, but I wouldn't give up my mate for any of them. I should have paid attention the first time she tried to tell me about Rya, or all the times before I left, or when she told my father. I still had a bit of a burr under my blanket that he had taken her side. Listening to Ms Gretchen made me realize that I had been lucky. All the bad in my life had come in one day, while Cora's had come over years and she was still suffering. I don't understand why she wanted to stay here, why she insisted on it. I didn't understand how she could struggle and still always take the high ground, lifting all the wolves around her up with her. She would make an excellent Luna, always caring for the wolves around her, seeking to ease their struggles.

I believe that's why Leong was sniffing around her. He claimed to be her friend only but I knew that wolf wanted more. He wanted her and I couldn't blame him. She was amazing, even if I didn't understand her, I couldn't deny that she had a spirit that couldn't be conquered. She wanted the world to be a better place for all wolves. And Ms Gretchen accused me, and Cora believed that, I had rejected her. She shamed me into realizing that because I let my wounded pride lead me, I may now lose my mate. I felt like I already had, I have to get her back. I can't lose her. Cora believed the worst of me and I deserved it. Dad encouraged me to tell her about that day and why I react the way I do during the calming months, when I was supposed to be calling her. I didn't call, not even once and now it just seemed like excuses. I had been a fool. My wolf snorted in agreement.

I noticed he wasn't running anymore. I looked out through his eyes and saw the biggest, blackest wolf I had ever seen. It was just sitting there by the water's edge. He turned his head to look at us. His eyes were dark, colorless and they went on forever and yet read my soul in a moment. I had to look away, his power terrified me. My wolf was laying down respectfully. There was a rustle of fur and Leong's skin was standing in front of me. He seemed taller, stronger, his body covered in tattoos that seemed to pulse and move. I had only seen three other wolves shift anywhere near that fast; Cora, Charlie, and Dallas. I was embarrassed by my twenty-seconds to shift; it seemed to take forever.

"You should have your mate help you train your wolf, she was the best student I ever had and is a natural teacher." His voice sounded deeper, more powerful and I had the strong sense I was finally seeing the true wolf. That he had hidden what he was from all of us. I wondered if Cora had seen this side of him, he answered my unasked question, "She has and was unimpressed."

"Is that why you love her?" Why am I asking this question, " I know you want her for your Luna."

His face remained passive, almost expressionless. His eyes were dark, endless. Like doorways into another world, a world I don't want to go to. His answer was disturbing. "There is not an unmated Alpha, Beta, Gamma, or Delta who has met Cora and did not desire for her to be theirs. She is special, unique, and you would be wise to appreciate that." There was a warning in his tone but he didn't deny that he too wanted her.

"Look Leong, I don't need you to tell me how special MY MATE is, when..."

"Then act like you know. I do not tell you for your sake but for hers," he interrupted, his tone was like he was talking to a little kid. "I only desire for her to be happy."

I didn't like his tone but I believed him, I noticed his tattoos moving again, pulsing like they were alive, and had their own heartbeat. The script was similar to Cora's, it makes me ask, "What does her ink mean and what is that weird name you call her?"

He smiled slightly, fondly at remembering something, then his blank expression returned. "Her nickname means she is a wolf with a stout heart like a dragon, and her ink means she mastered in weeks what normally take months or years to master. As I said, she is special, more so than you realize. She is a skilled warrior tempered with a uniquely determined heart."

I realized Leong was the one who trained her, or one of the ones. Charlie had said she had trained all over the world, but to earn a marking from the great Tsang Lao pack... No wonder I could barely manage to land a blow on her when we fought. She had let me hit her.

"Mark, I am leaving at sunset and I wanted to speak with you first. I want you to listen closely." he stared at me with hard intent.

"Well, spit it out," I demanded; my wolf growled at me for being disrespectful to him.

Leong just eyed me for a moment. "Know this: If you betray her, I will end you and everything you love." His tone was so even and bland he could be talking about the weather.

It was a statement of fact, but I don't like being threatened. "If you end me, it will kill her," I retort.

He smiled smugly and stepped closer to me. I felt burning heat radiating off his body like he was on fire. My wolf whimpered in fear as I realized Leong was not a normal wolf.

"It will barely cause her a single tear. With my wolf, comes the power to sever the Moon's bond. To spare one mate the pain of the other's passing. Please keep in mind, I only tolerate your heartbeat because of your wolf and his loyalty to her. I have no use for your skin. Understand this, I do not need a reason to kill you, Markus Kincaid of the Sky, but to keep you alive." His words held such a promise of brutality, I stepped back.

My skin wanted to run, but I knew with certainty it would be a fool's folly.

"You will take care of her." He doesn't add 'or else', he doesn't need to.

I don't think I had ever been so terrified in my life, even on that day. He turned away and his tattooed statue was replaced with fur and fang faster than I could blink. His giant wolf's head looked at me for a moment, then he bounded off across the surface of the lake like it was an illusion, like a wet highway shimmering after a storm. His massive paws and those ebony talons, I couldn't call them claws, they were too dang big, barely make a ripple in the surface. Then He was gone, just gone.

I stood there frozen in place as a dry lightning storm rolled in from the east. The massive churning clouds that would bring tornadoes and death anywhere else just rolled over and away from Adams Pack territory in the wrong direction for weather in this part of the country. I watched the storm catching up to the setting sun.

I knew Leong was finally gone and was almost relieved, ALMOST. It terrified me that there was a wolf that powerful out in the world. 

'No, he was something more than a wolf, and he loves my mate as much or more than I do.' I didn't know what to think anymore, but he had let me live. I shifted and ran back to Charlie and Cora's house.

~

Grandma Coraline was sitting on the porch, having her usual evening smoke and whiskey. She tossed me a pair of shorts. After I put them on, she handed me a whiskey. I gulped the burning amber liquid in a one go.

She smirked and poured me another. "I see you finally met the real Leong and his wolf." She said it so casually before she drew a puff from her cigarette then tipped her head back and blew a series of smoke rings.

"You kn-knew?" I stammered and I downed the second whiskey.

"He's just like his great-grandfather Lao." The ice in her glass tinked as she tipped it up.

'Oh Goddess, there's more than one?!' I couldn't make myself ask that. Instead I stammered, "He... he ain't a wolf," I sat down on the steps, as she poured me a third drink. "I... I don't know what the hell he is." This time I sipped the bitter tonic, my nerves were shot. 'More than one...'

Coraline sat quietly for a while, then lit another cigarette, "He is the Láng Lóng, the wolf with the spirit of a dragon, the mystical protector of his pack, their mountains, and the sacred river."

I huffed a single laugh in disbelief, a dragon wolf, really? That was even too far-fetched for me to believe. My wolf does believe it and thought me a fool.

Coraline just raised her eyebrow at me and I realized she was serious. He was more than just a wolf.

My fear returned in spades. "Why does he love Cora?" I gritted out the question. I don't know if I really want to know. How can I compete with a wolf like him? I finished my third whiskey.

"She saved him," Coraline said it like it was so simple, so obvious.

I couldn't believe that a wolf like him would need rescuing from anything. I felt my frustration and fear destroying any kind of calm I may have had. "Saved him?" I asked, I take a deep breath. Coraline doesn't answer.

"She... saved him? What under the Moon would HE need saving from?" I demanded, shocked. I didn't want to think about living in a world where there were things that a wolf like that needed saving from.

She exhaled smoke slowly and tipped her glass, she let me stew on purpose then finally answered, "Cora saved him from the same thing she can save you from, if you can teach her to forgive you. The same thing she saved me from, and is still trying to save Rya from," her eyes are pale with age, but more intense than any I've ever seen.

"And what's that?" Do I really want to know?

"Grief." Her single word answer had me perplexed.

After a while she stood, pouring me a fourth glass. She headed inside, taking the bottle with her. "Don't make too much noise, Cora is asleep."

A long time later, I went inside and go up to my room across from Charlie's. I woke in the morning as my wolf, laying in front of her door. I had a lot of work to do.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

9.2018 - CLAYTON is published!!!

Clayton (The Wildflower Series) by Rachelle Mills https://www.amazon.com/dp/164034487X/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_S8sbDbB084P46 via @amazon

2.2019- DALLAS is published!!!

Dallas (The Wildflower Series Book 2) by Rachelle Mills https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MXRVB7M/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_o9sbDbPFY61NH via @amazon
Find them on Amazon

::Thank you to Rachelle for allowing this CLAYTON Fanfiction to be published.:: 

If you are reading this on a site that is not Wattpad, it has been taken

and published without my permission.