Oregon in the Fall - 21. Chapter Twenty-One: Blue

Eclipse of old is the ring of fire,
Whispers rise from a cosmic pyre.
The veil grows thin, the unseen awake,
Shadows slither and boundaries break.

The sun’s crown dims and darkness descends,
A hunger stirs where reality bends.
Ancient forces reaching a fevered hand,
Seeking purchase upon a fractured land.

Fury and stillness were a clash foretold,
Whispers of ruin and whispers of old.
Balance teeters on the primal breach,
A gasping world is just beyond reach.

—The Ring of Fire, Ancient Druidic Myth (Obscured by Ages)

Two years ago. The Strawberry Mountains, Oregon. The Belcore Pack.

“Son…” Luis said.

“I’m not your son,” I snapped at him, cutting him off.

“Unfortunately. Yet you’re less of a disappointment than my actual sons, Mark.”

Was I?

“My wolf doesn’t want to run.”

“It’s a supermoon eclipse tonight. You need to be careful to listen to your wolf, and strengthen your bond with him. I taught you that.”

“I sometimes wish I wasn’t this way…” And this was true on so many levels.

“It’s a gift, son,” Luis said, patted me on the shoulder, and left.

A gift. That was funny. He turned me. When I was just an infant. He feared I would get lost over time… lose the grip I had on the bond with my wolf. But nothing could be further from the truth. My wolf was the only real and true friend I had.

We were assembled in a clearing not too far from the pack grounds. Everyone was here, roughly a hundred people. The moon was so close tonight and its pull so strong. You could feel the energy in the air, like ozone. A sense of unease and excitement at the same time.

“Your first supermoon eclipse as an adult, Mark,” Fiona said.

“Does my birthday have any significance here, mom?” I replied.

“Nah… not really.” She smiled. “But I’m so glad you’re with us.” She gave me a kiss on my forehead.

Fiona was—for all intents and purposes—my mom. She raised me in her home because no one was supposed to know that Beatrice gave birth to me. No one was supposed to know I was born human, either. And I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, not even my family. No, Luis made sure of that. They just placed me in Fiona and Dan Calderon’s care as an abandoned pup.

But ever since Beatrice just up and left, things had changed, drastically. The cold I had felt in the Calderon household was gone. The shouting had stopped. Fiona and Dan laughed together, frequently. We shared meals. Like, as a family! Hell, they even hugged me. I was sure our little family was the happiest place in this pack. No, in this world.

I once would’ve been the kind of man who howled at the moon at such an occasion, howling for my real mom to return. I wasn’t that kind of man any longer because I had a new family.

Dan arrived at the clearing. “Sorry guys, I think I slept in,” he said, hugging me from the side. I was their only son.

“I have no idea how you were able to sleep tonight, dad,” I said.

“Where is Grey?”

“Cut it out. You know we’re not talking anymore,” I said. Because of what I did.

“Leave the boy alone, Dan. Troubles of the heart,” Fiona said.

That was… not even a remotely apt description of what was going on in my head. I had pushed Grey away. I hadn’t wanted to do that, but Beatrice made me. Luis made me. All of this bullshit was for the stars in the sky aligning.

Supermoon eclipse, eh? Fuck prophecies. Why were we even howling at a moon that was totally in the earth’s shadow? I guess it looked nice.

The air was thick with anticipation as the pack gathered around, their faces illuminated by the eerie glow of the supermoon. Despite the collective excitement, a sense of solitude wrapped around me like a cloak. The weight of unspoken truths and hidden histories pressed against my chest, a reminder of the distance I had placed between myself and Grey—for reasons he couldn’t begin to understand.

As Fiona and Dan mingled with the others, their laughter a balm to the years of silence that had once filled our home, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt. They had given me everything: love, acceptance, a sense of belonging I never found within the wider pack. And yet, there were parts of me, dark, twisted roots that even their kindness couldn’t reach. I was their sorrow.

I couldn’t even make out Grey in the crowd. But his brother Sebastian’s presence was like a storm cloud on the horizon, his demeanor as abrasive and challenging as ever. Luis never confirmed it, but I bet he was in on it all. Sebastian reminded me of Grey—the darker parts of him, without any of the good ones.

“Mark, you ready?” Dan’s voice pulled me from my thoughts, his question loaded with an awareness of the night’s significance.

I nodded, more out of necessity than conviction. “As I’ll ever be,” I replied, trying to muster a confidence I didn’t feel.

The ritual began, a tradition as old as the pack itself. To outsiders it might’ve seemed odd for so many people to take off their clothes in unison. But we were all used to it. Then, one by one, members stepped forward into the moonlight, their bodies contorting, shifting, until the clearing was filled with wolves. The transformation was a sight to behold, a dance of shadow and light that never ceased to amaze me. Yet, as my turn approached, a hesitation gripped me.

Was I doing this for them, for the pack, or for myself? Did I seek the embrace of my wolf to forget the human complexities I couldn’t navigate, or was it a desperate attempt to feel closer to the family I had lost and the one I had found?

sorrow. remember.

Hm? What?

we are their rock.

What are you talking about, buddy?

mom. dad.

Yeah.

With a deep breath, I let go, feeling my form change, bones reshaping, fur sprouting, until I stood on four legs. The world sharpened around me, scents and sounds intensified. But so did the emotions, swirling within me like a blue tempest—fear, longing, loss, and beneath it all, a simmering anger at the fates that had torn me away from my truth.

The pack howled, a chorus that filled the night, a call to the ancestors, to the forces that watched over us. As the moon eclipsed, it slowly illuminated with a red shimmer. I joined in, my voice melding with theirs, yet feeling as distant as the moon above. At that moment, I realized the eclipse wasn’t just an astronomical event; it was a reflection of my life, caught between light and shadow, human and wolf, sadness and joy, love and duty.

Duty.

After the howling subsided, the pack began to disperse, dashing off into the woods in different directions. But I remained here, lingering in the shadows as wolf, watching Grey from afar until he too ran off… alone. His company was something I longed to be a part of, yet knew I couldn’t. Not now. Not anymore.

Fiona and Dan had run off, too. I felt their presence with me still. Their scent was so distinctly happier than anyone else’s. I wonder if I was the only one to notice?

I enjoyed the solitude, listening to the forest and to the pack in the distance. I could’ve stayed here for hours.

“Mark?” Fiona’s voice reached me, gentle yet insistent. “Come home, son. It’s time.”

I looked at her, then back at the direction Grey went, feeling the divide between us and my duty widen even more. With a heavy heart, I turned away from what could have been, shifted back to human, and put my clothes on.

I followed Fiona back to the warmth of our family home. As we walked, the prophecy loomed over me, a specter of choices made and paths not taken. And yet, as I glanced back at the clearing, at the moon now hidden by clouds, I made a silent vow to find a way through the darkness, to uncover the truth of my past, and to forge a future where love and duty did not stand on opposite sides.

As Fiona and Dan disappeared into the warmth of our home, leaving me at the doorstep of decisions I wasn’t ready to make, a figure approached from the shadows.

Sebastian, his wolf form sleek and imposing under the moonlight, stopped a few paces away. The distance between us was more than physical; it was a chasm filled with years of rivalry, misunderstanding, and, perhaps, a shared sense of unbelonging.

He shifted, standing tall and naked. He looked a lot like Grey. And that wasn’t a good thing in my current state of mind. Arousal was something you could smell on people.

“Why are you here, Mark? Shouldn’t you be celebrating with the rest of us?” His voice carried the rasp of a challenge, yet there was a tremor beneath it, a crack in his ever-defiant façade.

“I could ask you the same,” I retorted, my guard up, expecting the usual confrontation. But tonight, influenced perhaps by the celestial spectacle above, I sought understanding over conflict. “Sebastian, have you ever questioned why things are the way they are in our pack? Why we follow the prophecies so blindly?”

His eyes narrowed, suspicion quick to surface. “What are you playing at, Mark?”

“No games. Just… thoughts. We’re bound by blood, by destiny. But we’re vile. We’re not friendly. Can’t you feel that?” My words hung in the air, a tentative bridge extended toward him.

For a moment, Sebastian looked away, his gaze lost in the forest that surrounded us. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer, tinged with something akin to curiosity. “What are you talking about, brother?”

He knew.

Tonight, under the watchful eyes of the eclipse, the truths I had buried deep within threatened to surface, truths about my origin, my transformation, and the prophecy that ensnared us all. But it wasn’t just my own story that needed reckoning; it was also Sebastian’s—Grey’s brother, the embodiment of our pack’s ferocity and despair.

I hesitated, not out of fear, but from the realization that the truth could either bind us closer or tear us further apart. “I’ve learned that sometimes, the bonds we think are our weakest may actually be our strongest. That maybe, just maybe, our destinies aren’t as set in stone as we believed. You know what your dad did to me.”

Sebastian scoffed, the aggression evident from his posture. “You speak in riddles. If you have something to say, say it.”

“It’s about the prophecy, Sebastian. About us. We’ve been pawns in a game that started long before we were born, but it doesn’t have to define our future. We can challenge the narrative, rewrite our roles.”

He already knew my worst secret. Something I never told Grey, or my parents. And in a twisted way, that made me feel close to him. He had been Grey’s biggest rival, and here I was, talking to him. I pushed Grey away, and was about to let Sebastian in.

Fucking hell.

For a long time, he remained silent, his expression unreadable. Then, in a move that surprised us both, he stepped closer and closer until the gap between us was just mere inches. “You… you were with my brother. He… he’s not worthy of his role.” He bared his teeth.

“He’s no longer in my life,” I said. I was breathless for some reason. What the fuck was I doing?

blue.

What??

blue.

Sebastian Belcore was just inches from my face and I could feel his breath on me—dusk with a hint of rancid jealousy that he carried for Grey, always. But now it was fading. Slowly, but unmistakably, it was fading.

“How…” he said, gasping.

“How what?” The words barely left my lips before our eyes locked.

His eyes, he was so confused.

The air between us crackled with an intensity that had nothing to do with the charged atmosphere of the supermoon eclipse above. Sebastian, typically a tempest of aggression, now seemed caught in a storm he couldn’t control. His confusion was palpable, a mirror to my own as I tried to decipher the sudden shift in the air, the softening of emotions I could almost taste.

“How what?” I repeated, my own voice a mix of curiosity and awe.

Sebastian’s usual hostility began to dissolve, replaced by a vulnerability he had never shown before. “I… I don’t know. I feel…” His voice trailed off, his fierce gaze softening. It was as if the icy barriers around his heart were melting under the warmth of an unseen sun, revealing the raw, untainted core beneath.

It was then I realized the truth of what was happening. It wasn’t just the physical space between Sebastian and me that was closing; it was the vast, emotional chasms that had separated us. And somehow, I was bridging that gap. The realization hit me with the force of a tidal wave: my wolf was reaching out to him, enveloping us both in a cocoon of tranquility and understanding.

blue.

What?

Was I doing this to him?

“I don’t feel the anger,” Sebastian whispered, a note of wonder in his voice. “With you, right now, I don’t feel the need to… to fight, or to hate.”

The curse that had woven its dark threads through our pack, manifesting in violence and sorrow, was receding in his presence. And it was me. It was all me.

Sebastian edged closer and closer. Our lips touched. It was soft and gentle. It was impossible. His scent so pure, like my family. Wait…

Did I…?

Sebastian Belcore’s kiss began as a whisper, but was now gradually intensifying into a fervent storm. At that moment, he felt inexplicably right, as if every moment had been leading us here.

Did I… fix my family too?

What did this mean? I should be focusing on the incredibly hot naked man in front of me, on the situation that was as unlikely as they come, but my mind wandered everywhere else. When Beatrice disappeared, my family started healing. But it was only my family that was healing. I could see that now. And it was because of me. I did it. I did.

Sebastian broke the kiss, panting. He looked into my eyes for what felt like hours, searching for an answer.

“You change everything,” he said.

Maybe I did. Maybe that was my thing now?

blue.

Beneath the moon’s soft and yearning light,
Tears and sea converge, blurring sight,
Rivers carve the earth, their whispers keen,
Mourning lost loves, in the silent sheen.

The Veil of Sorrow, a tide ever true,
Guides the heart through cycles of ebb and flow.
In the mirror of water, pain we view,
But from the depths, the brightest joys grow.

So let the waters of sorrow rise and fall,
For in their depths, we find the love that binds us all.
Emotion’s magic, in water’s call,
Now Fall, Now Fall, Now Fall.

—The Circle of Tides, Ancient Druidic Myth (Obscured by Ages)