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Chaper 3: Good Intentions.

Garth didn't even realize that he had fallen asleep until he felt the rays of the morning sun beating against his eyelids, and as he was stirred from his slumber, his eyes pinched tightly closed then slowly opened.

With a yawn, he lifted his head and turned a smiling face down upon Rain, who still lay asleep in his arms. However, as the reality of what he was doing here settled in upon him, his smile quickly faded and was replaced by a look of distain. She looked so comfortable, so happy, so beautiful; how could he disturb her? He decided to allow his thoughts to drift elsewhere, for he knew that if he were to think about this too much he would never be able to go through with it, and would never be able to make things right once again.

For an entire half hour he waited, not even caring that his paws had fallen asleep, for he wanted this to last as long as he could possibly make it, but inevitably, she awoke and began to stir in his arms.

"Good morning Garth," she said to him with a yawn and a smile.

"Good morning, Rain," he replied, meeting her smile with one of his own, hoping that his true emotion would remain hidden behind his eyes.

She leaned up and gently kissed him on the lips then pulled away.

"How did you sleep?" she asked him as she pulled away.

"I slept great," he lied, "always do when you're asleep in my arms."

She smiled and began to rise, sliding her body out from under his and then stretched. Garth lied there silently, content with simply watching her, as he knew that he would never get to see her again and he wanted to remember everything about her, down to the last detail. He committed to his memory her silky grey fur, the patch of white on her left side and right eye, the splash of pink on her nose, those beautiful, amber eyes that he melted into every time he looked into them, her sleek body, the single white toe on her back left forepaw, the keen, pointed ears, everything down to the curl at the tip of her tail.

Rain caught his gaze and turned to him.

"Garth is everything okay?" she asked him, her tail sweeping elegantly behind her.

"Hmm?" Garth asked, being brought back into reality, "oh yeah," he replied, having now just registered that she had spoken to him, "never better."

She smiled, shaking her head.

"Now don't you dare lie to me," she said to him, "I've known you long enough to know that you can't lie."

Garth sighed.

"This is it," he thought sadly.

"Rain, I need to talk to you," he said slowly, his voice flat.

"What about?" she asked, taking a step toward him.

"Rain, I love you very much," he began, "always have, but..."

He trailed off and sighed, lowering his head.

"But... what?" she asked him, taking another step toward him.

"But... this is wrong," he replied slowly, "all of this. I'm a married man, my wife is pregnant, I'm about to have a family..."

"Garth what are you saying?" Rain asked, worry becoming evident in her eyes.

"We have to stop this," he replied, "we can't see each other anymore."

"Garth don't say that," Rain replied as tears began to sting her eyes, "we... we can make this work, please. I love you."

"I know," he replied, "but my mind is already set. I'm sorry."

Tears began to stream down her face, but at the moment fell silently.

"Garth-"

"Rain, please don't make this any harder than it has to be," Garth interrupted, "we should have never even agreed to meet each other in the first place because we knew what would happen, and it's happening right now."

"Garth I-"

"Goodbye Rain," Garth said flatly and turned away from her.

"Garth please," she begged, "don't go."

Garth said nothing and continued to walk.

"Garth," Rain cried, following him, "I need you! Garth!"

Garth did not stop, not did he even look back because he couldn't stand to look at her anymore, for he knew that this was all his fault. Her anguish was all on him. Her tears were caused by him; everything bad that had ever happened to her was all a burden that he had to carry for quite possibly the rest of his life. He should have never gotten involved in the first place. He should have known that sometimes, there were some things that were better left alone.

2 months ago.

The night air was calm and sang the tranquil song of the early spring. Crickets chirped almost lyrically in the distance and owls hooted mournfully in the sky above. The blue rays of the moon shimmered down upon the earth and bathed it in a ghostly light that was bright enough only to describe the edges of the various objects in the forest, but would not allow the naked eye the luxury of visible detail.

Thin wisps of clouds brushed languidly across the sky before the face of the moon, but failed to hinder its light, and a soft breeze whispered through the needles of the pines.

Garth sat on the border with his back to his territory and watched the night before him with heavy eyes, for he had been working border duty three nights in a row now and the allure of sleep was almost irresistible with the peace and tranquility of the night around him.

He knew that if he were to be caught sleeping while on watch, he would be put in the hole, but he was fighting a losing battle, as with each moment that passed, the temptation to nod off became more and more difficult to combat.

Finally, he had enough.

He looked left, then right, and finally forward once again

"Fuck it," he said to himself with a quick shrug of his shoulders.

Slowly, he laid himself down and deposited his head onto his forepaws. Finding instant comfort in this position, he was asleep before his eyes had even finished closing.

He did not know, however, that he was being watched.

From the seclusion of the night across the borderline, a pair of eyes watched him anxiously, though patiently, buying their time until until they were certain that their target was asleep, and only when that moment arrived did their owner make its move. Onward from the shrubs it crept on feet as quiet as a mouse, keeping its chest low and its senses on high. Slowly closer it stalked, alert, vigilant, with senses to be compared only to a god.

Nothing got past it, not a single whisper of the breeze, nor the subtleness of the sleeping wolf's breathing, which was crucial to this mission. For two nights it had waited, watching the wolf set to guard the border, for it knew that he would eventually slip, and now that he had, it could put its plan into motion.

It paused and cocked it's head, listening to the rhythm of the sleeping wolf's breathing and found that he was indeed asleep, deeply in fact.

"Perfect," it whispered and crept closer.

Garth could sense that something was wrong and it disturbed him deeply in his sleep, but he was too exhausted to comprehend that such a feeling was real and not part of the dream that he was having, for nightmares plagued him often, resulting in constant feelings of unrest.

In fact, he did not truly realize that something was wrong until his back was leapt upon and the back of his neck was bitten. Immediately he was awakened and instinct propelled him into action, causing him to throw his attacker off and make a snap at it, but he missed and his teeth clipped together with a metallic click.

Wasting not a single moment, he jumped to his feet and whirled, searching for the one who had assailed him and found him standing only feet away, a wolf with fur silhouetted black under the cover of night. Garth growled, his fur bristling on end and took a step closer, intent upon killing this Intruder, but as he drew near, the dark wolf laughed and fled into the night.

"Hey, get back here!" Garth yelled, beginning to give chase.

The dark wolf continued to flee before him, though intentionally slower than his real speed for he knew he had to keep within the Eastern wolf's sight lest he wanted to get away, which was against his plan entirely. Garth growled, beginning to catch up with the wolf and saw him turn a corner behind a hill. Blindly Garth followed, but that was a serious mistake, for just as soon as he rounded the corner, he was struck in the side and sent to the ground. He struck painfully on his shoulder and tumbled three times before coming to rest on his side with a groan. However, he quickly shook the pain away and began to push himself starkly to his feet. He gained his footing quickly then turned to the wolf who had attacked him, finding it still to be cloaked under the dark veil of the night, just its paws illuminated by a thin stream of moonlight. Garth growled, trying to pick its features out of the darkness, but all he could see clearly were its paws and the green glow of its eyes beneath the pale light of the moon.

"Who are you?" Garth demanded, "and why did you try to kill me?"

Again the dark wolf laughed.

"Garth please," the wolf chuckled, "if I had truly wanted to kill you, you would have never gotten off of your stomach."

Garth was shocked, for he realized now that the he that he had been chasing was in fact a she and that he could swear that she sounded familiar.

She chuckled again.

"I mean honestly, is your neck even bleeding?"

Garth, keeping his eyes on her, ran a paw over the back of his neck and felt the moister of her saliva, but no blood.

"Thought not," she mused, "but I'm sure that's the least of your concern at the moment."

Garth cocked his head as she spoke, for this particular wolf's antics were confusing him, especially since it seemed almost as though she were reading his mind. He actually was not concerned about his neck anymore, or why she had even attacked him in the first place if it were not her intention to kill him; his main concern now rested with this strange wolf's identity and how it is that she knew his name.

"No," she continued in his befuddled silence, "you're wondering now who I am."

"Yes," Garth replied with a scowl, "and how do you know my name?"

She smiled, her teeth glistening in the moonlight.

"Let's just say we've met before," she answered with a sneer.

Garth furrowed his brows.

"I think I would remember having met someone like you," he replied bitterly.

"Then it truly has been too long, hasn't it, Garth?" she asked, stepping forward into the light.

Garth tensed as he saw her move, but when her face became visible, he jumped back in alarm.

"Rain!" he asked frightened, "n-no... you... you're dead!"

She smiled, though behind it there was anger.

"Oh, is that what they told you?" she asked rhetorically.

Garth slowly began to regain control of himself and once again his brows furrowed, though this time in confusion.

"What do you mean?" he asked perturbed.

"What I mean, Garth, is that who it was that told you I was dead, lied to you," she replied venomously.

Garth didn't know what to say, for his level of confusion was one that was almost unimaginable, as he should have expected, for he had just been blasted in the face by an entire load of information that he did not understand.

Rain, in his silence, and looking to appease his confusion, smiled then opened her mouth.

"What you should have been told," she began with a slow cock of her head, "is that I was banished from the East while you were gone to Alpha School, framed for something that I didn't do."

"Wait, b-"

"Please, let me finish," she interrupted, silencing him with a raised paw.

Garth's voice was cut off in his throat and he allowed his mouth to close.

Rain smiled then continued.

"Here's the kicker," she said to him, "the whole thing was nothing but a damned conspiracy set into play by guess who... your dad, oh and, that's right, Winston and Eve of the West."

Garth's confusion morphed quickly into an absolute bewilderment, for he could not believe what he was hearing. Was it true that Winston, Eve, and his father had excommunicated her then covered the whole thing up? And if they had... why?

"H-how do you know this?" Garth asked her slowly, his left ear dropping slightly.

"I don't exactly 'know' it," she answered honestly, "but I've been digging. Since my banishment, I've been watching the packs, and I can pretty well assume why it was that they needed me out of the way."

Silence ensued as Garth tried to piece all of this together, but none of it made sense. What reason would they have had to want rid of her, an omega?

"This is based mostly off of an assumption-centered hypothesis that I've created through my observations," she began, taking a seat, "but if I were a gambler, I'd surely bet that the reason why they wanted me gone was because they feared we had fallen in love with each other, which, as I am sure you will admit, we had."

Garth nodded, though hesitantly, for he could begin to feel his old feelings for her as they began to resurrect from the deepest depths of his soul.

"Yes," he replied softly, "I believe we had."

She nodded.

"Well, it was my first impression that I was banished solely for the preservation of the Alpha Law, but it wasn't until later that I realized just how much deeper the truth lied." A pause. "It wasn't until the day of the Moonlight Howl that I truly realized the reason why I was banished. I overheard everything your father and Winston of the West had said, and I found out that it was because of your pack leaders' plans to unite the East and the West that I had to go," she continued, "they couldn't have me around for you to fall in love with and henceforth disrupt their plans, so in order to assure that you would focus on marrying Kate, I was banished. Of course, all of these decisions were made during your absence, so there was nothing anybody could do to stop it, and, in consequence, I was wrongfully framed and accused of treason and was forced into exile. Of course, only the most preeminent in the alpha hierarchy knew the truth and were sworn into silence."

"Wait, hold on, back up," Garth said to her flustered, "how is it that nobody else knew about this? I mean surely somebody would have bore witness to the proceedings."

"No," she replied, "it was all done under the radar. I was tried, banished in the dead of night, and then the next morning, a stand-in that they had found who looked nearly identical to me took the bullet. Poor girl was set up and didn't even know something was wrong until she had walked into the trap that the humans had lain and was killed. Now, before you call bull on me, just allow me to throw in that the humans were not aware of anything that had been arranged. They were already out, scouted by one of Tony's alphas, and then the stand-in was deployed to their position. To them, it was just another spoil of the hunt."

"So... wait," Garth began softly, "this entire time that I thought you were dead, you were actually alive?"

She nodded.

"Why didn't you come back and prove your innocence?" Garth asked her, stepping forward.

"Because if I came back, they would have killed you the same way they killed that poor girl," she replied, tears stinging her eyes, "and I couldn't stand to see it, so I've been out here, scraping up a living, and just waiting for the day that we should cross paths again."

"Well why didn't you come sooner?" Garth asked her, a veil of tears pooling in the bottoms of his eyes.

"Because I needed to be able to get you away from your home so we could talk," she replied, "you did not receive guard duty until a few nights ago, so I had not the opportunity, and I had to wait until your senses were not all there in order to get you to follow me alone."

Garth shook his head and despite the situation at hand, a smile formed upon his lips.

"My god Rain it is so good to see you again," he said, stepping forward and embracing her in a hug.

She returned the embrace and tears began to well up in her eyes, for she had dreamed of this moment for so long since her banishment.

She thought about him every day.

He was the last thing on her mind as she fell asleep and the first on her mind when she woke, and for almost a year she had wanted nothing more than to be held tightly in his arms once more, and now that such a dream had become reality, true happiness, the likes of which had been absent since her exile, began to flood into her, drowning her in its perpetual bliss.

"Oh Garth how I've missed you so," she replied in a whisper, pulling him in tight.

Garth was ripped away from his thoughts when he was suddenly struck on the back of his head by a blunt and heavy object and fell to the ground. He winced and groaned, lifting watery eyes up to find Eve standing before him with a malicious smile spread across her face.

"Hello, Garth," Eve greeted venomously and then brought the wooden club down upon his head once again.