Phoenix Maplewood If I sit still, maybe I'll get out of here

Figured we should have an updated thread! For @Saena if you have the time!

It had not been one of Reek's more clever ideas. In fact, it quite possibly could have been one of his worst. Pooly planned and even more poorly executed, Reek had made note of a low hanging bee hive on the far reaches of the maplewood, hanging just within reach. He put little thought into gathering it, other than the fact that there was probably honey in there, ripe for the taking. With Shreya's advice on keeping Saena well fed hanging in the back of Reek's head, he was dead set on bringing her back a special treat today.

Without a proper plan, Reek planted his forepaws on the bark of the maple tree that housed this busy hive of bees. He crained his neck, a fast buzzing filling his ears, and slowly grasped the papery crux of where the bee hive tethered itself to a low hanging branch. Reek's eyes went wide with jittery fear as he gently pulled the hive free. Once disengaged from its treebound tether however, Reek had no idea what to do with it. Precariously perched on his hind legs with neck outstretched, Reek sat perfectly still with a quckly agitating hive pressed between his lips.

It was then that he felt the first sting against the side of his face.

Like a sharp pin-prick, Reek winced with pain and inadvertantly dropped the hive. It landed on the ground with a dry thud, cracking in multiple places. Bees poured out from all sides, swarming Reek from all directions. Instinct took over and Reek sprinted away as fast as he could, but the damage had already been done. He received numerous stings to the face, his flank, his backside... everywhere.

Feeling his eyes begin to swell shut, Reek collapsed in a heap from exhaustion by his den. Once there, he shouted for his mate. "Thaeeeeeeeenaa!" he called, voice muffled by a rapidly swelling mouth.

Her ears swung forward of their own accord when a loud, and rather slurred, shout for her bounced through the maplewood. She wasn't at the den proper, having wandered away to find some water after yet another fit of puking, and she hoisted her growing stomach up from the side of the stream with rapidly thudding heart. She was still able to move with some grace and agility and found Reek collapsed not far from the den with a grotesquely swollen face.

"Holy shit," she breathed, unable to stop a flash of irritation at him for going and getting injured while she was pregnant, but it was quickly overcome by concern. Stepping rapidly, she came to his side and lowered her snout to lick at his face, knowing with a sinking feeling that she was not a healer and there was literally nothing she could do to help him with it. Instead of panicking about the implications of that—for all the wrong reasons, perhaps—she hissed, "what the fuck did you do?"

Reek's head gave rise as he smelled Saena's approach. Staring from behind two swollen slits, Reek's gaze was obscured, blurry, and rapidly failing. By the time she was upon him, his eyelids found themselves clamped shut in reaction to the stings he had received. Blind, Reek had to rely on his other senses to gauge her arrival.

When he heard her voice, initially full of concern, Reek let out a muffled sigh of relief. His shoulders went slack, and blindly, he outstretched his neck and drew his swollen face towards his mate while offering a soft whine. Her tongue moving against him provided a bit of distraction from the pain he felt, but the lingering itch left by the bees' venom remained. That god-awful itch was nearly maddening.

She eventally withdrew her touch and Reek nearly begged for this simple comfort to return. Her concerned tone quickly morphed into one of rightful anger. "I wan'ed to do thomething nithe for you," he slurred, trying to explain himself, but now he realized just how stupid he had been to go toe to toe with an angry hive.

"I foun' a bee hive... I wan'ed to bring you thome honey ath a thpecial treat." Pregnancy, as Smash had said, was a complete pain in the dick... Reek knew Saena was having a rough go at it and figured this would perhaps brighten her day, allowing her to forget her troubles for a moment— but Reek had only brought her more by ending up a swollen mess. "I gueth I really fucked it up," he openly admitted.

She continued to lap at his face, hoping to comfort him and perhaps reduce his pain. She knew nothing about whether or not wolf saliva was effective at that, but it must've helped somewhat because Reek stretched out his neck and bid her continue with a relaxed sigh. Her ears perked to listen to his broken and slurred words, but she kept on licking his face as if hoping it would keep him alive or something, at least until he said he'd fucked up.

Then her memory, triggered, turned on and what she'd witnessed—and wished was just a nightmare—came crashing back to the forefront of her mind and she stopped soothing. She drew back in disgust, chasing all her concern away with a mental slap. How could she have allowed herself to forget, for even a moment? Reek might've been dying and that had brought her care for him forward, but now that she was replaying the image in her head, she didn't even want to look at him.

So what if he died? Karma was a bitch, or so Saena would say, without even once considering that she very much deserved to be cheated on.

"You did," she told him, and without leaving much room for him to wonder why his mate had changed tone so very quickly, because it was probably rather confusing and distressing a change, she casually asked, "And what kind of treat did you bring your side bitch first, hm?"

Awkward post is awkward as I try to make this work with the cameo.

Had Reek been able to open his swollen eyelids, they would have blinked in rapid succession. Saena withdrew the comfort that Reek so dearly craved and her voice became cold like ice. Initially, Reek was confused by the sudden change in Saena's temperament, but when the words side bitch came out of her mouth, the peices of the puzzle clicked firmly into place. His tryst with Tavi had not gone unnoticed.

She knew.

Heart seizing in the pit of Reek's stomach and breath hitching in his throat, Reek opened his swollen mouth to speak, but no words came. In fact, he had absolutly no idea what to say. Reek's first instinct was to lie through his teeth; thus protecting his mateship, family, and the house of cards he was constructing, but at the same time he knew there was no use digging the hole he had made for himself any deeper by trying to bullshit Saena when she already knew.

He had been able to compartmentalize his actions - making it easier to cope - but Saena brought both sides of Reek tumbling down in a cataclysmic display. Warm, fat tears began to stream from Reek's swollen eyelids. "I really fucked up," he choked out, repeating what he had said earlier, but this time he knew Saena would know exactly what he was referring to. He had indeed fucked up— even more-so than the time he brought coyotes to the Maplewood. There was no use rationalizing his actions; Reek would assume his guilt.

"You think?" she snapped at his prone figure, inches from his swollen face. The tears that leaked from his eyes could have been from guilt or allergies and she would know no differently. The concern of before was washed away by tides of anger and upset—and yes, a little heartbreak, in spite of her own secret affair and the irony of it all—and she could feel no regret for calling him out on it. "I watched you mount our beta, you slimy son of a bitch. I'd been coming to tell you our pups were kicking and instead I watched you fuck Tavi. What if she gets pregnant and our pups suffer for it? Did you think of that, or is your dick your only brain nowadays?

Do they even matter to you? Because clearly I don't," she went on, straightening into a posture of cold command. Had Reek known of her and Luke she probably would have been less of a bitch about it, but the horrible truth was that, unless she or Luke told him, there was no way he would know. They had been far more careful, even if unintentionally. She hadn't been careless enough to fuck another man in her own home. A part of her thought to tell him, to rub it in his face, but the small sliver of logic she had told her it would only justify his own infidelity. "You don't deserve to be a father," she finally told him.

Saena's words were like knives, each cutting deeper than the last.  To know he had broken his mate's heart - to have betrayed her trust - rocked Reek to the very core, more-so than the act itself had. Seeing (Or... well, hearing) the affect of his infidelty play out on the wolf he loved triggered an emotioal break inside the alpha male. A heavy, sinking feeling settled in Reek's gut. What hurt him most of all, he felt, was the fact that she was right. He didn't deserve her; he didn't deserve the family who's foundation he had recently shaken.  

Amid the chaos of emotion whirling in Reek's gut, there was a brief flash of joy. His children had moved. Reek's own flesh and blood within Saena was moving, thriving— alive. This joy was immediatly lost, however, when Saena reminded him of the implications of his actions. "I don'no," he whimpered behind swollen lips. Even after the fact, Reek didn't stop to consider the consequences of taking Tavi for himself. If she fell pregnant with his own child, Reek truly didn't know what to do.

He could promise one thing, however. "Our pupths will be my thole priority." His bastards, unfortunately, would be reduced to the same second class status that Reek himself was subjected to growing up. It was an ugly truth; one Reek wished he wouldn't have to perpetuate.

"You're right— I don' detherve to be a father." He let loose a whine, voice flush with shame and regret. "But our pupths are already my entire world— and I thwear, you are too." Of course, to anyone else, his actions would have suggested otherwise. However, his infideltiy was unlike that of which he commited with Wynter, which had been born of anger and spite. There was no clear shatterpoint in Reek and Saena's relationship, but there was a perfect storm leading up to the events that transpired. First, Reek's blossoming friendship with Tavi. Second: his own insecurity about the state of his mateship. The third and final nail in the coffin: the biological call to breed spurred by Tavi's heat. "It wath the biggest mithtake of my life, Thaena."

All he could do was hope for forgiveness, which he was sure would never come.

She listened as Reek stammered through his puffed lips, trying to make amends for the mistake he had made—but there was a clear shatter point for Saena and it was right now. Despite her own infidelity, which was a one-time fling with some additional plans that may or may not come to fruition, she was unwilling to accept that it wouldn't happen again on his part. After all, this was the second time she had witnessed Reek's greed firsthand. The first time she had believed it was because he chose her, but she understood now: he had chosen himself. She knew, because when she had let Luke embrace her, she had chosen herself, too.

"Oh don't worry," she hissed, "they will be, because if a single pup aside from these ones is born in this wood, you will be responsible for ending their lives." She was dead serious about it, too, which he would understand if he could see the sharp cut of her indigo gaze across his features. As cruel and heartless as it was, any pup born of any womb but her own directly threatened her authority as alpha female and directly threatened the wellbeing of her litter. And she was almost certain now she would stay for them and have to deny Luke his wish because she could no longer trust their father to be anything but a disappointment to them.

When he spluttered that it was the biggest mistake he ever made, Saena growled lowly. "Having sex with another woman isn't an accident, Reek." Shaking her head, the alpha female stepped back a pace or two and snorted. "I can't believe I ever thought you wouldn't do to me what you did to Wynter with me. How stupid was I?" Very, if she added in the fact she had let Luke screw her first. It was karma and she knew it—was guilty of it, even, below all the anger—but she had wholly believed she would get away with it, and if she didn't take Luke up on his offer, would never have let it happen again. The fact was that Saena would never get away with anything, and more angry at herself was she than at Reek.

But she could never let that show, and was not very good at beating herself up; it was easy to turn her rage toward herself on him as well, and it was easier still to convince herself that he was the only one at fault for their failing mateship.

Reek had never felt such a level of emotional bereavement. Far worse than the death of his friends: Scarlett and Pantaleimon - or even the pain caused by Reek's mother's untimely passing - was the grief caused by the possible death of his mateship— his family that he had worked so hard to build was crumbling in the wake of his grave mistake. His mate's anger did not abate, nor did Reek expect it to. His ears folded back in shame and Reek took the verbal beating that he so rightfully deserved without argument.

"I'll do whatever I hath too to make thith right," spoke Reek. He felt it as a promise— at least here and now, under the weight of Saena's scrutiny, it felt so. But, at the same time, talk was cheap. He could pledge himself to kill his own flesh and blood, but it wouldn't give him the strength to follow through.  Deep down, a part of Reek knew he would not be able to act as Saena expected. He needed an escape plan, but for now, he just prayed that his infidelity hadn't caused Tavi to fall pregnant.

Though he could not see Saena pull away, he could feel her distance. Weak and blind, Reek crawled forward a few paces. He shook his head and said, "You're not Wynter." When he had cheated on Wynter for Saena, all Reek could think of was what he had gained. From a broken mateship blossomed something new, something beautiful— but now, all Reek could see is what he had lost in his greed. "You're the betht thing that'sth ever happened to me... I don' detherve to be your mate." Tears began to flow freely and Reek swore he could feel his heart breaking in two.

Everything he said fell on deaf ears, not only because Saena didn't believe him, but because she didn't care. He could make all the promises in the world, but while her infidelity had been a one time affair, she already imagined that his had been ongoing for some time. She didn't even bother to confirm it; for all she knew, he had been fucking Tavi behind her back the entire time she was injured.

Instead of responding to his pleading tone or giving him even a small hope of fixing things, she announced, "If you want her so bad you can have her, because I'm finished with you." Her eyes cut sharply to him and burned with a deep blue fire as she said, "you have embarrassed me, threatened our children and threatened my authority over my pack, and I cannot trust you. Your actions tell me you don't care about me or our pups. You're the only thing you care about." Sniffing disdainfully, she concluded, "you're a weasel and a snake and you deserve to die alone." She was all those things, too, but she reminded herself that it was only once, and she hadn't risked her children over it.

Saena let her coat bristle and snapped, "give me one good reason I shouldn't run you out right now."

It's been a good run :').  RIP Saeek.

In a single, heartbreaking moment, the flame of their seven month mateship was extinguished in the wake of Reek's transgressions. His heart felt as if it stopped beating in his chest. Body going cold, Reek's flow of tears stopped— taking their place, only stunned silence. He couldn't blame her or her anger; it was rightful. Their mateship had been unorthodox at best, but his vow to remain faithful was clear. Breaking his oath had in turn broken his family.  

He had no argument, nor defense of his actions. He remained tucked in a swollen ball on the ground, defeated. Broken.

Losing the one source of light in Reek's life may have broken him down, but to be forced from his pack; from his unborn children, he knew this would kill him. Of course, he felt he deserved it, but he refused to lose his family in full. Knowing in her anger, she may follow through with forcing him out (despite needing someone else to help run the pack while pregnant), he worried deeply. "Our children detherve to know thier father," he answered, voice heavy with defeat. "Let me show you I can thtill be a good dad— Let me watch them grow up... And after," his voice hitched in his throat, cracking with grief. "If you still want me too, I'll leave." The Maplewood was his home. Saena was his home, but if it was what she wished, he would understand.

There was exactly one answer that would appease Saena, but it was not the one that Reek uttered.

She pinned back her ears when he said their children deserved to know their father. "They will know him," she agreed, but she now believed it would be safest for them to know him distantly and so added, "but what they deserved was a family, and you ruined any chance of that." If he had disappointed her then she was stubbornly certain he would disappoint them as well. It was the essence of his actions, him putting himself or Tavi first, and she was far from a fair judge of anything. She was the last wolf who should've passed judgment and spoken, but biased and often self-serving, Saena always believed what she wanted to believe and not necessarily what was true. Reek might've kept his word and become the best father in the entire world, but he had disappointed her and she could only imagine that he would disappoint them in the end, too.

"Go find Spring," she told him coldly, "get her to look after those stings." She turned away from him, flicking her red-backed ears and searching for the right words to say. Mere months ago she would have screamed at him, but she had exhausted all her rage in the brief snapping of her jaws and instead said heavily, "I want you out of the wood by tomorrow morning. Do not come back here of your own accord. I will howl for you when they are born and you can meet them then, and when they are old enough, you may meet them outside the territory every other week." She said it with a note of finality. Reek would know his children but he would not know them as the alpha male of the maplewood pack, or even as a wolf of it, if she had her way.

I'll miss it so much <3! I love you guys! Thanks for making the Maplewood what it is! We can assume he met @Spring behind the scenes!

There was nothing more to say. With everything he ever had stripped from him in an instant; his marriage, his title, his pack— all Reek could do was curl tightly and surpress the tears that threatened to return. All the plans he had made laid before him, squandered and spent. His heart, like their marriage and family, split right down the middle.

Still, when he knew Saena should have offered him nothing, Reek at least got the equivalent of weekend custody. It was pennies and peanuts in comparison to the family his children deserved, but control was no longer in Reek's hands. Just to know them was priveledge enough. "Thank you," he said, tears streaming down from the slits of his swollen eyes. He said nothing more, but his agreement was evident.

He would wait for the swelling to go down and his vision to retun to find Spring. Thereafter, he would spend one last night in the Maplewood.

She sniffed, watched the tears mat the fur of his cheeks. In spite of her cold and spiteful attitude toward him, she felt bad in part for causing that, but knew that later that night she would be the one in his position as the gravity of it, the loss of her mate to Tavi and the loss of the father of her children and the loss of a once-dear friend, collapsed in on her. For now she was angry enough to turn away, and soon she was walking, saying nothing more to him and leaving him to cling to the hope of meeting his children when they were born and seeing them occasionally, but always supervised, she was sure.

At least until they were old enough to decide for themselves, and by then, she expected them to dislike their father for abandoning them—because, she told herself, this was all his fault and she had no other choice but to expel him from her pack for her sanity and the safety of her position and pups—as much as she did, and would choose the maple wood.

So sad to remove your titles and archive this >: I hope to see Reek leading another pack in the future!