Chapter four

Earlier, in the office of the Supreme Alpha in Kigali, Rwanda.

_ Do you believe me now? From the way, he talks to me and his reactions, it's clear that he despises me and that he's an extremely bad person. This call was not a coincidence, says Ibrahima, the Alpha of Africa.

_ I know that as well as you do, but we can't just drop in on him like that, replied Mohamed, the Supreme Alpha.

_ And why not? What he's doing is a practice that drags all of our reputations through the mud.

_ From the look of him, he is certainly an extremely cunning person. He must suspect a possible intervention on our part. So he will make sure that we don't find anything, I'm sure. He will then be able to attack us in front of the elders and harm us.

_ I hadn't thought of that. So what do we do?

_ We're going to...

Mohamed paused in his sentence, having just felt something dig into his shoulder. He gritted his teeth for a moment to get over the pain and was just about to speak again when a pain, this time more intense than the first, was felt in his back.

What the hell was going on?

Using all his stock of self-control, he struggled to overcome this pain and all the others that followed to continue talking to Ibrahima, to whom he proposed sending some of his best men as spies to Senegal. These men would be responsible for a ten-day mission to find as much evidence as possible of Khadim's wrongdoing. Armed with this evidence, they would then act without the risk of their intervention is subject to debate among the elders, let alone criticism. Once the list of spies had been drawn up, they had just presented themselves to Mohamed when he suddenly, unwittingly and before their eyes, turned into a wolf. Before he had time to ask or reprimand his wolf for having taken control independently of his consent, he became human again to his surprise.

_ What are you playing at, Aras?

He barely had time to finish asking his wolf this question before he transformed again, only to become human again in the next few seconds.

_ I... I'm not playing at anything... I also don't understand..., replied Aras who also seemed to be in pain.

Again he transformed back into a human within a minute and so on, the merry-go-round repeated as if they were Mohamed and his wolf in some kind of timeless loop of transformation controlled by who knows who for a little over an hour before it finally broke leaving them both completely washed out and completely out of it. So Mohamed lay on the ground in his Adam's clothes, imitating the fetus he once was before coming into the world (hey, yes, wolves end up in Adam's or Eve's clothes when, after transforming, they take on human form). Fortunately for him, there were only males in his office, and one of them, his beta Mahmoud, took it upon himself to fetch a blanket for him to cover him with when he started to shiver from the cold despite the heat. He finally fell into the arms of Morpheus and found himself in a completely different setting.

He was in a vast field of white roses, dressed in a long white tunic, which he was contemplating with a smile on his lips, these being his favorite flowers when suddenly the sky changed color to become completely red before it began to rain blood, a rain accompanied by a very powerful wind as well as thunder which roared like a mortally wounded animal. In no time at all, all the roses turned red, stained by the blood that fell from the sky, and so did Mohamed, who was staring in utter bewilderment at the scene that was unfolding before his empty eyes. He only came to himself when the rain stopped and the scene around him changed. He was in a very large room, sublimely decorated and in the middle of which was an open coffin. While he was horrified by the presence of the coffin and wanted to do only one thing, to flee away, he felt himself being pushed by a powerful and invisible force towards it. He realized that running away was not an option and looked at the golden coffin from every angle. It had no stains or scratches, which suggested that it was kept in the best possible condition. And inside lay a woman whose face he could not see but whose identity he knew instinctively. She was his soul mate and was still breathing even though she seemed to be dying a little more each passing second, which broke his heart. He was in danger of losing his soul mate before he even had a chance to get to know her a little better.

_ She's dying. You've seen it. You feel it. Nature feels it and suffers already. You must find her before it's too late, said a voice at his back.

He immediately turned around to see a woman sitting on a couch that wasn't there earlier, with so much light emanating from her that he couldn't look at her continuously for more than fifteen seconds without being dazzled. She was wearing a very ancient style of dress, worthy of those worn by goddesses in ancient mythologies. Her hair cascaded down her back, a crown of diamonds on her head and eyes that were completely white. She also wore a necklace with a crescent moon at the end. It was then that Mohamed realized he was dealing with the Moon Goddess. He immediately bowed, not mentioning the remark he had wanted to make about her state of health, which seemed to him to be a little unstable.

_ But how? I don't even know where she is! He said, keeping his head down.

_ Save her fellow men without hesitation and you will save her at the same time.

_ I don't understand.

_ You will. Now go. Return to the mortal world with this necklace, and give it to your Luna after you have found her. Tell her this: "Gerunt ea circa collum tuum: et non est in parte. Quo probare tibi eo tempore et usum venit.''

It was with a start that Mohamed awoke to find himself in his room, the necklace that the goddess had given him in his hand. He must have been brought there by the others. He got up and put the necklace away in a secret drawer below his bed that no one knew about before taking a bath to get dressed before returning to his office where he found Ibrahima with the men he had chosen to go to Senegal talking. When they saw him enter, they asked him the same question in perfect sync as if they were one person.

_ Are you feeling better, Supreme Alpha?

He ignored their question.

_ Aziz, I want you and your men to get ready. You leave for Senegal immediately, he ordered his fists on the desk.