***This is a work of pure fiction. These characters are not mine nor are cannon. Anything that is like to real events, people, or writings***
It was the sound of rain that awoke Bran. The soft pitter patter dragged him slowly from the dreamless sleep he had managed to accomplish. Familiar scents wafted to him as a reminder that this was home and there was peace for a few moments. Then it woke within him, the beast. Its presence was just there, a roaring storm within him that beat at his control and caused him to awake fully. The beast was restless and craving violence that it would not receive. Not in the way it demanded, but there were other ways to break the beast's lust for violence. So, Bran arose from his bed and headed toward the room that held his wife, Leah.
Wife. Not mate or even lover for those were two things he could not allow himself. That would require an amount of trust and love he could not give. Yet, the beast within him demanded someone but had not specified. Leah was a compromise between man and beast. A wife for the physical need the beast craved and a person Bran knew he could never love for she was too vain for his liking. After all, when he was still human, being married did not need love.
There were times that he risked loving her. Such as times when he saw Leah asleep. So peaceful and soft looking. Potential to love, but he couldn't allow that. And thankfully it was only times when she was asleep that he could love her. When she was awake he found her tolerable at best.
It was not kind though. Not to Leah or his pack, but necessary. Necessity seemed to be a common theme in a great deal of things throughout life. And so it was necessity that drove Bran to close the door and cross to his wife, who had awoken at the door's opening, and feed the beast with her.
When he was finished the beast slept but the man didn't. Something kept sleep away despite the time of night. 3am could technically be morning though. All the same, he could not find sleep again. Both his wife and his wolf slept. But at 3am Bran found himself awake and waiting for…something. Not something, but someone. Not that he knew who he was waiting for exactly. Yet there was still a strange sense of longing. It was a fitting time to be awake then. For only the lonely and the loved are awake at such a time.
Bran couldn't afford to be either though.