Edric's POV
I kneel next to my mate, inspecting her head wound. Blood pours from the broken skin, seeping into the ground. Her scent mixed with the coppery tang of her blood is driving my wolf insane. Taking my t-shirt off, I press it against her wound and mind-link our pack doctor, Clarke, to tell him he needs to go to the clinic right away.
I pick Maya up from the ground, holding her tightly against my chest. She weighs almost nothing – poor thing was just a bit of bone and skin. I wonder when last she had a decent meal. My wolf is concerned and elated at the same time. ~ Finally. Our mate. ~
* Yes, yes, calm down, * I tell him.
~ She’s unwell. ~
* I know, bud, we’ll get her sorted out. *
Earlier, when I chased her down, I almost lost control of him completely. He caught her scent when she exited the car, and he had one goal. To get to our mate. He would have claimed her there and then if I hadn’t stopped him.
At twenty-five, I am still without a mate. It’s rare in our world, but it doesn’t bother me as much as it bothers my father. I have been Alpha for only two months, and I don’t have a Luna. A pack without a Luna is a dead pack, and my father is getting just a little concerned, because we've been without a Luna for a while now.
I told him yesterday that he has to stop worrying. No one knows, not even Luca, that The Moon Goddess visited me once, many years ago. She told me that I would meet my mate later than most, that I would only meet her when the time was right. The Goddess also told me that she would be my only mate – I will not get a second chance like other Alphas.
I carry Maya up the steps of the front porch and into the massive pack house. Ours is one of the biggest and most influential packs in the country, wielding power in both the human and wolf worlds. Naturally, the humans don’t know what we are, but we have to do business with them, and as long as we don’t reveal ourselves to them, it’s allowed.
My father finds me on the way to the clinic. He takes one look at me, and starts grinning. “This is her? Your mate?” he asks, just to reassure himself.
I can’t help but smile back. “This is her. Didn’t I tell you not to worry?”
He doesn't question where she came from. The Fates work in mysterious ways. “Finally. Thank Goddess.”
“Yes.” I look down at my unconscious mate. She’s pale – too pale, with dark purple bruises under her eyes, and a swollen, crooked nose.
The injuries were caused by Daniel slapping her around earlier tonight. He is a good warrior, but he has a quick temper and never thinks before he acts. I really need to talk to him about his behaviour. It would be expected of me, especially since he put his hands on our Luna, but he didn’t know who she is, which makes it slightly more complicated. Besides, without a Luna, all the wolves are on edge. We need her. She’s the heart of the pack, and without her we feel lost.
Doctor Clarke Lewiston waits for us at the clinic door, looking grim and serious as always. He is actually a kind man, like most doctors, he just has one of those faces. He takes one look at my weak mate, and tells me to lay her down on the examination table.
Turning to my father and me, he tells us to wait outside. My wolf immediately objects. ~ No. Don’t leave her. We have to protect her. ~
* She’s in good hands. Doc needs to check her out. *
He starts fighting me for control. Screaming at me to let him out. I want to, I really do. Another wolf is touching my mate, but at the same time, I realise that I’m being irrational. Doc will never harm her. No one in our pack would.
I pace up and down like an expectant father in a maternity ward. Nervous. Anxious. What if I lose her on the same night I finally met her? That, too, is an illogical thought. It’s just a bump on the head. Nothing that won’t heal in a day, but she’s so frail -- half-starved, and weak already. What if she dies?
“Sit down,” my father finally orders, using his Alpha voice. It still works on me, but it won’t for much longer. “She will be fine. It’s going take more than one little fall to kill her.”
I do as he commands, drumming my fingers together, shaking all over. I have heard the stories, of course. Luca told me in full Technicolor about the day he found out my sister, Jolie, was his mate. What it felt like, the thoughts that went through his head, the emotions, how his wolf reacted.
Finally, Doc steps out of the room, carrying a tray of test tubes filled with blood. I jump up, eager to hear how Maya’s doing. “Well, she’ll live,” he says. “She needed a few stitches and I had to reset her nose. She’s weak. So is her wolf. I’m not sure she’ll be able to shift in her condition, but we’ll have to wait and see. Because her wolf is so weak, it will take some time for her to heal. Two or three days.”
I’ve heard enough. “Can I see her?”
“Sure. Of course.” Doc grabs my arm as I walk past. An action that would earn any other wolf a stern reprimand. “Who is she?”
My wolf is pissed. I look down at the hand holding my bicep, and can’t contain the growl that rumbles deep in my chest. Quickly, the doctor drops his hand. “My mate,” I say at last and push past him.
Maya lies on her side, facing the door. When I walk in, her face lights up, but her eyes are impassive. It’s strange, she doesn’t have a lot of expression in her deep brown eyes. They’re almost…well, dead is the only word I can think of to describe it. Her blonde hair, which I’m sure isn’t her natural colour, is knotted and matted with blood, and her sweet face is covered in dirt and dry blood, but she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. “How are you feeling?” I drag a chair closer and sit next to her, taking her hand in mine without asking. My wolf sighs, content for now, and finally settles down.
“I’m okay,” she mumbles.
“Why did you run away from me?”
She doesn’t answer me right away, just stares up at me with big eyes. My heart does a backflip, and I have to restrain myself from kissing her. “I was scared,” she says at last.
“Of me? Why?” I ask, surprised. She felt our bond, I know she did, surely she knows that I would never harm her.
She avoids my question, hitting back with one of her own instead. “Where am I?”
“In our pack house.”
“What’s a pack house?”
“You don’t know?” It’s becoming very clear that something’s not quite right here. She doesn’t seem to understand anything about our world.
She doesn’t answer my question. “Luca said you wanted to see me. Why?”
I can’t tell her, not right now. The Fates really can be cruel sometimes. “It can wait.”
“No it can’t.”
“Why are you in such a hurry to know? You’re hurt. You need to heal, get your strength back, and then we’ll talk.”
“I’m leaving. Right now.”
Immediately, my wolf reacts, starts screaming in my head. ~ She can’t leave. Our mate. Mark her, mark her now. ~
* Relax, she’s not leaving. *
“You can’t go anywhere. You are too weak. Stay, just for a little while. At least until you’re better. What harm could it do?” I ask.
I can see the emotions warring on her face. Can practically feel her confusion. She at once wants to stay and go. I have to fight with my wolf. He isn’t happy with the way I’m handling the situation. He wants to do things his way, the wolf way, but I won’t let him. I don’t want to start our relationship that way.
“Okay,” she finally relents. “But only one night.”
Satisfied for now, I nod. It’s a start, and I’m sure, almost to a degree of arrogance, that I can convince her to stay.
Edric's POV: Jolie comes sauntering into the room, carrying an instrument tray laden with antiseptics, gauze, and bandages. She’s busy training to take over from Doctor Lewiston one day, and honestly my father couldn’t be prouder. If my mother were still alive, she’d be bursting out of her skin with joy. Since she came from a rich family, she always wanted Jolie to be more than ‘just’ a Beta’s mate. “Doc sent me to dress your wounds,” she tells Maya and put down the tray. “My name is Jolie, I’m this one’s sister— “she jabs a finger in my direction -- “and Luca’s mate.” “Hello.” Maya gives her a small, joyless smile, but relaxes visibly, the tension draining from her face. She is clearly much more comfortable around females. My sister looks at me, and I wait for the mind-link, because it’s so very obvious that she has a hundred questions, but she doesn’t do it. “I suppose asking you to leave would be pointless?” “Yes.” I’m going nowhere. My wolf will tear me apart – figuratively sp
A young werewolf, maybe about sixteen, came by with a tray full of food. I ate very little, because these days I’m never hungry anymore. Edric tried to get me to eat more, but I managed maybe half a plate, if that. Later, Doc came by, handing me two pills, which I took without even thinking about it. Usually, I’d question anything and everything werewolves did, but for some reason I trusted these wolves. Especially Edric, even though he has given me absolutely no reason to trust him…but then, he didn’t give me any reason to mistrust him. I don’t really know what happened. I fell asleep an hour later, and when I woke up, I wasn’t in human form anymore. My wolf took control while I slept. I didn’t even know she could do that. Shifting hurts – not as much as it did the first time, but I still feel it every time. You’d think I’d have woken up when I shifted, but I didn’t. I slept through the whole thing. I look at Edric through my wolf’s eyes. He’s sittin
Edric's POV: I put clean clothes, a new toothbrush, and hairbrush in the bathroom, watching Maya’s silhouette play against the shower curtain, catching a faint whiff of her blood mixing with the water. It takes all my self-control to keep my wolf at bay – he wants to jump into the shower and take her, something I will never allow. ~ Mate, ~ he pants. * No, * I say sternly, and quietly slip from the bathroom. For a moment I consider going back down to the clinic to look for her contact lenses, but decide against it. As much as I want to hide her true identity from the rest of the pack I can’t do it. It would be unconscionable. They deserve to know what and who she is – it will affect them as much as it will affect me. For the first time in four decades, our pack may have to go to war. I didn’t exactly relish the idea, but such is the way with destinies – they’re never what we want them to be, are they? I stare off into the distance, re
I am sure Edric came back some time during the early morning hours, but he’s not here when I wake up. I can smell his scent lingering in the air, and I find clean clothes hanging in the bathroom. A dress. I pull a disgusted face at the outfit. I haven’t worn a dress since my sixteenth birthday party, almost five years ago if I have my dates right, and the thought of wearing the frilly, flowery monstrosity fill me with a strange kind of anxiety. I used to love getting dolled up in pretty dresses. My mother helping me to do my hair and make-up, always smiling proudly when we were done, telling me how beautiful I looked. My little sister sitting on the bed, watching me with big, awestruck eyes, saying, “One day, I want to be just like you, Maya.” Thinking about my mother makes me angry, and the memory of my sister fills me with sadness and longing. She’ll be about twelve now – I wonder if she still thinks about me. If she remembers me at all, and still wants to be like
Edric's POV: Our pack members start arriving one after the other, all of them in wolf form. Most live on the mountain property, and running is just easier than driving. Besides, no wolf I know will pass up the opportunity to shift and let their wolf run free. Well, except for the one by my side. The wolves that live in the town in the shadow of the mountain will be the last to arrive; they usually drive part of the way and shift when they’re away from human eyes. About ninety percent of the town’s population are werewolves and the humans are blissfully unaware of this fact. Maya’s nervous, her body coiled like a too tight spring, ready to let go and run off at any moment. As our pack members disappear into the woods to shift back to human form, she moves closer to me. Without even thinking about it, I put my arm around her, and to my surprise, she leans into me, resting her head against my shoulder. The feeling of bliss I experience w
Ignoring my broken toes, I hobble deeper into the woods with Edric by my side, my heart nearly banging out of my chest. Why did I agree to shift? Of course, my wolf is elated – I don’t blame her, she rarely gets a chance to be herself, but I’m already regretting my decision. Who knows what she’ll do when I’m forced to the background and she takes control? When we can’t hear the laughter and talking of the gathered pack anymore, Edric stops and turns to me. “What do you usually do when you shift? Do you take clothes with you, or go back to the place where you shifted before you turn back to human?” “Huh?” He chuckles softly. “Most of us will carry clothes with us – so we don’t walk around naked when we shift back to human form. We’ll shift back when we get to…where we’re going, so I think you should bring your clothes with.” “How?” I’m starting to realise that not only do I know nothing about being part of a pack or werewolf society, I also kno
Edric's POV: I smell the rogue minutes after turning my back on Maya. I don’t know how to communicate to her that the asshole is watching us. This is not a rogue looking for refuge, as so many of our other ex-rogues tended to do; this one is dangerous. He’s the very kind of wolf she keeps running into – one that’s more beast than man. Very casually, as if I don’t know he’s there, I pull my t-shirt over my head and start moving backwards to Maya. I don’t want to scare her, but we haven’t marked each other yet, so we don’t share a connection. I can’t mind-link her. The moment I let her know what’s going on, I shift and turn, relieved to see that she followed my advice. Her magnificent wolf shimmers in the sunlight, and this really sends the rogue over the edge of what little reason he has left. He comes crashing through the forest like a deranged animal, which I guess he kind of is, forgetting about me and going straight for Maya. He’ll
I can’t believe I did that. I can’t believe I attacked the rogue. But when he was on top of Edric, trying to get at his throat, I lost all control. For just a moment, my wolf took over and she didn’t think twice. I regained control just in time, just before she could rip into that poor man’s throat. ~ Poor man? ~ my wolf asks angrily. ~ He tried to kill our mate. Rape us. ~ * He can’t help it. He’s crazy…feral. * Then Edric tells me to leave, and she really doesn’t like that suggestion one bit. It takes all my willpower to drag her away. I don’t want to leave him either. He shouldn’t have to deal with the feral wolf – he came for me after all, so I should the one that takes care of him. I want to listen to my wolf, want to give in to her demands – but I can tell by the look on Edric’s face that he really needs me to go. There aren’t many options that I can see. They can’t let him go, and they can’t keep him here. All that’s left is killing him, and I know wha