Chapter Ten
Parker
It will take me a few hours to get back home on foot. I have to explain the situation to my mother. I have to tell her goodbye.
Cross didn't chase after me. That's never happened before. But it's what I wanted. It's what we need. If he had chased me, I would have succumbed to his sadness and the whole cycle would have started over again. This is the only way he has a future, the only way any of us have a future.
Mom is in bed when I finally get back. I'm soaked with sweat and I reek, but none of that matters.
I shift and throw on some clothes, then gather the supplies I'll need from my room and the money I've been saving.
Before I go to my mother's room, I open the fridge and take out the large glass casserole dish she always uses for leftovers.
I'll see my mom again, I know that, but I want my belly full of her food before I go.
I don't know how long I'll be gone, or what I'll eat while I'm gone, and I want to remember the taste of home.
I peel back the aluminum foil and smile sadly when I see the spaghetti mash casserole. Only a small corner is gone from it and I help myself to half of what's left without heating it up. I don't want to risk waking her up early enough to try to convince me to stay.
With my stomach full of pasta and potatoes, I slip quietly into my mother's bedroom and drop to my knees beside her bed.
“Mom,” I whisper.
She's instantly awake. “What's wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” I tell her. It isn't a complete lie.
“Listen, I came back to tell you something.
What's happening with me and Cross won't work, Mom.
He's getting worse. I left the Summit. Eugenia was there.
I have to go. I want them to have a chance, for the pack.
They won't if I'm here. Does that make sense?”
“What do you mean, you have to go? Parker, you can't go.” Her alarm and worry cloud the room until there's no room for regular air to breathe.
“I have to, Mom. I really do. I'll be back. I'll stay gone long enough to give them a chance, then I'll be back. It'll be okay. I promise.”
“Where will you go?”
I lean forward to kiss her cheek. “Somewhere. I'll be alright. I'll call. I'll be okay. I promise.”
My mother cries when I leave, but she lets me go.
I didn't want her to fight it, but now two people have let me leave without putting up the fight I expected.
It further cements my decision. I should have left a long time ago.
I should have walked away from the clearing when Eugenia was first presented to Cross.
Everything would be different, and better, if I had.
Unfortunately, I don't really have a plan.
I don't have anywhere to go. Not really.
My mom and Cross are my family, so staying with family on other lands isn't a possibility.
I don't have any human friends, so that's out.
I don't have the money to stay in a hotel, all my money needs to be reserved for food.
I do have a tent, though. It's in my bag.
I figured I would camp at least part of the time, I just didn't think it would be so immediate.
It's fine. I'm used to being outside. I like camping.
I'm an excellent hunter. I'm not worried about me.
I'm worried about Drew. This will be hard for him, for a while anyway.
Hopefully he will get his shit together fast and either go after Eugenia to right the situation, or go shopping for a new Luna completely outside of the situation.
Either way, he needs the room and freedom to make the choice without my influence.
I'll be back. And I won't go far. It will be fine.
I hike for a few days on the outskirts of our territory, stopping to sleep under treetops and stars.
I don't want to venture onto another pack's land, but I need to steer completely clear of the pack's main residential areas.
By now, news of my departure will have spread.
I halfway expected at least someone to come looking for me, but no one has.
I don't know how I feel about that, but I hang on to my faith in Drew to be the alpha I know he is.
Everything will be okay. It has to be.
***
~Thirteen Months Later ~
It's been over a year.
Thirteen months and eight days.
The deer I've been stalking turns toward the stream and I follow silently.
She knows something is following her, but she can't do anything about it.
Her ears and tail twitch with her every movement.
She can't hear me or truly sense me, but she knows something is out there, just beyond her area of acute awareness.
I'm tired and hungry. I don't want to have to chase her down for longer than a minute or two.
I just want to catch her so I can eat and then end this day.
I have been in my wolf form more than I've been in my human skin for the better part of eight months.
It's easier to hunt. My wolf is better at it than I could ever be and I trust him to keep us fed and warm.
He'll get the deer, I'm just a passenger at this point.
Over a year since I've seen Cross. Since I've seen her. And now we have to, what? Just pretend I didn't ruin our lives? Just sit together at the Summit like one big happy family?
I watch the deer finish her drink, then she walks carefully toward the thicket she sleeps in during the day.
She's thinking she'll be safe there, and any other night she probably would be.
But tonight I'm ravenous and restless despite my exhaustion.
I've been living on rabbits and other small game for weeks, but I'll feast tonight. And then I'll sleep.
I can't be his Second now anymore than I could back then, not functionally.
We have too much history, and most of it hurts.
Especially now. I don't know if Cross has even met her by now.
When I left him I told him to go to her, to fix everything we had fucked up because of me.
At that point, he hadn't seen her because he refused to look at her.
He wouldn't look at her when he rejected her at their mating ceremony, and I doubt he saw her at the last Summit gathering after I left.
A lot can happen in a year. Maybe he's met her by now and it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be, and that's the reason I'm being dragged from my self-imposed seclusion.
My stomach growls and the deer's head raises straight up from the grass she was nosing.
She freezes in place, ears twitching in the silence that has returned to the night now that my stomach has tried to sabotage the hunt.
It doesn't matter. I'm so close now. I'm close enough for her to hear my hunger and close enough that it will be over when I spring from this brush.
I fall back into the recesses of the consciousness I share with my wolf as I do at the end of every hunt.
I don't push back into the forefront until after he's taken his fill of meat.
A lot of times, I'll shift back and cook a chunk of whatever's left on the carcass, but more often than not I just eat.
Deer is delicious with a wolf pallet, cooked or not.
That has to be it. Nothing else would make sense. The Elders wouldn't call me back for an unknown.
My teeth tear into the deer. With every bite I swallow, I'm more sure of it.
It doesn't matter. They can call me back.
I can stand before the council and witness the ceremony with the rest of the pack that I am still technically part of.
I can do that and when it's over, I'll leave again.
Because I can't be there when Cross claims his Luna.
Even if he doesn't do it in front the pack where everyone can see and celebrate the link they form between our pack and hers, I'll still feel it.
I pause mid-swallow.
Oh, Goddess.
I'm going to feel it, anyway.
Cross and I have a bond. There's no escaping that. Not even the distance and time separating us keeps me from feeling shadows and sometimes hot, persistent flashes of his emotions.
Especially when it comes to her.
Fuck.
I allow my wolf a few more blissful moments to finish our meal, then I shift.
I have to go. I have been called and to ignore a call is to truly become rogue. I'm not a rogue. I may have pulled away from the pack because it hurts too much to be near Cross, but I'm still theirs, and they're still mine.
No, I'll go.
I'll just hate every second of it.
And then I'll come back to my solitude and wrap my misery around me like a thick shroud until it becomes too heavy to carry.
And then I'll rest.
One way or another, I'll rest.
***
She's already here. I could smell her the moment I walked through the main gate of the compound.
Worse, the agitation crawling under my skin and making the beds of my nails itch doesn't belong to me.
The shorter the distance is between Cross and me, the stronger his emotions affect me.
Cross is almost unbearably anxious and walking the edge of true anger.
Part of me, the part of me that will always love him, yearns to go to him.
To soothe him however I can. Another part of me, the part that was supposed to be his Second, the part of me that is utterly loyal to this pack, feels the pressure of needing to balance the situation.
My job would be to calm him, or control the situation until he is able to calm himself.
But I'm not his Second. Not anymore. And he's not Alpha. Not yet, anyway.
That's going to change soon enough, though. Tonight. Cross is going to claim Eugenia as his Luna tonight and there's nothing in the world important enough to stop it from happening. Not even me or Cross's broken heart.
“Didn't think you'd make it, Parker.”