Chapter 36
CHAPTER 36
M ontgomery
It makes so much damn sense now. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.
Told you!
My wolf reminds me that he knew. As soon as we met Serafina, he knew two things. One, that she was our mate. And two, that her wolf wasn’t ordinary. It’s what he’d been trying to tell me for so long. I’d only interpreted it as his aggression bordering on feral.
“Wh-What are you talking about?”
I hate the way Serafina’s voice trembles as she asks this question. I enter the cave, going to her, my brothers trailing me. But she holds her hands up when I try to wrap my arms around her.
“What do you mean ‘I’m one of them’?” She points at the drawing on the cave wall.
I push out a heavy breath, feeling everyone’s eyes on me. “They exist,” I reply. “It was a Crimson wolf who … saved me.”
“Brother, when did this happen?”
Ronan’s voice reverberates in my head, sounding concerned.
I shake my head and look at Serafina instead of Ronan. “It was the wolf that saved me. He was from the Crimson pack,” I tell her, finally putting two and two together.
The wolf that led me to the man who removed the tracker and ended up saving my life.
I recall exactly what happened, now. I turn to face the wolf surrounded by flames on the cave wall.
“That final night, wearing the tracker the humans put on me, I felt my wolf growing out of control, but we were weak and hungry. All I wanted was to die. I went to sleep asking to never wake up. But I did, to the smell of fire and smoke. It was so thick that I started to choke, coughing and barely able to breathe.
“I blinked my eyes open in a haze of smoke. But within a few seconds, a huge, black wolf emerged. He flashed his sharpened incisors. I was certain he was about to gouge out my throat. At that point, I would’ve willingly let him.
“But as he approached the vicious look on his face softened. The closer he came, the stronger the fire and ash smell became but it became less strangling. He towered over me in my prone position. Then he lowered his head and sniffed me. His eyes widened as he stepped back. There was such a clarity in his eyes, surrounded by flames in his pupils.”
“Did he attack you?” Serafina asks.
“He nudged my neck but must’ve spotted the tracker on me. He bit at it, trying to break it free, but stopped when he couldn’t get it off. The wolf backed away, gave me a look over his shoulder.”
The memory grows clearer the more I speak.
“Telling me to follow him. It took me several tries to stumble to my feet. He pointed his nose at the ground and there I saw …”
I pause and look Serafina in the eye.
“Charred wolf prints.”
She gasps and covers her mouth. “He tried to kill you … I-I can’t be one of them.”
Grabbing her wrists in my hands, I shake my head. “No, baby,” I say virulently.
“He saved me. I followed his prints for almost a half a mile and that’s when I came to that tiny cabin in the middle of the forest. The one with the man who removed the tracker and ended up saving my life. I was led there.”
Her face scrunches into confusion.
Though my hands remain around her wrists, she spins to face Emery. “You said they were dangerous. Deadly.”
Emery counters, “No, I said the stories about them claimed they were dangerous. They were told as old wives tales, or nighttime stories to children to scare them into behaving correctly. But they were stories, nonetheless. It’s almost impossible to find any real information or data on them.
“Which is why I couldn’t be certain they even existed. But this drawing …”
Emery points to the wall. “And then, well, I found out about your wolf and put two and two together.”
“Serafina,” I call when she snatches her wrists from my hold.
“How could this happen?” She starts massaging her forehead, not so softly, though.
I hate to see her frustration and pain like this. I know too well what it’s like to not know or understand where you are or where you belong.
Even after I was able to shift back to my human form, I drifted for years with a borderline feral wolf, and worse, without a pack or family.
“What if?—”
“What if, nothing,” I tell her, pulling her to me. Noah and Ronan surround us as well. “Who you are doesn’t change a damn thing between us,” I say firmly. “You’re ours.”
“How can you still say that?” She looks between the three of us, her eyes watery and questioning. “Even if that wolf you came across was part of the Crimson wolf pack, and he saved you, how do we know he didn’t have some ulterior motive or something?”
“Because he could’ve killed me right there and then,” I counter. “I had no way of defending myself. I was hungry, dehydrated, and weak enough that I could barely walk.”
“Maybe he was toying with you,” she replies. “What if the fact that you were so defenseless means you weren’t a challenge enough for him? Or, what if that wolf was just one of the good ones from the pack? What about the others? You said you only saw one of them.”
“I—” I stop because I can’t answer her questions. I don’t recall seeing any other wolves around, and when that wolf disappeared, so did the smoke and fiery odor.
“What if he was a lone wolf?” Serafina questions. “He left his pack because they were too vicious or something. He might’ve saved you, but what about the rest of them? And why hasn’t anyone else seen or heard of them?”
She looks back to Emery.
“I don’t have the answers to those questions. But you may. Your wolf is the missing piece to this puzzle.”
“My wolf?” Serafina eyebrows raise almost to her hairline. “The first time I shifted I can barely remember, and I went years without shifting. I feel my wolf in there but it’s like we’re disconnected. She only comes out when she wants.”
“She’s hiding from you.”
All five of us turn to the mouth of the cave. There stands Ms. Elsie, her attention firmly on Serafina.
“Ms. Elsie,” Emery calls out, going to the older woman. “I thought you didn’t come out here.”
Ms. Elsie smiles, gently patting Emery’s hand as she approaches Serafina. “I’ve made an exception.”
She looks from Serafina to the wall.
“Did you draw these?” Emery asks the question we’re all starting to wonder.
“No,” she replies before turning to my mate.
“Have you heard of the Crimson pack?” Serafina asks in a low voice.
“Not beyond what Emery’s already told you. But I’m also old enough to have been around and seen a lot in my time. Fighting among packs. Among shifters and witches and vampires. There are whole worlds and legends that are beyond our scope of knowledge,” she says, cryptically.
“The main reason for the creation of the National Shifter Alliance was to put an end to the fighting among the supernaturals. It was also to stop the most powerful packs among the shifter groups from taking over and becoming a threat beyond any of our comprehension.”
“You believe the NSA did something to the Crimson pack?” Ronan asks.
“I’m just an old lady with some ideas and beliefs.” She smiles and takes Serafina’s hand into hers. “Here’s what I do know, though. Your wolf? She’s powerful and spunky just like your human. But she’s just as sensitive.”
“What do you mean?” our mate asks.
“The fear you feel, she feels twofold. Your fear of being a danger or threat to everyone around you. She senses that. She’s held back because of you. Your fear has locked her inside of you. She’s ready to come out. In her own ways she has,” Ms. Elsie continues.
“Her fierceness helped protect you when that awful doctor tried to hurt you and Reese.”
My wolf growls at the reminder of that day.
Ms. Elsie smiles my way, likely overhearing my wolf.
“She’s always been a part of you, just lurking and waiting for the moment you truly accept her. Embrace her. Without fear or reservation.”
“How am I supposed to not fear her after hearing all of this?” Serafina asks. “If what Emery’s told me about the Crimson pack is true, and I’m one of them, then I’m a threat to everyone around me. She’s a threat. I can’t be?—”
“Don’t finish that sentence!”
Ronan’s command is so powerful it reverberates through to all four of us. All three of our wolves stand in response to the perceived threat. The threat being, Serafina believing she needs to run again to keep us safe.
“Wherever you try to run we will find you,” Noah adds on top of Ronan’s command.
“You belong to us,” I remind her because there’s no way in hell I’m ever going another day without being in her presence. I’d lay down my life before letting that happen.
“What about?—”
“Nothing,” Ronan says out loud. “Nothing else matters.”
“Your pack.” Serafina looks between the three of us. “You say this now, but what about the Blackclaw pack? What if my wolf is a threat to all of them? Would they accept me knowing that? Would they accept you as their alphas knowing your mate places all of them in danger at any moment?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ronan says the words both Noah and I were thinking as well.
“Don’t say that when it does matter. Your pack is your life.”
“You are our life.” I step forward, cupping her face in my hands. “There’s no argument to be had here. Your wolf and you belong to us. There’s no way she’s a danger to us. You just need to believe it.”
“There is no ‘no’ in this Serafina,” Ronan says firmly when she begins shaking her head. “You’re ours and our pack will understand this. Your wolf is not a harm to any of us.”
“How can you be sure?” she asks. “How do you know?”
“Your wolf knows,” Ms. Elsie says as she approaches Serafina again, taking her glowing hands into hers.
“ You have to believe in her enough to allow her to come out, to experience her fullness.”
In my heart of hearts, I know what the elder woman says is true. It’s Serafina herself that’s kept her wolf locked away.
Yet, as I stare down at the older woman holding my mate’s still-glowing hands, I can’t help but wonder, How is Serafina’s heat not burning Ms. Elsie?