13. Kedi
Kedi
I was sitting on what used to be my family’s front porch, but there wasn’t much left of it anymore.
It was covered in springy moss, a tall maple sapling growing straight out from the rot that had once been my home.
It was kinda beautiful in a way, to see new life emerge from death, though I would’ve preferred my parents were still here.
Maybe that was why this was where Conroy—Apollo—and I were reunited. Both our pasts existed here on this land, in this soil. Our connection existed through time and space, predicted in the stars. Maybe the ghosts of our families were watching over us still, ensuring that fate’s will was done.
I leaned against the narrow trunk and closed my eyes, breathing deep to calm my racing heartbeat, but it was no use.
I’d been waiting here since before sundown, and Apollo still wasn’t here.
The full moon rose heavy in the sky, its pull like barbed wire tearing at my skin to release the wolf beneath.
I stood with an anxious huff and paced the length of the clearing, to the riverbank and back again.
What if he doesn’t come? I asked my wolf for the hundredth time, clacking my tongue piercing along the back of my teeth in an anxious tic.
He will. His confidence never wavered, no matter how many times I asked, and I clung to his certainty, desperate to be anchored in his faith.
He was so silent that I didn’t know he was there until I caught movement from the corner of my eye.
Senses alert, my head snapped up to see Apollo appear, stepping from the tree line with a predator’s gait, eyes locked on me.
Relief bowled into me, so potent that my knees almost buckled, but there was something wrong.
He was dressed in his hunting gear, bow and quiver strapped to his back, ten-inch blade sheathed on his thigh, and his face was a mask of shadows.
For a split second, I felt a tingle of doubt.
Had he changed his mind? Had he been convinced to finish the job he started?
But then he stumbled forward, and I could tell he was in pain.
“Shit, Apollo!” I shouted, running to meet him before he could fall.
He leaned heavily into me, his fingers digging into my waist where he gripped me like his life depended on it.
I could smell the wolfsbane coming off him like he’d bathed in the stuff, and I guided one of his arms over my shoulder, guiding him toward the riverbank.
I helped him to the ground, then got to work on removing his gear.
“It didn’t used to hurt like this,” he grunted, scratching at the symbol painted on his forehead, dried to a flaky crust.
I gave him a sad smile. “You’re an Alpha, whether you claim your pack or not.
This is your wolf fighting back. What they’re doing, trying to muzzle him, is effectively an act of war, and he’s not going to take this lying down.
” I grabbed the hem of his shirt and started to peel it up and over his head.
“Come on, we need to get all this washed off.”
Apollo held his arms up obediently as I undressed him, and I saw there were more symbols painted on his chest. I didn’t know what they meant, but I had no doubt they were trying to suppress the shift.
I didn’t even know that was possible, though considering I could still sense his wolf through the drugs, it wasn’t as effective as they hoped.
Next, I quickly peeled off my own clothes, tossing them all into a pile on the grass.
When I was finally bare, I stood before my mate and offered him my hand to help pull him to his feet.
His eyes, however, were locked on my dick.
“You’re coming in with me?” he asked, his voice a bit breathless as he licked his lips.
“Wouldn’t want you to drown,” I teased, when in reality, I wanted to take care of him. Needed to. My mate was hurting, and I would do anything I could to fix it. And more importantly, he deserved it.
With care, I helped him ease into the water. It was shallow here, the current slow, tugging at us gently as it swirled lazily around our waists. His skin was sallow, but he still huffed a little laugh. “There’s mud between my toes.”
I grinned. “That’s the best part. Just wait till you get mud in your butt crack.
” That made him choke on his laugh, sputtering, though he still clung to me like he was worried he might get carried off downstream.
I had him crouch down until the water was up to his neck, then used my fingers to wash away any of the paste they’d smeared over his skin, running my fingers through his hair.
Even with my slight resistance to the drug, it was so concentrated that it stung my skin.
I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be coated in the stuff.
With every passing minute, I watched him grow stronger, and it settled my beast’s anxiety. “Turn around, I’ll get your back.”
He did, and what I saw had my blood run cold.
There were scars crisscrossing his back, thick and knotted, too many to count—they looked like lashes.
Shifters usually healed too quickly for scars, but I supposed not when they’d been dosed with wolfsbane their entire life.
Clenching my teeth in rage, I lingered over the lashes, tracing them, willing away a pain long gone, and I felt him stiffen when he realized what I was looking at.
“You were so young when they took you,” I whispered, my throat growing tight. “They had no right. I wish I could’ve been taken in your place so you were never hurt like that.”
Apollo turned in my arms and took my hands in his, kissing each fingertip tenderly.
“I never would’ve let that happen. I can’t remember much of my past, but I know I cared about you.
I… I remember your laugh as I chased you through the woods.
Your eyes…” Mindless of the freezing water, the mud, or the fact that we were both very naked, he hooked an arm around my waist and pulled me close, resting his forehead on mine.
“I know I said we can’t run away, but… I don’t know how long I can do this.
It hurts so much to be away from you. You saved me, Kedi.
You made a part of me I never knew existed come alive.
It kills me to know you’ve just been here this whole time, waiting for me to stumble on you.
All the time we missed… All the time that was stolen from us. ”
His eyes flashed dangerously, his wolf right there behind his gaze, and I knew he was pissed.
Apollo turned to look at the remains of our home, taking in the ruins of what could’ve been.
“They burned our home, didn’t they. Killed them all…
” His throat bobbed as he swallowed again and again, trying to choke back the emotions.
I nodded, and when he turned to look at me again, his eyes were swimming with tears until they spilled over, shining silver on his cheeks. “Why would anyone do that?”
Leaning forward, I kissed the tears away, salty on my lips, and smoothed his hair back, nuzzling and petting him in comfort.
“I wish I had a good answer for you, but it’s like trying to understand the devil himself.
Some people are just full of hate, and the men who started the Divine Order have decided to set their sights on shifters.
They claim to be protecting humans from a dangerous threat, but shifters are no different than humans.
We just want to live our lives in peace, to love, to laugh.
Maybe they’re afraid because we’re different, maybe they’re jealous, small-minded assholes.
Maybe they just like the power it gives them, riding their ego trip off into the sunset.
Whatever the reason, they need to be stopped.
” If only I had the first clue how to do it.
He’d begun to shiver in the cool water, and I pulled him close. He nestled in against my throat, setting my heart off on a stilted skip. “As much as I hate it, I won’t tell you to run, because I respect why you’re staying,” I told him.
“I won’t let them take anything else from me.
They’ve taken too much already.” He kissed my shoulder then backed up, the water eddying between us, moonlight reflected off the water making his skin glisten.
He’d regained a semblance of calm, his eyes back to his beautiful moss green.
“How do you know so much about the Order, anyway?” he asked, before a flash of fear crossed his face.
“Have you been hunted before?” His grip on my hips tightened.
I waved a hand lightly. “No, nothing like that. I just have a roomie who’s got a hard-on for history and folklore.”
“Oh.” But then he seemed to process my words, and he tugged me in, fear wending seamlessly into jealousy. “When you say your roomie gets a hard-on, you and he don’t…”
I splashed him, relieved to have a reason to laugh. “First, he’s an omega too—not that there’s anything wrong with that—but he’s also a rabbit, which means he’s a vegetarian.”
Apollo made a face. “My wolf says ew.”
“Mine too.” We shared a soft smile, and I felt like something had healed deep inside me. For so long, I’d avoided coming back here, fearing what truths I might find. But I wasn’t afraid anymore. Being back here in the place where my life had been destroyed, there was now a spark of life.
Carding my fingers through Apollo’s wet hair, I placed a tender kiss on his forehead. “Are you ready to shift?” I asked. I wouldn’t push him if this wasn’t what he wanted, but I could practically feel the vibration of his wolf beneath his skin.
His sigh was cool as it drifted over my damp chest, before he drew back and stared up at the full moon, his eyes flashing with his beast. When he looked back down at me, though, it was all my mate. “Will you show me how?”
“You’ve never…” I asked, just to confirm what I already suspected, and he shook his head. “I’ve got you.”
“I know. I trust you.”
I swore to the gods that I would do everything I could to deserve that trust.
Taking his hand, I led Apollo from the water. We didn’t bother to dry off. Soon enough, it wouldn’t matter.
A first shift could be painful. Our entire physiology had to adapt to our new form—bones breaking, tendons, muscles, ligaments stretching to make room for the change in morphology.
And that was when it happened in our early teens, when we went through puberty.
I couldn’t imagine what it would be like after having his beast suppressed for so long.
Apollo knew this, and he wasn’t afraid. He looked me right in the eye, head held high, and said, “I’m ready.” I thought of the scars on his back and realized with a revolting sickness that he was no stranger to pain.
Steadying my own nerves was nowhere near so easy.
Standing to face Apollo, I balled my hands into fists to hide my shaking fingers.
“Close your eyes,” I instructed, and he did.
“Now breathe, deep and slow. Listen to the wind in the trees, the water’s flow pulling at the bank, insects and bats and small creatures crawling through the forest… Do you hear it?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“We are surrounded by life, and that green feeling, it lives inside you too. Look inside yourself.”
A small gasp escaped his lips, eyelashes fluttering. “I feel it,” he said with a reverent awe, and then his lips twitched into a smile. “He wants to meet you.”
“Then shall we let him out to play?” I asked, teasing.
The change was immediate. His smile wavered, a grimace taking its place, his teeth clenched.
A ripple seemed to travel down his body, starting at the top and working its way down to his toes, wiry gray fur sprouting down his chest. Apollo groaned as he dropped to all fours, his eyes still scrunched tightly shut, but even as his shoulders seemed to be wrenched from their sockets, he remained stubbornly silent.
I had to slap a hand over my mouth to keep from crying out and fell to my knees beside him.
I wanted nothing more than to pull him into my arms and beg him to stop, tell him that it wasn’t worth it, but that would be a lie.
He deserved to know this half of himself, and his wolf deserved to be free. The pain was temporary.
The snap of bone echoed off the trees, but still, he did not let out a single cry.
His fingers dug into the dirt until they became claws, hunching forward as fur rippled down his flanks.
I couldn’t see his face where he’d tipped it down, but his ears grew long, and then, as if all the pieces fell together with a final click, his back arched, and he threw his head back as a wolf at last, howling to the heavens in a haunting melody that I longed to join.
I didn’t even know I was crying until Apollo’s wolf licked the tears from my cheeks.
“Hello, sweet boy,” I said with a snuffly laugh, digging my fingers deep into the thick fur around his neck.
“I knew you could do it. You’re so beautiful.
” He was all Alpha, far larger than any other wolf I’d seen, his fur a beautiful glistening silver.
His wolf stuck his cold, wet nose straight into my neck to take a good long sniff, then kept right on coming, crawling onto my folded legs like he thought he was a lap dog.
Inevitably, I fell backward beneath his full weight, laughing, and he let out the wolfy equivalent, a chuffing kind of bark as I wrestled my way out from under him.
“What do you say, should we go for a run?” He barked in response, tail wagging, and I grinned in challenge. “Bet you can’t catch me,” I taunted, before taking my fur and bolting into the forest.