Chapter TWO
Medieval Ireland
–Tréan–
THE MOMENT I helped my Viking friends defeat their enemy hours before and returned home to éire, or Ireland as it would be called in the future, I knew life was about to change.
Despite letting the Vikings believe I was well, I was no such thing.
Falling to a knee in the cool, verdant forest of my homeland with smoke burning off my skin from the intense magic I’d been subjected to, I realized what had happened.
I’d taken a piece of the darkness we’d all fought with me.
Hanging my head, I closed my eyes, feeling it deep down.
It roiled and churned within my soul, sizzling inside and out until my long white-blond hair was seared into short ebony locks.
My vision burned red with dragon power that had no place inside a wolf, and the impact of what I’d done to protect others weighed heavily because I sensed it would cost my pack dearly.
“Brother,”
a familiar voice rumbled.
Callum’s hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed.
“’Tis good to have you home.”
“’Tis,”
came another familiar rumble.
“Now stand, brother, so we may face the consequences of our actions together because they are upon us now.”
“Not our actions,”
I managed with a heavy sigh, opening my eyes to see Bain’s hand held out to me.
“But mine.”
Taking his hand, I stood and looked my blood brothers in the eyes, meaning every word.
“And only mine because I lead this pack.”
Callum shook his head and responded, yet suddenly, there was only silence.
Trees swayed in the cool wind overhead, and my brother’s lips moved, but in my mind, all had gone eerily still and quiet.
So quiet, I thought maybe the darkness I’d fought would swallow me whole right then and there, but no.
Instead, a unique scent hit my nostrils.
I inhaled deeply, pulling in the sweet aroma, only for everything to go from perfectly still to high alert.
It almost felt like we were under attack, yet when I glanced around, there was no one coming.
The woodland was just as it had been.
But everything had changed.
I knew it like I knew how to follow the scent of prey.
Like I knew how to lead a pack.
Or so I once thought.
“I have to leave again,”
I said, the sound of my voice strange even to my own ears.
“Something is happening…”
Narrowing my eyes, I tried to pinpoint the sensations rolling through me but couldn’t because I had never felt anything like it before.
“I cannot say if it, she, is good or bad, only that…”
When I trailed off, Bain’s dark eyebrows swept up, and the corner of his mouth quirked. “She?”
“Go,”
Callum urged me, seeming to sense something too because his wolven eyes flared.
“As always, we will watch over things in your absence.”
He nodded once in reassurance.
“You have our word.”
I nodded at them in return after Bain voiced his agreement, then left without understanding where my inner beast took me until I ended up in a forest I knew well.
Woodland that my Uncle Adlin and I had walked through together over the years, and I’d never understood why until now.
Never understood why a simple forest in the twenty-first century, so far into my future, was so important, until now.
Not until I sensed the female behind the scent that had drawn me here.
Whereas I usually stepped into this century via the oak tree outside the old Colonial, I was closer to the Stonehenge this time.
From there, it was a short walk through the forest.
Freshly fallen snowfall crunched beneath my boots as I approached, fully aware the thick clouds overhead had thinned, and a pregnant moon struggled to cast its wondrous glow.
Wondrous for wolves like me.
Not so much for wolves like her, and I sensed it moments before stepping free from the forest beside the barn.
Rolling my shoulders when they tightened, I stopped and scanned my surroundings, looking for trouble.
Nothing was parked in the dirt driveway, and everything seemed peaceful and quiet.
That is until she staggered out the front door.
Once again, everything went perfectly still inside me, much like it had in my century, only far more acutely now.
I had seen many beautiful women in my day, but nothing like her.
With long, ebony locks spun into silver beneath the emerging moon and warm, satiny skin, she was tall for a female and lithe.
She wore a snug black leather jacket, equally snug black jeans, and black boots. Her bones were fine, and her curves were noticeable. With my superior sight, I could see the stark, vibrant blue of her large, almond-shaped eyes and the flickering moonlight reflected in them as clouds rushed by.
Then there was her scent.
Sweet.
Musky. All hers.
This time, it hit me so hard I didn’t go still like before but nearly fell to my knees from its impact.
Locking my knees and clenching my fists, I worked to stay where I was when every instinct told me to close the distance and yank her into my arms.
Make her mine.
Mark my territory.
“You must train yourself never to act rashly, nephew,”
Adlin had said during one of our many conversations.
His pale blue eyes had turned my way with great wisdom, telling me I must heed his words.
“It will matter more than you know time and time again.”
That advice had never served me as well as it did now when my human half wanted to run to her, but my inner beast cautioned me against it.
Forced me to wait.
Watch.
And my intuition was right because moments later, her features twisted in pain, and she fell to her knees.
I had watched more wolves than I could count shift over the years, but it was nothing like watching her.
The moment the moon broke from the last of the clouds and shone down on her, I sensed even more.
Understood she was newly made, and this was only her second time shifting.
This was her True Moon Shift, and it was happening during a Hunter’s Supermoon, one of the most intense moons for seasoned wolf shifters, never mind one who had just recently turned.
For those like her, it would be far more impactful, intensifying her natural tendencies.
A kind person would become kinder, evil, darker still, protectors more protective, and so on.
Not only that, but it would be her first time running with her pack. She would forge bonds that would stay with her for life. Unbreakable bonds that would be her strength until her dying breath.
Then, I sensed something else.
“I know you,”
I whispered, narrowing my eyes.
But how do I know you? And why do you seem so familiar? As her inner beast struggled to break free, I inhaled deeply, pulling in her scent.
No matter how hard I tried to understand how I knew her, it remained just beyond my grasp.
That soon became irrelevant, though, when another scan of the house and property and a good sniff told me she was alone when she should not be.
This shift was monumental.
If she did it alone, there was no telling what would come of her, only that it wouldn’t be good.
Wolves who made this shift alone became Renegades, often turning violent or dark, mostly both.
Wolves needed a pack. To bond.
There was no way around that.
She cried out in pain, dropped to all fours, fisted her hands in the snow, and grew admirably silent.
“You refuse to show pain,”
I murmured, sensing her powerful inner will.
Almost as if she heard me when she shouldn’t be able to because of my powers, her head shot up, and she locked eyes with mine.
Better still, her wolf eyes locked on me.
I should have been able to melt back into the darkness and let her grow into herself, but instead, I froze.
My vision hazed gold with my inner beast, and I couldn’t look away.
There was no freeing myself of her immense pull.
“Leave me be,”
she growled into my mind, her inner wolf afraid and defiant but mostly angry.
“I’ve fought the devil and lived to see another day, so don’t think I won’t do it again.”
The devil? What devil? Obviously, she’d been raised in the new ways and was God-fearing like Uncle Adlin.
Yet I understood enough about the deity, Satan, to understand she thought me evil.
If she only knew.
Truth be told, the Christian devil wouldn’t stand a chance against all the endless darkness we faced.
Rolling my shoulders again, I prayed I hadn't soaked up too much of that darkness when helping the Vikings.
Darkness made of cursed magic.
Granted, I was getting used to curses, but still.
Even I was only so strong.
“I cannot leave you, woman,”
I said softly before I could stop myself, but it was the truth.
Her features continued to twist in pain, but she remained silent, unwilling to cry out and show weakness, as her body contorted and changed.
“You can,”
she bit back, her inner voice as strong as her silence when experiencing something that made even the most stalwart warriors writhe and wail in pain.
“Go away.”
“No.”
Needing to understand her better but mostly unwilling to let her suffer alone, I left the forest behind and headed her way.
Everything around me seemed to fade as I closed the distance, from the slick snow underfoot to the old, gnarly oak swaying in the cold, blustery wind.
All dwindled down to her.
A newly made female, I felt in ways I’d never felt another.
Once close enough, I slowed.
Though some might look away unless they were shifting with her, I didn’t because someone needed to be a part of this.
To witness these moments and be with her lest she succumbed to her inner Renegade.
“Please,”
she ground out, the word garbled as she struggled through the shift. “Go.”
“No,”
I replied softly, keeping my eyes on her as she became less woman and more beast.
Kept my gaze steady on her when she struggled through the excruciating pain of becoming something else without nary a whimper.
The strength radiating from her was untouchable.
As unique as her.
It turned out she only grew more unique.
And far more stunning if such were possible.
Again, I had seen my fair share of beautiful females in human and wolf form, but she was so much more than stunning when she finally shed her human half and embraced her inner beast.
Her moon-kissed ebony pelt was as thick and luxurious as her human hair, and her eyes were a startling blue as they narrowed on me.
Challenged me.
The pain fell away, and she shook herself off, swiftly becoming the warrior I knew she was when she bared her teeth and growled.
“You will not drive me away.”
I crouched in front of her and kept my tone firm rather than gentle because that’s what she needed.
All the while, my wolf eyes remained locked with hers.
“And you will not be alone tonight.”
I shook my head.
“I will not allow it.”
Her lips pulled back further, her growl deepened, and she visibly bristled.
Her hackles rose.
A razor-thin line of hair stood on end straight down her spine.
That’s when she put off a scent I hadn’t caught before.
One that made me growl without meaning to.
She seemed to understand on a level she should not, considering she was newly made, that my growl was not to be trusted.
Knew I could easily overpower her.
Even though I sensed she was tempted to become more aggressive and challenge me further because that was in her nature, she didn’t.
Instead, she offered one more seething growl and bolted.
I closed my eyes and hung my head, battling with my inner beast over how to handle this.
Let her go? Chase after her? Kill her tonight before she wreaked havoc on all of us? Because she would.
There was no way around it.
She would become yet another curse laid at my feet if I let her live. More so if I shifted and ran with her.
I would become her pack.
She mine, and me hers.
So what was the problem? She was beyond beautiful and strong.
Everything I could want in a female.
Yet, two alarming things made me hesitate.
For the first time in my life, the idea of a female in my pack and in my bed who then took another after I’d had her—and I would have her—made my stomach churn.
Because when everything was said and done, I didn’t let females any closer to me than the carnal pleasure they could offer.
I didn't take mates.
It would make me vulnerable.
Even worse? I knew what edged the corners of her scent now.
It wasn’t strong, but it was there.
Generations removed yet unmistakable.
A descendant of my mortal enemy had created her.
Everything inside me urged me to kill her and end this now because nothing good could come of it.
If anything, she was a trap.
A curse upon a curse meant to destroy me and mine from the inside out.
A Trojan horse. The end-all because the one in charge, me, was too foolish to see the trap being laid.
Inhaling deeply, I opened my eyes just as she vanished into the dark wood line.
I felt her wolf spirit caught in flight as she raced through the trees, free in a way she’d never allowed herself to be before.
Though most of her thoughts remained scattered and hard to decipher, I knew one thing.
She would not go down without a fight.
Yet she would go down if I deemed it necessary because no wolf born in this era was as strong as me, and few wolves anywhere in any century could withstand what I could throw at them.
So I had a decision to make.
Stay right where I was and let her go Renegade, or chase her down and end her before things became more difficult.
Then, there was a third option.
The very last thing I should do.
Run with her.
Bond.
Become a wolf she would bow down to always.
Become not just her pack mate but her alpha.
It would happen that fast.
I would own her if I ran with her tonight. She might not realize it right away, but she would eventually.
So, I knew what I could not do, what I should do, and what was a really bad idea.
Yet, in the end, as I stared up at the full, swollen moon and heard her long, mournful howl in the distance, I knew there was only one route for me now.
And may the gods forgive me for it.