Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Solan Keane liked mornings in Thorn Hollow. Mostly because they were quiet. Although the nights on patrol with the security team were quiet as well, there was something reverent about the quietness of the morning as the sun rose and began the day. He’d always been a morning person, not a night owl.
He walked the treeline behind a row of houses in the pack’s territory, watching for anything out of the ordinary.
Their pack had come under attack recently by an anti-shifter group called Humans Against Shifters.
H.A.S. was run by a shifter-hating zealot named Brent Foley, who’d attacked the tiger shifters in Northern Ohio a few months earlier before turning his attention to the people who lived in Thorn Hollow.
Solan had been part of the security team for years. He’d literally grown up being trained as a pack protector by the former alpha, Lit, who’d stepped down to address family issues and handed the reins over to Adam.
While he didn’t run the security team normally, he was in charge while his friend Brick was on a short honeymoon with his mate Jade, an albino wolf. Solan took the duty seriously.
He passed his friend Leo’s house. He’d found his mate recently in a gryphon shifter named Mira.
Her family had joined the pack as allies, moving into empty homes in Thorn Hollow, working at the pack-owned car dealership, and supporting the pack in other ways.
He liked the gryphons and the other members of Mira’s family’s clan, and he considered anyone who wanted to help keep the pack safe to be good people.
Picking up the pace, he resumed his trek around the neighborhoods that dotted Thorn Hollow, finding nothing amiss and no one who didn’t belong.
When he passed by Brick and Jade’s empty house, his stomach twisted a little at the thought of his friends all mated and him still alone.
Not all wolves waited for their truemate, but Solan was going to, just like Adam and Brick and Leo had. Eventually, Solan trusted that fate would smile on him and he’d meet his forever girl. He just hoped it happened sooner rather than later.
He was damn lonely, and the ache had seemed more prominent lately.
Maybe because of Leo and Mira finding each other.
The last of his unmated friends was now wrapped up in love and happily ever after.
As he made his way through the woods to the other neighborhood, he saw the security building behind Adam and Cinder’s home and the pack’s hunting territory surrounding it.
They held full moon gatherings in the woods, in a cleared space with a fire pit that seemed like the flames could touch the stars if they tried hard enough.
The back door of the alphas’ house opened as he neared the security building, and Adam stepped out and waved him over.
“Morning,” Solan said, climbing the steps of the back porch.
“Morning. Anything going on?”
“Nah. All quiet, just the way we like it.”
“Abso-freaking-lutely.” Adam took a drink of coffee and cleared his throat. “Brick just checked in. Wanted me to remind you not to burn down the woods while you’re in charge.”
Solan chuckled. “I’ll do my best.”
“I’ve got a favor.”
Solan straightened. “Name it.”
“Would you mind going to the bluffs tomorrow night for the witches’ equinox celebration? Cinder wants to go, and I’ll obviously be there to escort her, but I’d like to have you along as well.”
“Yeah, of course.” The witch coven in Cleveland was allied with every shifter group in Northern Ohio—tiger, wolf, bear, dragon, falcon, and white lion—plus the vampires downtown.
During the solstice and equinox celebrations, the coven asked for several from each group to join them as guards, as they’d be vulnerable in their circle when they were distracted and casting spells.
When he was younger, Solan had volunteered for the task.
Partly because, as a young male, he’d liked that the witches only wore cloaks and nothing else, and he’d been a typical horny male.
But the witches had stopped the naked-cloak stuff a few years ago after deciding it wasn’t truly necessary.
They now wore clothes that were magically blessed.
“I hadn’t picked anyone to come with us, so take whoever you want.”
He thought over the schedule for the next few days. “I’ll see if Linus wants to go.”
Adam nodded.
The breeze blew, rustling the trees and grass, and bringing a strange whisper of energy along with it. Solan’s wolf rose inside him, alert and listening.
“You feel that?” Solan asked. “Something’s coming.”
Adam nodded. “Tomorrow is the equinox. Cinder says the veil between worlds thins during the major calendar events. Boundaries flex and give way sometimes. It could be that. Or maybe…”
When he didn’t finish his sentence, Solan prompted, “Maybe what?”
“Maybe it’s a change that’s coming.” Adam looked at him pointedly.
“You mean I might be meeting my mate soon? How on earth would the breeze make that a reality?”
Adam chuckled. “Listen, I don’t fully get how finding mates works out, but I know it does.
When I saw Cinder in the club that first night?
I realized everything in my life had been leading up to it.
And then I met her, and it was like tumblers in a lock and everything aligned.
If something is coming, we shouldn’t just think about the worst-case scenario; we should also think about what the best-case might be.
And the best-case scenario is that you’re going to meet your truemate sooner rather than later. ”
“From your lips to fate’s ears,” Solan murmured, looking out into the trees but not really seeing anything but the morning light playing shadows on the ground.
Cinder called Adam’s name from inside the house.
“On my way, baby,” he said. He dumped out the rest of his coffee. “Keep your wits about you, but don’t shut out the possibilities. The equinox is about new beginnings, right? Embrace it.”
“Sure.”
Solan stepped off the porch and walked toward the security building to check in with Linus and let him know he’d be heading to the bluffs Friday night.
He wasn’t thinking about finding his truemate or the weird nip in the air that felt electric and not at all related to the weather.
He had security to think about, sensors and cameras to check, and schedules to create.
Today, like tomorrow, would be another day on duty.
And yet—he could feel some sort of promise in his bones, a whisper of good things to come.
By dinnertime, he’d checked in with Linus, made one last trek around the town, and ensured the next shift headed out on time.
He’d seen nothing at all on his shift. No suspicious persons.
No sign of H.A.S. No reason for his wolf to keep poking at him from the inside all day, ever since he’d met with Adam that morning.
His friend’s talk about finding his truemate had awakened thoughts he’d kept quiet for a long time.
He headed home when the sun dipped low, the porch creaking as he walked up to the front door of his modest two-bedroom ranch. Most of the time, he didn’t mind coming home to an empty house, but for whatever reason, it bothered him tonight.
After heating up a meal that one of the she-wolf caretakers in the pack had left for him in the fridge, he sat at the counter and ate while he scrolled social media and pondered the night ahead.
He could grab some single males and head to Lykos, the shifter-friendly bar, for a few drinks and find a willing female to snuggle up to.
But something about that scenario didn’t appeal to him, so he didn’t reach out to anyone.
After dinner, he changed into sweatpants and dropped onto the couch, exhausted to the core from being on his feet all day. He closed his eyes for a moment with a yawn, and then he was out like a light, his past rising up like a dream.
He always thought of his parents on the night that the attack happened. The way the moonlight made everything glow, and the way the desert air always smelled like heat, even when it had cooled down. He was young, just a kid, the son of alphas, part of a small, mostly family pack.
He didn’t have many memories of them because they’d been killed by usurpers when he was four. Mostly, he had feelings. Warmth. Security. Love.
It had all been taken from him in a heartbeat, and he’d never even gotten a chance to say goodbye.
Solan gasped awake and found himself still on the couch. His living room came into focus as the moonlight streamed in through the open windows, painting everything with pale light. His chest was pounding, and his wolf was humming under his skin.
He hadn’t dreamed about his parents in ages, and those times he never woke up feeling happy. He always seemed to focus on the loss and the terror of the nights that had followed their deaths.
He’d come to Ohio from the southwest, orphaned and scared. A she-wolf named Nila had taken him in. She eventually mated with Lit, the alpha, and they treated him like family, training him to protect the pack.
Maybe the equinox was going to bring something new into his life, and maybe that new thing would be his mate. Perhaps the loneliest nights he’d had were in the past now, and he could finally move forward with his life instead of spinning his proverbial wheels.
Was something awakening in the world or just in him?
Was tomorrow the start of something or just otherworldly shenanigans that had nothing to do with him?
Whatever the case, he’d be ready.
Hopefully.