Chapter 28
TOSCA
I followed my alpha into the forest, still hardly believing he was mine. How had I landed such a fine man, with my limited exposure to the world, and living amongst such horrors? It was scarcely comprehensible.
As it was, my brain ping-ponged back and forth between thoughts of my incredible good fortune with Agelius and distress over the loss of Owen.
Owen. Of course he’d thrown himself on the truck when he’d seen them trying to put me on there.
Ever the protector and knowing I’d been about to (hopefully) start a new life with Agelius, he’d sacrificed himself.
I whimpered.
Agelius swung his head back towards me, the majestic black coat rippling grey and silver in the dappled sunlight. I shook my head. There was no way to explain such complex thoughts while we were in wolf form, so I just trotted on.
Agelius led the way, slipping silently through the bush. There was so much commotion going on back at the camp that it was unlikely anyone would notice or hear us, but I guess it made sense to be careful. We were so close to freedom, it would have been awful to be stopped now.
I followed along automatically, step after step, barely watching where I was going, my mind was so full of thoughts. Had the kidnapped omega been saved? I didn’t know, but I had to assume so, or Agelius wouldn’t have been willing to leave.
Where were we going? I knew we must be going to his actual pack, but I had no idea where it was.
Would they accept me there? Would Agelius want me to stay?
I’d thought he was claiming me as a mate, but what if he wasn’t?
What if he only meant to get me safely away from Zarbius’ pack? Might I end up homeless?
A shiver ran through me. At least I wasn’t being trafficked, unlike Owen. What would happen to him? Would he be alright? Would we ever see each other again?
The growl seemed to come out of nowhere, intruding on my thoughts and breaking me out of my spiral. I nearly rammed into Agelius’ hindquarters as he came to a dead halt, hackles raised, bristling with aggressive energy.
Craning my neck around his shoulder, I recognized the pale grey wolf lurking in the shadow of the mountain gum.
It was one of the betas from my old pack.
What was he doing here? I knew the moment he realized I was an omega – his nostrils flared and the pungent scent of male arousal flooded the air.
Aggressive sexual energy rolled off him.
A warning rumble rolled through Agelius, his gaze fixed on the wolf barring our way. The other wolf prowled forward several steps. The hair along his back stood on end and his canines were exposed. His tail was stiff. A frisson of fear rippled through me – it seemed a fight was inevitable.
I knew I should move. Agelius would be distracted with me here, trying to fight the other wolf and keep me safe at the same time.
And while I remained, I gave the beta more incentive to fight.
I made myself as small as possible, and shielded by Agelius’ muscular form, slowly backed away until I melted into the bush.
I heard Agelius’ warning growl, a snarl and the thud of bodies coming together. Scrabbling and thumping filled my ears as I turned and fled to the only place in these mountains that I felt safe and where I knew Agelius would find me.
******
I shivered.
The last time I’d been here, I’d been in my human form, and I’d had a hot, sexy stranger wrapped around me.
I’d been burning up with my heat and half out of my mind with pain (at first), then lust and filthy fucking desire.
I’d had this perfect stranger’s cock buried deep inside me with his knot pressing hard into my channel.
I’d gone from the depths of misery to riding the highest highs of my existence, or, since my life experience wasn’t much, of my imagination (of which I had a lot).
Now, the air was cold, heavy with emptiness and the remnants of my fading memories.
Although I’d had some amazing experiences in this place – and I couldn’t help the self-conscious warmth that flushed my body when I thought about what we’d done here – now there was a permeating loneliness about it.
The dark seemed darker, the cold seemed colder.
The cave was empty and secluded, quiet and solitary, and although those had all been the attributes I’d sought when first selecting this place, now it all felt wrong.
Uncertainty crept along my spine, cold fingers of fear tripping from one vertebra to the next, reminding me that my alpha was far away, fighting a battle he wasn’t sure to win.
He would though, wouldn’t he? He was an alpha, and he was fighting to keep what was his, so it would be alright, wouldn’t it?
I had to trust that it would. The thought of enduring the long, lonely years of life without my mate was chilling.
My nostrils twitched, the fine olfactory hairs tingling as they recognized the co-mingled scents of us, residual odor of the days of frenzied sex we’d experienced during my heat.
The old sacks I’d used as bedding were still there and I padded over to them, the exposed rock peeking through the uneven patches of dirt cool on my foot pads.
I lowered my snout and sniffed. The scent of cum and slick was powerful, and through it all, the heady, musky scent of alpha weaved its way into my nasal passages.
My alpha, I reminded myself. Somehow in those wild three days of my heat, we’d bonded so closely that he’d come searching for me afterwards.
His scent was soothing, calming, and I wanted to wrap myself in it, but I couldn’t do that in my current form.
I shifted to my human form. Now my entire body shook, my teeth beginning to chatter. I leant down and picked up the hessian sacks, the harsh fabric stiff and cold, but when I pressed it to my nose, it smelt divine.
I wrapped the scratchy material around me, a warm sheath of protection against the outside world, embedded with Agelius’ reassuring scent. Bathed in that and the glorious smell of our combined ardor, it was hard to worry.
Somewhere out in the wilderness of the forest, my alpha was fighting for his status.
It was part of the natural order. Wolves – and that included shifter wolves – had a hierarchy that had to be fought for and maintained.
As an alpha, Agelius was always going to be called on to assert his dominance.
That didn’t make me worry any less for him, but I accepted that was how things were.
Any guilt I felt that he was in fact fighting to keep me, faded with the realization that as an alpha wolf, it was his fate, whether for me or for another mate.
My eyelids fluttered closed, my head sank back against the uneven rock wall, and I clutched the sack tighter around me. Even days after, the residual pheromones in the fabric were strong enough to soothe me. Yes, I told myself, Agelius was a young virile alpha. I had nothing to worry about.
With nothing to do but wait, the darkness of sleep drifted over me and I dreamed…
dreamed of running free in the mountains with my alpha, dreamed of days beneath the golden sun, nights beneath the silvery moon.
I dreamed of joy and friends, of mountain streams, of hunting foxes and rabbits.
I dreamed of warm hands running over my sides and back, stretching down to the small of my back, but no matter how hard I willed them to go further, they didn’t.
I dreamed of warmth, of firm muscles and a solid chest dusted with dark hair pressed to mine, hair so coarse it prickled and scratched, and scraped against my skin…
“I’m here,” a deep gravelly voice whispered close to my ear.
I startled, the coarse fiber of the hessian bag grazing my skin. A sharp intake of air filled my nostrils with the most glorious scent, and down below I began to harden, even though I was still disorientated.
Strong arms were wrapped around me, one around my shoulders, one on the small of my back. I wriggled, subtly trying to get that hand to slip lower. I felt heat rise in my cheeks. I shouldn’t be doing this.
“You’re awake?” it was half statement, half question.
“Alpha,” I breathed into the hairs of his chest. I was half out of it, somewhere between asleep and awake, and all the more emboldened for it. “When you said you’d get me out of the pack, what… what did that mean?”
The sudden expansion of his chest nudged me away, in time with the faint inhale, and I wondered if I’d overstepped. Perhaps he had no intention of claiming me. When he spoke, his voice rumbled through his chest to mine.
“I want you as my mate… if you want that too.”
I sighed, the tension in my body releasing with the breath I’d been holding.
“More than anything.” I was glad he couldn’t see the pink stain of embarrassment in the darkness of the cavern. Goddess, I sounded so needy. Where the fuck had this side of me come from? And it looked like I wasn’t going to stop there either. Fuck a duck. “Make me yours,” I begged. “Claim me.”
Warm lips nuzzled my ear and a tongue rasped over the shell of the ear. “I’m more than willing to do that,” he murmured, “but why so urgent?”
“I don’t want to turn up in your pack looking like…
nothing.” It was hard to explain, but I felt self-conscious about walking into a new pack where I knew no-one.
Maybe I worried too much about other people’s opinions, but what would the pack think?
That I was just, I dunno, some tag-along, a charity case?
Then a horrible thought occurred to me – what if he already had a mate? What would I be then?
“You aren’t already mated are you? Because if you are, I don’t think I want to come…”
“Ssh,” his large hands ran up and down my bare back soothingly. “Of course I’m not. I want you as my mate. Though we can’t do that officially yet… stupid rules the Council brought in a while back.”