Chapter 23 Orion #3
"I don't know," she says honestly. She tucks her chin into her hand, squishing up her cheek.
It's cute. I shouldn't find every single thing she does endearing, but I can't help it.
And this close, spending all morning with her—I've been trying to suppress the urge to bury my face in her neck.
To bask in the calm, easing energy that flows effortlessly out of her.
Her omega pheromones are un-fucking-real.
"When we first met that night, I was attracted to him.
More than… I don't know. More than is reasonable, I guess, since he was a complete stranger at a party.
And when he showed up at my apartment, before I'd gotten home, and then, when he attacked me…
I was scared. Terrified. But I still felt…
I don't know, I can't explain it. Calm? I just kept breathing him in, but in a way—" Mona sniffs, and I tense when I see the tears welling in her eyes.
It clouds the arctic blue of her iris, like a sheen of glass, until she wipes away.
I reach out to hold her hand, and she lets me.
"I'm sorry," she whispers.
For fuck's sake. We've made this girl cry too much already. My voice comes out raw. "Don't. You don't need to apologize. You can talk about it, you know."
"But he's, like, your brother. I don't want to—"
"No brother of mine would have hurt you like that. Not unless…"
"Unless what?"
I hedge, but I don't want to lie to her. "Unless he had a very good reason."
She pulls her hand from mine. I almost backtrack to assure her I believe her and I'd kill Silas for hurting her, but like everything else since the very moment we met, she surprises me.
"I've been wondering the same thing."
I lean back in surprise. "…Really?"
She nods, then looks off into the distance, brow scrunching. "Silas told me to go north. That his brother would take care of me. Why would he say that?"
It's exactly what I'd been thinking, but I have no answers. We stew in silence for a few minutes, when I decide to finally broach the reason I wanted to come out here.
"We need to talk about your shift."
"About how slow we are?" She chuckles.
"You know I support you. And I don't want to add to your worries. But five minutes to shift… and that she can only hold her form for a few hours?"
"One time it was almost a whole day! And a bunch of times it was all night. Like seven hours or something."
Her eyes are twinkling, so I know she's not offended.
Until they narrow over my shoulder and I turn to find Grayson storming toward us.
His smoky scent precedes him, like a huffing dragon.
He pauses at one end of the picnic table.
Mona and I are sitting together on the bench, and I can tell he's contemplating fitting his gigantic body on her other side.
Mona sees it too, and she's holding in a laugh, while Gray's expression tightens and he climbs in opposite us.
"How did training go?" he asks, nodding toward the gym.
"Not great," I tell him. "Spaghetti arms here can barely lift a tire."
"Excuse you, I lifted that tire ten times."
"Three."
"Three times. That's more than I've ever lifted a tire, so that's a three-hundred percent improvement rate."
"Who taught you math?"
"I'm just saying, at this rate, I'll be fit as fuck in no time."
"Fit as fuck?"
She lifts her arm and kisses her scrawny-ass bicep.
"You're ridiculous."
She laughs. It's big and throaty and she throws her head back and I fucking feel that shit in my bones.
Grayson watches us volley back and forth, jealousy bleeding into his expression.
"Why do I need to train, anyway?" she asks, finally facing Grayson. They both diligently ignore the tension, his accusations from yesterday, and his unanswered apology at her closed door. And the hour following, where he begged and pleaded in a way I'd never expected of an alpha of his stature.
Grayson narrows his eyes. "How long does it take you to shift?"
Mona shoots me a sharp look, making me wince. "He needed to know," I say guiltily. "Not just as your mate, but as Lune. You're here now, in our clan. That means you're under his protection. He needs to know when one of his wolves needs help."
It may not be the human way, but it's how shifters operate. We support each other, it's the whole point of the hierarchy.
"Well, Grayson," she says icily, "it's none of your business."
He ignores that. "I was told five minutes. Has it always been like that? I want you to write a chronological account of all your shifting activities. We can't help you if we don't know what's going on."
He powers through without pausing for her to recalibrate, which seems to help because she has some sort of internal debate—speaking with her wolf again?—then finally shrugs, rolls her eyes, and says, "Fine. Whatever."
That was fast. Honestly, I expected more anger. Glaring, at least. She continues, "In the last six months I've been a wolf? Yes, it's always been like that."
"How often do you practice?"
Mona hums, propping her chin in her hand again.
"Not every day. Depends where we were staying, if it felt unsafe.
She's stronger, obviously, but gets tired easily, so we moved around a lot, stuck to the suburbs.
Fewer wolves there." She picks at a loose thread on her sleeve, trying to calm her voice.
"They always hunted us. Tried to capture and. .. do things to us. To me."
A knot forms in my gut, hot and tight, as I picture her out there, alone and vulnerable. My fingers twitch with the need to track down every wolf who ever laid a hand on her, to make them pay.
I try to rein in my anger, but Grayson's alpha snarls, his rage flooding to the surface—his massive hands clench into white-knuckled fists, and his energy pulses out at us.
I love Grayson. He's my best friend, my brother, and that raw alpha dominance is the backbone, the fucking safety net of our clan. But since Mona's arrival, he's a goddamn powder keg.
Mona pales, then coughs, like his scent is too much. But she's kind, my mate, because instead of mocking our protective instincts with sarcasm or calling us overbearing—she simply changes the subject, her voice deliberately lighter.
"Beep says I don't let her practice enough. And that's probably true. We haven't had a good place to do that."
"Until now."
Mona smirks. "Yeah, yeah. You're all on the same team, don't worry. She wants me to practice. Says our perfect mates will protect us." She waves it off like the sentiment doesn't land like an anvil in my gut.
Grayson is just as stunned, but he clears his throat and powers forward.
"That is definitely a more complex emotion than I experience with my wolf.
I get feelings from him. As a shifter, you can sense when your animal half wants something or has an opinion.
They have sway over us as we do them. We're the same being yet separate at the same time, two sides of the same coin.
I suspect your methods of communication saved you on the road just as much as her physical strength and your quick thinking. "
Mona blushes. She's trying not to smile, but her body language shifts. A little more toward me, a little more toward him. She's softening. Like a fucking glacier, but it's happening.
But then Gray opens his idiot mouth and keeps talking. This is why he has a second, and why I always travel with him to diplomatic events when meeting with other packs and clans. Because he's a fucking bulldozer with the subtly of a sledgehammer.
"My concern is that you aren't hearing her, but hearing a reflection of yourself. Is it possible you're feeling her desires and misinterpreting them as your own?"
"I'm not crazy," Mona snaps. I reach out and touch her shoulder, but she shrugs out of my grip. One step forward… two fucking leaps back.
"I'm sure that's not what he meant." I glare at Grayson. "Right?"
"I'm not saying you're crazy, Mona. I'm saying, we've never heard of a wolf having an actual conversation with their human.
Or any animal shifter for that matter. I'm trying to get in touch with Kendrick to find out more, but we'd have heard of something like this.
For now, I'm concerned about what's actually going on in your head. "
"You never believe me!" Mona shouts, coming to a stand but falling forward, forgetting the seat is attached to the table.
Gray puts up his hands. "We haven't had enough conversations for me to never anything. I'm just trying to make sense of this, so we can help you."
"Because nothing about me makes sense?"
"Don't put words in my mouth."
"Then don't be a dick."
Jesus, I've never needed this much fucking patience. "Alright, both of you, chill the fuck out," I snap.
Then I freeze. I can't believe I just spoke to my mate like that.
But Mona turns and lifts one eyebrow, and, fuck it, in for a penny.
"Grayson is being an asshole and going about this all wrong.
But we are concerned. We don't think there's anything wrong with you.
You're perfect." And I love you and want you to have my babies.
"But there are so many things that aren't adding up, it might be a good idea if we start examining them.
Starting with how you converse with your wolf.
Because it might have something to do with her stamina. "
"How?" She falters, but doesn't sit back down.
"Well, if she's expending a lot of energy because she's acting on her own and not with you, for one."
Mona and Grayson both contemplate that for a second. Her eyes move quickly and her expression changes. She's having a conversation with her wolf again. So fucking strange.
"Okay, Beep thinks that's a good theory. She's always complaining that I'm not trusting her or whatever, that we aren't in sync, even though that's literally all we work on."
"Then that's what we need to do."
"How?"
"I've got an idea," Grayson says with a crooked smile. It's creepy. Man never smiles, and it looks all wrong on him. Kinda manic. His teeth look sharper than ever.
Mona glances at me nervously.
"You'll train with me tomorrow." And with that, Grayson gets up and walks away.
But not without pausing every few feet to look back at his mate.
Mona turns to me. "Is he always like that?"
"Yes. He's Lune for a reason. He might be a little overbearing, but his methods are sound.
We're not at war, but he trains the enforcers to be ready for it.
We're not poor or weak, but he prepares the entire clan as if we could be at any moment.
Maybe it gets a little tiring for everyone to be on guard, but it pays off.
It's also why we celebrate holidays as a group and have plenty of off days—so we can appreciate what we've built here. "
"You make him sound like such a good guy."
"He is, Mona."
"And you? Are you a good guy?"
She furrows her brow, but a blush crawls up her cheeks, coloring her pale skin beneath the various shades of freckles a soft pink. That look on any other wolf might mean take me to bed and fuck the life out of me, but on her, it's tentative. Questioning.
God, I've always been the good guy. The quiet guy. I'm not a fucking saint, but I'm nothing like Silas, or Grayson for that matter, who've slept their way through half the single wolves in our clan. In their defense, we live a very long time, and wolves are sexual beasts.
But I've always been more reserved. Until this red-headed vixen showed up and imploded my entire world.
I wouldn't have it any other way. But it makes me want to take it out on her. To show her what she's done to me, made me lose all fucking sense.
I'm the calm one. The rational one.
I don't feel so rational right now.
She's all I think about, and not all of those thoughts are pure. In fact, very few of them are.
I turn in the seat, reach out, grip the backs of her knees since she's still standing, and tug her closer. She falls into my lap and I nuzzle that small space behind her ear. It's my new favorite spot. Her omega scent pulses out of her.
"I'm a good guy, Mona. I'm the best guy. I'm your guy."
Jesus, I feel like a fucking teenager. She squeals in my lap and shoves my chest playfully. "You're kind of a dork, Orion."
I sigh, tucking her into my body, resting my chin on her shoulder, breathing in her scent. "I know, Mona. I know."
Then, in one swoop, I lift her and throw her over my shoulder. She shrieks and laughs, slapping my back. "Put me down, alpha!"
"If training with your Lune begins tomorrow, then I want you for the rest of the day today. Let me show you around Silent Peak. Let me show you what it means to be one of us."
I carry her all the way to the parked UTV and drop her in the seat. My lips itch to take hers. My teeth feel heavy. They actually ache with venom.
I want to bite her. Bond her to me for life, so I know for certain she can never run away.
Maybe she can see my alpha at the surface. Ready and waiting for her to accept the bond. Her lips part, but she pulls back, only slightly. It's enough. So I close the door, climb in on the driver's side, and show my mate around our town.