Chapter 4
Chapter Four
“This is a waste of time,” I huff out. “I don’t understand why we didn’t arrange to transport to the Durrand pack lands instead of driving.”
This morning, after spending the entire night taking care of things, Dom flew in the window I’d left open for him, and once he shifted, announced we were going on a road trip to the Durrand pack lands.
Since the Durrand territory borders The Wilds, where the Albasynnian Coven is located, it makes sense to stop there, but the turquoise Ford Falcon Dom is speeding down the highway in doesn’t seem our most efficient form of travel to get there.
Dom listens to my complaint like he has all the rest of them since we departed on the trip: with an easy grin and a suggestion for yet another roadside attraction he thinks we should stop for. This time, though, he meets my bitching with a pointedly raised eyebrow.
“Transportation spells are pricey. I bought one for our escape out of the coven once we have the orb, but since I’m the one funding this heist,”—he side eyes me—“I get to choose the modes and means of transportation.”
Chagrined, I sink back in the leather seats of the classic car. He’s right. Without his help—both monetarily and logistically—I would have no way of reaching the coven or retrieving the orb. I don’t have any right to complain, especially since my bitching has nothing to do with transportation.
My feelings are hurt. He exploded my world last night.
Made me feel things. Even worse, he made me want things, and then he left me.
But that’s not his fault. I was meant for a small life.
Dom flies through the stars. We would never work together, and I shouldn’t take my sadness over that fact out on Dom.
I need to make amends. “Didn’t you say that corn maze was somewhere around here?”
He looks over at me, irritation forgotten, his mouth stretching into a wide smile, and his eyes sparking with kidlike excitement. “You really want to check it out?”
Hungry for any time spent with him, I answer him with an enthusiastic yes that has nothing to do with corn mazes.
We pull into the drive of the main pack house and are greeted by at least a hundred shifters, none of whom are older than their early twenties.
Seeing Dom emerge from the car, they crowd him, wrestling each other to get in line to hug him, slap him on the back, and for some, take the opportunity to flirt with him shamelessly.
Watching the many blatant invitations he receives, I can’t help wondering how many of them he’s been with, and if I’ll have to watch him rekindle old flames while I’m fulfilling the terms of our agreement.
I start to move away, but his hand immediately reaches out and pulls me back closer to him while he introduces me to his pack.
Expecting to be met with suspicion or ignored, I’m more than a little surprised when they then turn their attention to me and welcome me in a friendly but thankfully more subdued fashion.
Unused to all the attention, I try my best to return their welcome, but after the initial introductions are made, I mostly stay quiet by Dom’s side.
Soon, most of them return to their work.
After finding that we haven’t eaten yet, a young alpha boy runs to the communal eating hall and brings us back two huge sandwiches that look like they could feed ten people.
Dom notices me looking at our food with huge eyes.
“All shifters have huge appetites, but wolf shifters consider a meal like this an appetizer.”
I laugh. The carefree sound coming out of me shocks me. Dom looks over at me like I just awarded him a prize and tries—and succeeds—several more times to pull the sound from me again as we eat.
“There’s Keira.” He nods to a short, curly-haired woman carrying a shovel across the grounds in a determined gait.
He stands up from the bench where we’re eating lunch.
“I need to talk to her about arrangements for tomorrow. I’ll be back as soon as I formalize our plans,” he says and runs to catch up to her.
As I watch him make his way to the woman, I’m amazed at how much of the electricity from the air he takes with him as he goes.
Everything seems brighter and more colorful when he’s near.
Don’t get used to it. Soon you’ll have to get used to the sedate, monotonous pace of the Order again.
And that’s what you want, I remind myself.
Needing a distraction from the fact that the idea of returning to the Order doesn’t fill me with the comfort it should, I turn my attention to the commotion going on in the town square.
“No. Over there,” Brynn, the nice omega I met earlier, insists impatiently. “The tree should be in the middle of the town square so it’s the center point and everyone can see it from all directions.”
“I don’t know why we’re even doing this,” Kade, the young pack alpha, growls as he glares at the huge, freshly cut evergreen he’s holding. “We haven’t bothered with a Christmas tree in years.”
If it were me, I would get as far away from the frustrated alpha as possible—especially one as scary looking and with as fierce a reputation as Kade.
The tall but skinny omega doesn’t seem threatened.
He goes over to the alpha and steps directly in front of him.
“Because we’re not at war anymore, Kade,” Brynn says softly.
“The kids—all of us actually—deserve to bring some of our traditions back now that every single day isn’t only about survival. ”
“There are still packs that believe we’re weak. That we’re too young to be the ones to hold the border. We can’t afford to—”
“We can afford to take one night to decorate a tree,” he says and puts his hands on Kade’s shoulders. The move seems to calm the agitated alpha. “We’re always going to have enemies, but it’s important we remember how to live as a community again, or what in the hell have we been fighting for?”
Kade doesn’t reply. He just picks up the gigantic evergreen and moves it to the center of the town square. Brynn watches him with a hungry yearning that clearly reveals his feelings for the alpha.
He notices me observing him and blushes at being caught. I smile at him, trying to assure him his secret is safe with me. Walking over to the bench, he sits down next to me. “I’m usually better at hiding my feelings than that.”
“I’m sure Kade didn’t see you watching him,” I assure him.
“Oh, he already knows how I feel about him,” Brynn says.
“When I was nine, I quite naively told him, and everybody else in the pack, that we were mates and would someday be bound.” He runs his hand through his dark, wavy hair.
“I couldn’t understand their disbelief, when it was something I’d always known and taken for granted as fact. ”
“Why was it so unbelievable?”
“Because I’m an omega whose magic has never presented. No one believed the future Lead Alpha’s mate could ever be a shifter as powerless as me. They thought I was just experiencing a silly, obsessive crush.” He lets out a long sigh. “Everyone still does.”
“If everyone knows, then why bother to hide it?”
“Because my feelings for him make him feel guilty. Like he’s led me on, when he’s only ever thought of me like a little brother.
” Brynn sends a longing look toward the alpha, who is busy securing the tree by tethering it to several grounded spikes.
“Kade has enough worry on his shoulders that he doesn’t need to feel guilty for not believing we’re destined. ”
“But you still believe you two are meant to be mates?”
“Every instinct tells me we belong to each other.” He studies me to gauge my reaction. “You probably think I’m deluding myself like everyone else does.”
I think about his story for a minute before responding.
“I can’t say if Kade is your mate,” I tell him truthfully, “but I can tell you that your status as a magicless omega has nothing to do with being powerful enough to deserve to be his mate.” I turn toward him because I want him to hear what I have to say next.
“As a non-practicing mage, I can tell you magic is just one kind of power. Today, I watched you bravely challenge your alpha because you realized your pack needed more than warfare to be their only focus. That’s a rarer, stronger kind of power, and both Kade and your pack would be more than fortunate if the Fates deemed him worthy enough to be your mate. ”
“Thank you, Ari.” Brynn places his hand over mine in gratitude. “I think I really needed to hear that today.”
I grip his hand back, feeling like I just made a friend today.
I’ve never truly had one of those, and it loosens up something inside of me.
When Brynn asks me about myself, I end up telling him all about my grandmother, how I became a novitiate scholar at the Order of Mergen, and how I came to be with Dom at the Durrand pack land.
“How romantic,” Brynn says dreamily.
“It’s not romantic,” I correct him way too loudly. At my outburst, several shifters look up from their various work projects and turn to stare at me. “Not romantic at all,” I repeat in a hushed tone. “I hired Dom to steal the orb for me so I can be reinstated into my Order.”
Brynn shifts his head to the side and looks past me. “So it’s strictly a business relationship?”
“Yes,” I say firmly, knowing I’m trying to convince myself as much as I am Brynn.
“Then why is my friend and packmate that I’ve known for most of my life looking at me like he wants to murder me?”
“What?”
“Look behind you,” Brynn says with a smirk.
I twist my body to see Dom behind me.
“How did it go?” I ask.
“Good,” he says absently. The usual roguish glint in his eyes is replaced by a dark glare that is laser-focused on Brynn’s hand, which is still interlocked with mine.
He looks back and forth between us and then puts all his attention on me.
“Ready to head home?” He holds his hand out for me to take.