2. Khalil #2
“I know.” Amos gives him a long look before bringing his attention back to me. “But Khalil also knows better than to expose the pack. He has had his fun with the humans. Now he needs to get serious.”
My wolf pushes hard enough against my ribs that Malik’s gaze flicks toward me. I force him back before the reaction becomes anything more than heat crawling over my skin.
Dax catches none of it. “Please tell me Auden isn’t part of this too.”
“He isn’t.” Dax waits, clearly expecting more. “I have never touched Auden.”
“That is a weirdly specific way to answer me.”
Jonah coughs into his fist, and I decide the run has been delayed long enough. “If everyone has finished discussing my sex life, the moon isn’t going to wait for us.”
The woods swallow the noise from the neighborhood within minutes.
By the time we reach the clearing we use before runs, the houses behind us might as well not exist. Shoes, shirts, jeans, and everything else land in familiar piles beneath the trees while the pressure under my skin climbs higher.
We’ve been coming out three or four nights a week lately, all of us feeling the full moon approaching even with more than a week left.
Rhys shifts first, his body dropping into a dark brown wolf before he shakes out his coat and bumps hard into Dax’s leg.
Dax laughs, strips off the rest of his clothes, and shifts after him, his black wolf immediately snapping playfully at Rhys’ shoulder.
Malik follows them, larger than both, while Jonah takes longer before settling into a pale wolf with a thickened middle.
Malik moves toward him the instant his paws hit the ground.
If you circle me one more time, I’m going home, Jonah tells him through the pack link.
Jonah trots past his mate without another glance, and Rhys takes off after him. Dax follows with Malik at his heels, the four of them disappearing between the trees while their voices scatter through the bond.
I shift last. My human body has never warned anyone properly about the size of my wolf.
The change drives me down before muscle and bone surge outward, my shoulders widening, my chest growing heavy enough that the earth feels different beneath four paws.
Rhys and Malik are powerful Alphas in their own right, but neither wolf reaches my shoulder when we stand together.
I was built to hold this pack, and every time I shift, the bond settles around me like it knows it too.
I stare into the forest instead of following them.
Elio’s scent still clings faintly to my skin beneath the stronger scents of earth and wolf.
My animal recognizes it immediately, pressing forward with the same restless certainty he showed the first time Elio ended up beneath me.
Zaire had done the same thing to him months later, something inside my wolf reaching toward a human when every rule I know says there should have been nothing there to reach for.
Behind me, Amos still hasn’t shifted. “I know.”
I turn my head, one ear angling toward him while he stands beside our clothes. Know what?
“You didn’t sleep with Elio because he was convenient, and you didn’t take Zaire because you were bored. You’ve never done anything just for fun.” Amos meets my wolf’s stare without flinching. “I felt you afterward both times. Your wolf called to them.”
A growl rolls through my chest. I’m assuming you haven’t told anyone.
“No, but mostly because I don’t understand it.” He slips his hands into his coat pockets. “I have been an elder for forty-three years, and I have never seen an Alpha’s wolf call to a human either.”
Wolves and humans can’t mate, Amos.
“They shouldn’t be able to.” Amos looks toward the forest where the others have already disappeared. “Which is not the same answer.”
My claws press deeper into the damp ground while the moonlight catches between the branches above us. You just told Dax turning them is impossible.
“It is.” He returns his attention to me. “Which is why I’m telling you to be careful with whatever you choose next. This full moon doesn’t feel like the ones before it, Khalil, and I would rather you prepare for an aftermath we don’t understand than assume there cannot be one.”
I hold his stare, my wolf restless beneath the warning.
Amos exhales and finally begins unbuttoning his coat. “I have an Omega from the North Ridge Pack prepared to come here next Saturday evening. He understands the situation, he is willing to consider the bond, and if you have not chosen someone before then, I expect you to meet him before moonrise.”
You arranged a mate without asking me.
“I arranged an option.” Amos drops his coat onto the pile before meeting my eyes again. “What you do with that option is your decision. If you refuse him and remain unbonded when the moon rises, the pack passes to Dax.”
Dax’s voice cuts through the link from somewhere deep in the forest. Are you two coming, or did Dad finally get too old to keep up?
Amos laughs under his breath. “Your heir is impatient.”
My heir is an asshole, I push through the mindlink, hard enough for the others to catch it.
I heard that, Dax answers immediately, amusement carrying clearly through the bond.
I push off the ground before he can say anything else, power driving through my legs as I tear into the trees. Amos’ laughter fades behind me while the forest opens ahead, and it takes less than a minute to catch the others despite the head start they had.
Amos’ voice reaches me one last time. Have your fun on Saturday night.
How do you even know about that? I ask before remembering that the elders always seem to know things before they’re told.
But after Saturday, I hope you will put more effort into the pack you’re supposed to run. Fate may punish you otherwise.
I had been bracing for the threat Amos always brought but I didn’t expect it feel so heavy.