Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
C hance
“Where is she?!” I demand as soon as I enter my brother’s house.
Ms. Elsie sent me a text minutes ago telling me that Emery ran off an hour ago and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
“We don’t know,” Linda says, coming from behind Ms. Elsie.
“What happened?” I hadn’t given Ms. Elsie time to explain the situation to me when she texted me. I just told her I was on my way.
“She went to the stationery store to get some notebooks for her project.”
“What project?”
Ms. Elsie squints. “She didn’t tell you? She wants to create a written history of our pack.”
“She’s our pack’s new storyteller,” Linda says happily.
“No!” My wolf and I bark out at the same time.
“Chance, she?—”
“No!” I insist, cutting her off. I’m too familiar with the fates of all of the storytellers in our pack’s history. They don’t live long and I’ll be damned if I let anything happen to Emery. She will not fall to our pack’s poor fate with storytellers.
“Where is she?” I demand to know cutting off whatever Ms. Elsie was about to say.
“We don’t know. Apparently, she had a run-in with Gloria in the stationery store before she ran off.”
Ms. Elsie steps forward, taking my hand in hers. “Chance.”
Though I can’t hear her tone, the look in her eyes, the gentle way she clasps my hand in both of hers, tells me, it’s soft, like she’s about to deliver news I’m not going to like.
“We think she knows … about you.”
Ms. Elsie doesn’t elaborate on what that’s supposed to mean. But I already know.
I withdraw my hand from hers and immediately head out the door without a backward glance. My first priority is to find Emery.
She’s not familiar with this area. Ms. Elsie and the other woman said she ran in the direction of the mountains, not into town.
There are thousands of trails and false trails out in these damn mountains. One wrong turn could lead to a fall off the side of a cliff.
I don’t bother with removing my clothes before I shift into my wolf form. Clothes be damned. We need to find her.
She could be hurt, scared and fucking alone out here. Day is already turning to night, the sun starting its descent behind the mountains for nightfall.
I won’t sleep until Emery is back safe in my bed where she fucking belongs.
Mate!
Mine!
My wolf proclaims. Not for the first time, I don’t argue with him. He’s right. Emery is ours.
But that causes the question to arise whether or not she feels the same about me? Now that she knows about me, according to Ms. Elsie.
My brokenness.
Is that why she ran away?
Again, I push those thoughts aside. Now is not the time to think about my defaults.
About two miles out from our pack’s compound I raise my snout and sniff the air. My nostrils fill with the sweetest most enticing scent I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.
Mate.
She’s close. I sniff at the ground, scenting the overturned rocks and stones along one of the trails. The stronger her scent becomes, the faster my paws move. It’s as if she’s calling me with her smell alone.
The trail is windy. Though it’s miles out from our compound, I’m familiar with it. It’s a trail I’ve followed many times in my years on different runs.
After about ten minutes, I arrive at a familiar opening. About fifty meters down the trail is a cave opening. It’s not quite visible from this distance given the shape and scope of the shrubbery and mountains, but I know it’s there.
My wolf senses her inside of the cave. I let him lead the way, bringing me closer to her.
It’s dark as I enter, but my wolf sight allows me to see clearly. My eyes land on the far wall.
There she is. Her back is to me, as she looks over the writings on the cave walls. As soon as I step one paw inside of the cave, she turns to me. I want to go to her, but the last time she saw me in my wolf form, she became terrified.
She might know a little more about who and what I am, but I still don’t want to frighten her. Especially, if the reason she ran away in the first place is because she found out the truth about me.
“Chance?” Her lips form my name.
My wolf lets out a howl. He aches for something we can’t have. To hear her voice. He, just as badly as me, wants to know every note.
But hearing is a luxury we don’t possess.
Emery, though, doesn’t back away. The fear that invaded her eyes the last time I presented myself in this form in front of her, isn’t there.
Encouraged, I step closer until I’m close enough to run my nose against her leg. I sniff making sure there aren’t any injuries.
She’s not hurt.
Mate!
The only word my wolf can come up with.
But it’s the only word he needs when she reaches down and brushes her hand over the top of my head. A whine pours out of my mouth and I nudge her leg with my nose.
She gives me exactly what I want and does it again and again.
Shivers run throughout my body from her touch. And when she lowers herself to eye level, while stroking her hands through my fur, I feel freer than at any point in my life.
“You’re so soft,” I read the words on her lips.
My wolf whines and purrs again before licking her hands and then nudging closer to her to lick her cheek. She grins widely and her neck vibrates in what I can assume means she’s laughing.
We’re making her laugh.
My wolf sniffs every part of her, stopping until our nose reaches her belly. He can sense it.
Her wolf.
She’s in there and she wants to come out.
I’ve sensed it for days. Emery’s scent has changed over the past week. Her wolf scent is strengthening. Her senses are much sharper. Now that those pills, whatever the fuck they were, have been removed, her wolf has a chance to grow, to awaken.
Though the change has taken place quicker than I would’ve suspected. I don’t doubt that at the next supermoon, Emery will undergo her first shift.
That remembrance, makes me recall the danger that comes along with this event. It’s rare, but there have been shifters who were unable to endure the pain and discomfort of that first shift. While exact numbers are unknown, some wolves don’t survive.
It’s much worse for lone wolves. But rarely does a wolf have their first shift alone. Most lone wolves become so after being kicked out of a pack, sometime after they’ve shifted for the first time.
Emery won’t be alone either for her first shift. She’s here with me.
Mine!
My wolf growls and I agree because I’m done denying the truth.
Emery belongs to me.
When she drops to her knees and buries her face into the crook of my neck my wolf purrs and whines in utter satisfaction. It’s as close as he can get to her wolf. Until she shifts.
It’s also clear that Emery needs this and there isn’t anything I could deny her.
Not in my wolf form.
Or my human form.
“I was terrified of you the first time I met you,” her lips say.
My wolf whines at the thought of her being afraid of him.
“I’m sorry,” she replies while pulling back to look us in the eye. “Looking at you now, I know you’re still Chance. The man with the glowing eyes who saved me that night in my motel, and from those wolves at the diner, who brought me to his home and promised to help me find my sister when she was missing.”
She swallows. “I’m sorry for being afraid of you.”
I lick her cheek as a way of telling her there’s nothing to apologize for. I know she understands when a rumble in her throat occurs from her laughter. Even in my wolf form, my chest tightens with the yearning to know what it sounds like when she laughs.
“You’re amazing,” she says.
Her eyes move to the wall behind us then back to me. “The history of your pack is beautiful.” She points to the pictures and hieroglyphic-like drawings on the walls of the cave.
“These were written by some of your ancestors, weren’t they?”
I nod.
She smiles and slowly rises to her feet. “I’ll start here then.”
I twist my head to the side and let out a small whine.
“For my research to do the recorded history of your pack,” she says, answering my question. “It’s my gift to you for saving me and to your pack for allowing me to stay here for a while.”
Pain lances through my chest. She’s speaking as if she won’t be here for long.
“What?” Emery asks. “Is someone coming? Is that why you’re howling?”
To answer her questions, I can’t remain in my wolf form. Though he wants to remain like this, to be closer to her, to sense her wolf on a level that even I can’t sense while in my human form, I push my wolf all the way back.
The transformation from my wolf to my human takes less than a few seconds at this point.
Emery stares at me wide-eyed as I stand before her. Her mouth ajar, which does nothing to help me keep my wolf tamped down and in control.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” she finally says. Then her eyes dip down to my chest, further down to my abs, and further still, until they reach my very erect cock.
“Or that,” she confesses as she glances back up at me.