Chapter 15 Mona
The floor is hard. Filthy. Slick with sweat, blood, and other fluids.
Ancient stone walls and silver bars cage me in.
Magic hangs in the air like a storm about to break.
Heavy, wet. It smells like a wolf's magic, but stronger, more concentrated—if the starry midnight sky were bottled and someone just popped the cork.
A woman's ragged breathing cuts through the darkness.
Her pupils are blown. Magic pours off her, she reeks of it.
But she smells like a wolf, too. Her clothes hang in tatters off her rail-thin frame.
Fur erupts across her skin in patches, as if both she and her wolf have no control.
Stuck in limbo, trying desperately to… do something.
It surges and recedes as she fights the shift.
Her bare feet are filthy, all of her is, but she doesn't seem to care. She digs her near-claws into her flesh, squeezing her breasts, raking her fingers down between her legs. I jerk back, horrified, but she doesn't even care that I'm standing here.
In fact, she doesn't notice me at all.
"Please!" The word explodes from her mouth, half-sob, half-howl. "Please!"
It's raw and desperate, and she keeps begging, touching herself, and I feel embarrassed seeing her like this. But she's not looking at me. She's looking through me.
I step back and follow her gaze.
Him.
It's him.
Dread and surprise rip through me, freezing me in place.
I know him. The shape of him. I know those eyes.
I know that scar. And the scent. Petrichor—earth after fresh rain.
Deceptively clean, with a citrus undercurrent.
Lemons and oranges. For a second it seems like he's looking straight at me.
And I hate myself for it, but my traitorous body ignites.
There's relief in seeing him, scenting him again.
It's euphoric, like a drug flooding my veins.
He's so beautiful it hurts.
His hands rise in surrender, but the look on his face is anything but passive. The woman launches herself at him. I move without thinking—to protect her, or him, I can't say—but she passes right through me.
I flail in surprise, my knees buckling, but just before I meet the filthy, slick floor—I jolt upright, gasping. The sheets are knotted around my legs, cold sweat drips down my forehead, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Just a dream.
But nothing like the others I've had of him.
It takes me a second to realize where I am. And that I'm awake.
I take a deep breath.
Grape jelly and peanut butter overpower the underlying scent of fresh grass and cottonwood trees. The small boy standing at the door to the room, wearing a purple dinosaur t-shirt and a toothy smile smeared with jam, stares unabashedly.
The window at the top of the room, edged close to the ceiling, shines with bright sunlight, and I can tell by the rays it must be warm and high in the sky. Mid-morning.
I groan and stretch. It takes me a second to collect the puzzle pieces. I'm in a bed again. Or, still. The last thing I remember was waking up in the afternoon and finding him staring down at me like I was his precious.
I breathe through the rising panic. I'm alone—except for the strange little boy staring at me. The men aren't here. Beep is with me. Calm but alert. I'm safe. I'm okay.
I snuck onto their lands, got caught in the office. That woman, Andrea, kicked the shit out of me, nearly killed me. Stance stomped on my hand, then carried me to a cell with silver bars. And then there were…
Mates, Beep supplies unhelpfully. I ignore her and keep piecing the night together. Days? Has it been days?
Orion was his name. The calm one with blue eyes. I remember Andrea calling him on the phone. I can't remember the violent one's name.
I drag myself up to a seat, pleased to find the movement nearly pain-free.
The little boy cocks his head, watching me curiously. I narrow my eyes. He narrows his. I sniff. He sniffs.
Wolf. He must have been born like this, not bitten like me; he's so young. His eyes narrow further at my inspection, and I turn away from him to look around the room.
They brought me here and stitched me up. Why would they go through the effort of healing me if they just wanted me dead?
They don't want you dead, Beep says with a yawn, which tells me she's been resting, too. I'm surprised. We've been on the run for so long, unsafe in strange locations, she never really, fully rests when I do.
"They sure have a funny way of showing it," I mumble. "You still mad at me?" Beep was yelling at me, urging me to settle down, but I wouldn't listen. Then the old man knocked me out with drugs.
Depends. Will you do as I say from now on?
A woman's voice calls out, and the boy's eyes go wide before he scurries out of the room, the door clicking shut behind him.
Get up. Must find our mates.
"No, Beep. We need to get out of this place. These shifters are psycho." To remind her why, I gingerly crawl to the edge of the bed, then stretch out my feet, testing the once-shattered bones.
Then yes, I'm still mad.
Whatever.
I don't know where my shoes went. I'm still dressed in my torn, filthy, stolen pants, so that's something. They changed my shirt, but after lifting the hem and seeing the bandage, I appreciate that I'm even dressed and not stuck in a hospital gown.
Groaning, I get up, wobble a bit, then walk over to the door of the spartan hospital room. I follow the fresh grass scent of the little boy down a hallway.
"Oh! Good morning, Omega!" A woman smiles brightly when I approach the room at the end of the hall, the door propped open wide.
She shifts toward me with her arms open, as if she's coming in for a hug.
It catches me by surprise, and I must look panicked because she slows and backs away, her smile faltering.
My mouth opens, ready to tell her that's not my name—she says omega with the same deference Stance used, piling on to my long list of shifter-related questions. But the awkward moment passes quickly, and her smile reappears.
I wave with my fingers. "Hi. Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude."
Her curly black hair is tied into two cute little low buns. I sense her connection with the kid. He must be her son. They have a similar scent; I'm getting better at reading them, plucking out subtle differences. Glancing around, I see that she's restocking and cleaning the room.
"You're not intruding, not at all. I just set a broken arm. Doc and Orion should be right back, I volunteered to watch over you. Plus, Joey was curious. I have to admit, I was too." Pink tinges bright beneath her dark cheeks, but she turns away, stacking boxes of gauze into a small drawer.
The building is set up like an outpatient clinic; it's fairly small, only a few rooms, with a faint smell of disinfectant and blood permeating the walls.
"Are you a doctor?"
She nods proudly but then tilts her head.
"Actually, technically, no, but I've been training under Doc since I was a teenager.
He's got centuries of knowledge under his belt.
When Grayson's father was our Lune, Doc came to stay since they were old friends and he just never left.
We're very lucky to have him here. But with how big the clan is now, it doesn't hurt to have more help.
Maybe Joey here will take up the mantle someday. " She reaches over and messes his hair.
He squints like kids do when their parents are annoying them, then looks at me. "What's it like being an omega?"
His mother opens her mouth, maybe to admonish him, but she smiles awkwardly instead.
"Umm… what do you think it's like?" I deflect.
The boy scrunches his face, and the woman returns to her task of cleaning and restocking.
"I think it's like… when I get to play with the other wolves in the creek, and it's really fun when we splash in the water, and after, I get to shake my fur out real good.
And when Hilde makes moose burgers, and I eat so many, and just before I get really full and my tummy hurts, my wolf is happy he got to eat so much. "
I nod slowly, pursing my lips to hold in a laugh.
"And, I think… umm…" He keeps tilting his head further and further to the side like that helps his concentration, tapping his finger on his little button chin. His mom takes a seat on the clean hospital bed beside him, gaining his attention.
"Joey, why don't you tell us how being around an omega makes you feel?"
He smiles, his chubby cheeks squishing wide. "Calm. And happy," he concludes.
Huh.
The woman turns to me, and I can see questions forming on the tip of her tongue, but I cut her off.
"What was your name again?"
"Oh! I'm so sorry. That was rude of me. I'm Heather. What's yours?"
"Mona. It's really nice to meet you." Considering this is the first normal interaction with a wolf I've had, it's really good to meet her.
She opens her mouth to say something, but before she can, her eyes shoot to the door while the sound of footsteps draws closer.
My heart skips when the scent of chocolate and hazelnut floods my senses, so rich I can taste it.
Orion and Doc step into the room, and I stiffen when I see them.
Orion must have heard our conversation because he addresses me by name.
"Mona. It's great to see you up. How are you feeling?"
His voice is just as comforting as I remember. Somehow familiar and safe. But this time, I'm standing and fully conscious, and it nearly buckles my knees. My omega shivers.
He might as well have propositioned me for sex, considering the way I clutch my shirt like I'm wearing delicate pearls. Beep paces excitedly, but I swallow hard and try my best to act normal, dropping my arm by my side.
Instead of answering him, I drink in his features before reluctantly turning to the older man beside him—Doc, I presume. Haphazard white hair, ancient wisdom behind his kind gray eyes. Heather mentioned his centuries of knowledge… Shifters don't live that long, right? Beep?
She doesn't answer me.