Chapter 28 Orion
Pacing the woods, I look down at the time on my phone. She should be here by now. We're an hour's walk through the trail, but she should be running. It's been ninety minutes.
Grayson isn't answering his phone.
So, I pace. Inching further into the woods.
I promised I wouldn't interfere. And I won't. I want her to feel strong as a wolf, to have the same shifting abilities as the rest of us, as any pup in our clan would. But I also don't like Gray's methods. I mean, I get it, but also…
Mona isn't fragile, though. She can do this.
I tell myself this over and over again, even as my legs eat up the distance through the trees. Ten yards in. Twenty.
Where is she?
I hear wolves howling in the distance, but nothing feels amiss. Maybe she's run off course.
I pick up my phone again, checking the time. Ninety-eight minutes. "Come on, firefly, where are you?" I call into the trees. I text Grayson again. And just as I hit send, I feel it.
A warm pull inside me. Tugging me towards her.
I know what this is. I've felt it hundreds—maybe a thousand—times before.
A grin stretches across my face, and I scratch my beard.
I don't know what's happening out there, but whatever it is—my mate just accepted her place in this clan.
One might think her acceptance as Luna is about me and Grayson, about her mate-bond to the Lune. But it isn't about us. Not just us, anyway. It's about everyone. The entire clan. Every woman, man, and child.
My mate is Silent Peak now. The scent of the mountains will cling to her, and any shifter she encounters will know by scent that she is not a rogue. She belongs to us. And we belong to her.
Smiling, I savor the moment, retreating toward the cabin to give her space.
I'm barely back through the clearing when it strikes—a searing flash in my chest. A second later, a howl—a warning, this time—cuts through the open sky, through the trees, screaming danger.
My gut twists with dread. My mate is out there. Mona is fucking out there.
I'm moving before my brain even catches up. I tear off my clothes as I leap, landing on all fours, and then my wolf bounds through the trees in a gallop. We charge past other wolves, all racing toward my mate, our omega. Our feet thunder through the forest, and it sounds like a wild stampede.
The scent of magic, faint at first, grows stronger with each step. And then I see Kellen, holding my mate in his arms, running full speed toward us. My wolf skids to a stop, and we shift back.
"What the fuck happened?" I barely get the words out before I'm ripping Mona's tiny auburn wolf from his arms. There's blood on her arm and leg, but no visible injury. I try to look her over, but her whole body squirms, annoyed at being manhandled.
"Witches," Kellen rasps. "I need to go back."
"Go!" I shout. I left my phone in my pants pocket closer to the cabin, but Grayson will have run toward the foray. Kellen will tell him I have our mate.
I turn and sprint back toward the house while Beep growls and thrashes in my grip, claws digging into my forearms. But I lock my arms around her, no matter how much her wolf snarls.
When we finally reach the clearing by the cabin, far from the magic, I release her.
"Don't run," I command, setting her down. I back away, eyes never leaving her as I snatch my discarded clothes from the ground. Yanking my pants on, I wait for her to shift back. Beep's low chuff breaks the silence, and she turns to look back through the woods.
Then she sneezes, and on her exhale, I catch it—the scent of magic.
"Shift back," I tell her. "Now, do it now."
I barely have time to appreciate seeing her wolf for the first time.
A tiny little thing, with a shiny auburn coat and white spots near her muzzle.
I wait, and what should take only moments stretches into a minute.
Then two, and three. Finally, her hind legs elongate, fur disappearing along taut stretches of skin.
I should look away.
I don't.
Freckles in a million shades mark her, more concentrated on her arms and torso.
Despite how much we've fed her since she came to stay with us, Mona still has that look about her—like she went too long without a proper meal.
But she's filling in, taking on the shape of an omega.
Thick curves. Wide hips, and on all fours while she catches her breath, I can't help it, my cock presses against my sweats, suddenly straining and sensitive as I stare at her shapely ass.
If she parted her legs just a little more, I'd catch a glimpse of her pussy.
Mona drops her head to the ground, then sits back and turns to face me. Large, dusky pink nipples tip full, round breasts. I force my gaze up, and she's scowling.
I toss her the shirt I tore off earlier. She slips it on and comes to a stand. I try to clear my throat, but all it does is draw her attention downward. There's no hiding my erection, so I don't even bother.
"What happened out there?" I ask.
She shakes her head and turns back toward where we came from. "I don't know. We were playing. Drinking water from the stream. And then…"
Her voice trails off, and she takes a step closer to the forest.
"We're not going back there. They can handle it. Kellen said it was witches?"
There's a reason we patrol so diligently. Our enforcers are constantly running perimeter checks, ready for anything.
So, how in the fuck did witches get on our land? So close to the heart of our clan?
Mona turns back to me. She looks stunned. I tilt my head toward the cabin. "Come on, let's get you inside. I'll call Doc. You still smell like magic."
"It's on me?" she shrieks.
My t-shirt hangs loose on her slight frame, shifting with her movements as she twists around, frantically trying to inspect herself. The hem barely covers her ass cheeks. I step closer and steady her with my hands on her shoulders.
"It's not on you. They couldn't have spelled you, not that quickly.
Magic is… it takes effort, and usually a group.
Witches have elemental power—they can start a fire, conjure wind, that sort of thing.
But to spell someone, especially a shifter, it takes a concentrated effort.
In the time it took for me to feel you joining our clan and Kellen and Eli's howls alerting us to trouble, they couldn't have spelled you. "
She whimpers but keeps patting her sides, like there's something invisible stuck to her. Then she looks up at me, her big, bright blue eyes wild with worry. "But you said I smell like magic," she chokes out.
I shake my head. "Spells and compulsions take time—more than they had. You smell like magic, but they would have needed more time for it to be effective. Doesn't mean they didn't try. You're okay, I promise. But come on, let's get you to Doc. He'll check to be sure."
She hesitates, eyes darting back toward the forest's edge, but finally relents, sliding her fingers into mine.
We walk around the side of the house toward the front, and when we get inside, I say, "I'm going to call Doc, have him look you over."
She waves me off. "I'm fine. I'm not hurt." I'm relieved to hear her earlier worries have eased, but I'm not taking any chances.
"And the blood?"
She frowns and looks at her arms. There's a faint streak of red, hard to see with the dirt and freckled skin, but I can smell it. "Oh, that. Eli bit me."
"He what?"
"To scare me, I think." She grins wide, and her lovely face lights up, blue eyes sparkling. "It worked!"
I let out a strangled laugh and try to temper my irritation. "I'm glad it worked, firefly. But tell me again how he bit you?"
"Don't be like that. I mean, Grayson's methods aren't conventional, sure. But it worked! We got our shift down to like two minutes. And Beep thinks she's figured out what's wrong with us."
I hold the door open, and she steps in, barefoot, heading to the kitchen. I follow, unable to pull my eyes from her ass, the tiniest amount of cheek peeking out beneath my oversized t-shirt with each step she takes.
"And what does Beep think is wrong?"
"Is it weird that I'm really hungry?" She asks without answering. I shake my head no. "Ravenous, actually. Is that the shifting or the magic?"
I lean into her, inhaling the pulse point on her neck. She shivers, and I smile and step back. "Either. Wolves are always hungry."
She chews on her lip and looks out toward the direction of the forest.
"They're fine, Mona. You haven't been here long, so we haven't had a chance to show you, but our enforcers are some of the strongest in the world. They're okay, I promise," I reassure her. She nods, some of the tension leaving her shoulders.
She doesn't ask: if they are amongst the strongest in the world, how did a witch get past our borders? They took Lily when she was at work, further down the mountain, closer to the humans, where we don't patrol as much. But they never should have made it this far onto our land.
I'm second-in-command, I should be out there. But Grayson has it under control. And wild horses couldn't drag me away from Mona after she had an encounter with witches.
I'm glad to see she's recovering from the event.
She makes herself at home in the kitchen, pulling wrapped meats and cheese from the fridge while she talks with her hands.
She sets everything down on the counter and pulls off the napkin draped over a basket of biscuits, then reaches up on her tiptoes for plates from the cabinet.
I should help.
But as she reaches, the t-shirt rides up her ass, and the image of me dropping my pants and bending her over the counter, sliding inside her slick heat, clouds fucking everything. It literally slams into me so forcefully I need to reach out and grip the back of a nearby chair.
Sometimes I don't think she even notices her omega pheromones. Or what they do to me. I don't know how I'll ever recover from her first heat. Is that what's happening?
Why the sight of a little skin sends my alpha into a fucking frenzy?