Page 35 of Mating Season
My eyes widened as I looked to the trees.
“I ripped the cameras out when I first woke up,” Fallon explained, sensing my nervousness.
I tried to take a step back and regain control of the situation, but Ranger held fast to my hand.
His deep laughter wrapped around me like the shadows cloaking the forest, blocking out the sights until I could only focus on him. “Hold on, Luna. Let’s get back to the part where you said you were running this season with me.”
“Oh.” I cringed. I really did say that.
Hurt flashed across Ranger’s eyes, but it was gone in a blink, and I watched as his face turned to stone. “We’ll lay ground rules. Get that contract written up.”
He was throwing my teasing words back at me but there was no humor in them anymore.
“That’s not what I meant.” I grabbed his arm before he could turn away. “I just…”
He look at my hand where it clung to his forearm before raising his eyes to meet mine.
Words, Aspen.
“I want to be with you.”
“But,” he prompted.
I squirmed under his full attention. “No buts. I just need time to figure this Luna thing out.”
“I told you I’d give you time,” he said. “Which is why I’ll find anotherceremonialfemale to help lead the run.”
Ceremonial? What did that mean?
Not his mate.
I let out a tense breath. “You’d do that for me?”
“I made you a promise that I’d give you anything you want.” Ranger searched my face as if he couldn’t understand why I hadn’t remembered. “If you need time, I’ll smash every clock in the world.”
“Enough with the threats.” I choked back a sob. He was such a beast. I loved that about him. But I sucked at emotions. I didn’t know how to say this was all too much, too fast. And I didn’t know if there’d ever be enough time to truly process the whirlwind we’d found ourselves in.
Ranger turned, snarling, as he put me behind his back. John came crashing through the woods. He was breathless and in human form as his nieces stayed as wolves, trotting behind.
“Did you figure out what you’re going to do?” John asked Ranger. “Because we’re not going to make it to tomorrow night.”
I slid my hand into Ranger’s, holding it tightly as I felt the tension in him build. I ached to soothe it. And so that’s what I did. “I’m coming with you.”
He turned his tortured expression toward me. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I want to.” Thank the Goddess I was standing downwind so he didn’t get a face full of my slight lie. “What exactly am I supposed to do though?”
*
This was some serious bullshit.
My whole adult life I’d been gypped and I was still pissed about it as my wolf trotted alongside Ranger’s wolf down the mountain. Fallon, Beau, John, and his nieces ran with us.
I could sense Trenton out in the woods trailing us at a distance. We were still connected through our pack link until I officially accepted another Alpha as my own or the government shifter relations agency assigned me to another pack. But I refused to acknowledge Trenton despite his earlier apology. I wanted absolutelynothingto do with Nuva Pack.
Lunas or their stand-ins typically led the females on the run. I sure as hell didn’t know that before today. Linda, Derek’s wife and our pack Luna, wouldn’t even come to the run during mating season. I didn’t know to question it because I’d never known another way. In other packs, females stuck together–even just for ceremony–and made sure they were okay, protecting their group from males gone rogue and encouraging each other until they selected a mate.
I was cheated and robbed of what sounded like a beautiful experience just because I was born into a shitty pack. It was worse that I didn’t have a mother or female figure alive in my life to tell me how messed up it was.