Page 8 of Mating Season
No. No. No.
Goddess help me.
“Mattox, I need you to get Foster and Jones down here with a bag of supplies for the women. See what Jenna can muster up. Get as much food as you can.” I looked my second in command in the eye. “Then get the rest of the pack home. Have the teamsI need ready to attack. As for mating season, you can handle this year without me.”
I knew he felt it, but he refused to acknowledge his relief. “Alpha–”
“Enough,” I cut him off before I heard another loyalty speech. Part of my philosophy as Alpha was to train my pack to function without me. It was time to put them to the test. “You’ve run by my side for the past few years. You know how to lead the pack. Ava can help you with the females. The elders will take care of the rest.”
I hoped I’d be home in time to run it with him, but I wasn’t leaving anything up to chance anymore. My duty was to my pack. I didn’t owe these Alphas anything, but if they wanted to follow me, I didn’t care. First, I needed to make sure my shifters were taken care of though.
“Alpha,”Ivan started. I whirled on him, anticipating the lecture I’d need to give to send him back to McCaw territory where it was safe during the season, but he wasn’t looking at me.
His gaze was trained on the woods where Chad leaned against a tree, smiling. The swelling was almost gone. They always did that; got tough again when the evidence of their loss was wiped away.
“If you can’t get more footage, it’s okay,”Ivan said. “I’ll see what else I can do with what we’ve got.”
“All I want from you is to get home and rest before the season starts.” I clapped Ivan on the back, ignoring Chad’s goading smile. “Don’t worry about anything else. I’ll take care of it.”
Ivan nodded as he slipped away, shifting with Mattox into their wolf forms as they loped back to camp. I wanted to be ready to go within the next ten minutes and told them as much through the pack link. The other Alphas waited, shuffling foot to foot and watching to see what I’d do next as I memorized the maps, sending a file to the base camp tech tent for Jenna to print out.
John clicked his tongue in sympathy. “Are you sure you can take care of all this?”
“I don’t have the slightest clue,” I answered honestly. For the first time in my life, I stood next to someone who might understand and I knew he wouldn’t judge me for it. I liked the feeling more than I should have. “But that’s why you’re coming too.”
5
Aspen
The snowmelt from the mountain peaks fed the icy cold brook that trickled over river rocks in little waterfalls and filled natural pools ankle-deep. I hung my clothes on the low tree branches that lined the water source. Goosebumps pricked my naked skin until my wolf surged forward to take her form.
Finally.She shook her coat out with a deep sigh of satisfaction, taking longer than necessary to stretch out her limbs. We hadn’t fully shifted into her body since the day at the hospital when I’d let her out to entertain the kids.
Time was strange. It’d only been a couple of weeks, but it felt as if months had passed since then. Almost like how an entire good summer could be over in the blink of an eye while a harsh winter month could last a lifetime.
Time is such a human concept.
You would think that.I rested back in the confines of her mind and let her take control.
My wolf huffed her annoyance as she padded over to the little brook to drink her fill.
Sometimes I wonder if things were better in the old days.
Me too.I stared through her eyes as she looked at her reflection in the water. She was a beautiful beast–I could admit my own bias–with water dripping from her snout. I knew she was strong and graceful.My inner strength came from her. It wasn’t the first time I wondered if things would be better with her in full control.
Way back when our ancestors went into hiding after the witch-hunt persecution years, shifters lived mainly in their animal forms. That was when the land was less developed and we had more chance of hiding our families from the humans.
Not that long ago, maybe a hundred years or so, wolf shifters came forward to the human government petitioning for basic rights. There was a flurry of crazy where a lot of shifters went deeper into hiding as fear ran rampant, waiting to see what the humans would do. A select few of the packs took the brunt of the fallout and subjected themselves to government testing.
Human scientists couldn’t come up with an explanation of shifters so the government concluded we werenaturaland deserved unalienable rights. Like we were the ones who were unnatural to begin with.
Right?She scoffed.
Over the years, even our own shifter scientists couldn’t explain why we differed so much from the humans. Evolution theories held some promise since our DNA had advanced hidden sequences that rearranged with the shift. Religious zealots called us mutants and monsters. Even psychologists weighed in, citing the DRM and multiple personality disorder manifesting in a physical form.
Some days I agreed most with that theory since my wolf seemed to be an entirely differentbeing. She argued with me and had her own opinions, more so than I’d read about other wolves. Though I hadn’t been close enough with many other wolves to compare our thoughts with.
Whatever the case, I couldn’t argue that she was the better half. My wolf could keep us hydrated without needing water purification. She could keep our bellies full with a kill and raw meat. And she could empty her bladder by lifting her leg and peeing on a tree without having to drip-dry after.