Yes, I want you to! She wanted to scream into her phone in response. She felt so confused, she was beginning to feel a hunger for Archer, a hunger that she never knew existed. Fated mates or not, she was falling for him. Now that she knew he wasn’t the playboy type that she had spent her life trying to avoid, could she take a chance on him? If she was being honest, she desperately wanted him in her life but at the same time, she wanted space to clear her head and get her life back together, but she couldn’t have both…could she? She re-read Archer’s message but didn’t know how to respond, after a few moments she drafted up a reply.
I’ve been thinking about you too. I said some awful things yesterday that I wish I could take back, but I want you to know that I never intended to hurt you, I’m sorry. Send.
Lara took a deep breath and stared back at the phone, waiting for a reply. After a few minutes, Lara gave up expecting an answer, she really didn’t deserve one after the things she had said yesterday. Plugging the phone back into the charger, she took a bite of one of the donuts and went to have a shower to start the day.
Chapter 27
“Hey Alpha” Archer heard Seb say from behind him as he sat on the top step of the porch, looking out over the clearing of his property. Over the last two weeks he seemed to gravitate to this place, to just sit, think and be alone. If only the wolf would let me be alone, he thought. Archer groaned inwardly to the sound of Seb’s footsteps as he came to join him on the top step of the porch. He’d normally tell him to ‘fuck off’ but since he was handing him a cold beer, he’ll let him stay.
“How many times have I told you not to call me that?” Archer replied. The frustration obvious in his tone as he took the beer and opened it. Despite Seb’s latest obsession with calling Archer ‘Alpha’, Seb was growing on him, well, after two weeks together in the same house, he didn’t really have a choice.
Seb shrugged his shoulders before opening his own beer and taking a sip “My wolf can feel your lion’s dominance, you’re meant to lead a crew. You’re meant to be alpha, Archer. I’ve been rogue for a long time because my wolf just won’t settle anywhere but for some reason, he’s comfortable with you, he trusts you and he’s content to have you as his Alpha.”
“Ha!” Archer laughed out “You’re just as crazy as she is then” He jerked his head towards where Jen was standing off in the distance in the middle of the clearing. His shifter eyesight allowed him to see that she had her eyes closed and was moving her mouth to form words. It looked like she was speaking to herself. As much as Archer wanted to ignore Seb’s talk of being Alpha, he couldn’t deny that his lion was paying attention, letting out snorts of approval at the idea. His lion was dominant, he knew that since he was beginning to lose control of when he would shift. He used to be able to compromise with his animal, find a balance and shift after he finished at the fight club each night, before his lion managed to get too riled up. But now, he was shifting during the day without even meaning to. It started the day after he took Lara back and seemed to be happening more and more each day. He even had to take time off from working in the mechanic shop, with his lion shifting more often and during the day, he needed to stay away from humans until he could get it back under control. His animal was rebelling, refusing to stay contained inside of him, and his human mind was too broken to stop him. I can’t be Alpha. I can’t control myself, let alone a crew Archer thought.
“So, how’s she doing anyway?” Seb’s words brought Archer’s mind back to the present as they both took another swig of their beer and watched Jen in the distance. She was pacing back and forth now, flailing her arms in the air and gripping her hair in frustration.
“She’s still trying to find her animal” Archer replied before taking another sip “She doesn’t even know if she still has an animal inside her anymore, but doing this –“ Archer, pointed towards Jen “every single day, hasn’t made a difference in the last few weeks”
Seb seemed to ignore Archer’s comment as he shifted his position on the step so that his body was now facing him “So anyway, have you heard from cat-girl?”
Archer lifted up one eyebrow as he looked across at Seb “Cat-girl? Really?”
“Cat-girl, Black Panther, Lara…Same, Same” Seb said as he took another sip
Archer sighed before continuing “Nope, nothing. I thought she might have reached out over the last two weeks but so far, nothing. It’s fine though, I just need to move on” Archer’s lion roared inside him at that thought. Each day without Lara felt like a lifetime, he ached for her, it was almost as if his mind was trying to let go of her, but his heart refused to.
“Dude! It’s not fine! She’s your mate and staying away from her is going to literally kill you”. Seb put his beer down on the step before looking up to meet Archer’s eyes. “I see you man, I see you taking extra deep breaths sometimes when it looks like you can’t breathe, and I know you’ve been needing to shift more and more. You’re losing control and it’s killing you. You know why? Because you’re meant to be together. She’s like oxygen to you and without oxygen, you die.” Seb said the last few words, slowly, enunciating them as if Archer couldn’t understand him.
“You seem to know a lot about mates and the mating bond” Archer said casually before taking another swig. He was trying to play down the situation because deep down, he knew Seb was right.
“You have no idea” Seb mumbled under his breath before picking up his beer bottle again and looked out to the clearing. Archer could have sworn he followed Seb’s gaze to where Jen was now sitting cross legged on the grass in the distance, looking like she was meditating.
“She said she wasn’t my mate Seb. She has my number and she hasn’t reached out at all in the last two weeks, so, what do I do?” Archer asked before leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees
“You wait. Patience is a virtue my friend... and in the meantime, we drink!” Seb announced as he gripped Archer’s shoulder and leaned closer before continuing in a serious tone of voice “You need to chill dude, we all do. Tonight, we go out”
“I have a fight at the club tonight” Archer replied flatly
“Even better. You fight, we drink!” Seb said excitedly before letting go of Archer’s shoulder and cupping his mouth with his hands to yell out “Jen! We’re going out!”
Chapter 28
Two weeks. It had been two whole weeks of no contact with Archer. Lara sighed as she sat back against her chair, staring at her open laptop. She used to sit at this desk in her room each day, writing articles for the local newspaper. She missed those days, life was simple and easy.
After listening to the many voicemails from her boss, she was able to contact him and explain that there had been a family emergency, he was understanding and even allowed her to take indefinite leave, telling her to ‘come back when she feels she’s ready’. She wasn’t sure if she would ever be ready though. All along she’d been telling herself that once she gets back home and takes the time to properly grieve her parents, to go back to work and to process everything that’s happened, she would get back to the person she used to be. Now, Lara wasn’t sure anymore. How can she get back to the person she used to be when that person no longer exists? She’s a shifter now, with shifter needs and shifter abilities.
She looked out the window by her desk, trying to distract herself from her thoughts. As she glanced at the woods that lined her property, it only reminded her of the promise Archer made at his house, the promise to take her running through the forest in their shifted forms. It seemed it didn’t matter what she was did over the last fortnight, her thoughts never strayed far from Archer.
She looked back to her laptop. She needed a distraction from Archer, and there was nothing that could distract you more from real life than social media. She turned on her computer and opened the browser, logging into her social media account. She started going through her notifications, most of which consisted of generic pages and groups that she followed and a few messages from her friends, as
king how life is in general. Lara knew they wouldn’t be concerned that she hadn’t replied since she had a reputation for never getting back to people.
There was one notification that she didn’t expect though, ‘Friend request from Sebastian Leonard’. Who is Sebastian Leonard? Lara thought before she clicked on the link that took her to the profile. His profile picture was a close up of an animated wolf howling at the moon. When she scrolled down, she noticed that most of his profile was blank and she was starting to consider blocking the friend request but as she scrolled once more, she noticed something that made her stop. There was a photo that had been uploaded a week ago, and as she raked her gaze over the picture, she recognised who Sebastian Leonard was. She would recognise those hazel eyes and that light brown hair anywhere. Seb. Lara smiled to herself, for a moment it felt like she was reconnecting with an old friend. In the photo, Seb was holding up the camera, taking a selfie in front of what looked to be the side of Archer’s house. Jen was standing a few feet behind him, smiling and waving at the camera and if Lara looked closely in the background… is that? Lara’s heart beat faster. There was Archer, standing in the large shed at the back of his property. Even though he was a distance away in the photo, Lara knew it was him, he was standing side on to the camera, leaning under the open hood of a car in mid motion. His black shirt hung tight to his back and his denim jeans hung low on his hips. Oh, how she missed him. Hell, she even missed Seb and Jen too. Maybe it was the experience they shared in the shifter prison, or maybe it was the fact that they were the only shifters she knew but looking at that photo seemed to give her a feeling of belonging, like they were her people. Lara noticed there was a caption at the bottom of the photo, it read “Crew of Rogues”. That’s a strange choice for a caption she thought before realising that someone else was tagged in the photo, ‘Archer Benson’.
It took Lara a few moments to remember where she had seen that surname before, Mark Benson, the drunk driver who killed my parents…No, Archer can’t be related to that man. It’s a common surname, it’s just a coincidence. Lara shook her head at the ludicrous thought before clicking through to see Archer’s profile. For an instant she felt like she was violating his trust in looking at his page without his permission, but it made her feel close to him, it made her feel like she was still a part of his life. Archer’s profile had even less content than Seb’s, there were mostly photos of cars that he’d worked on but as Lara scrolled down, she noticed a candid photo that someone had tagged him in from almost a year ago. The tag also included the location, Riverstone’s Ringside Fight Club. Lara knew about the fight club since Archer had told her about it. Lara looked back at the photo, it was blurry, but she could see him clear enough, standing in the middle of a fighting ring, sweat covered his bare chest. He held one of his fists up to his face, the other fist in front of him in mid-punch. Lara couldn’t see his opponent since the photo was zoomed in on Archer from the waist up, but she couldn’t mistake the hordes of people in the background, surrounding the fighting ring.
Seeing that particular photo was a shocking reminder of how different they were. Archer was a fighter, and obviously good at it but before becoming a shifter, she had never attacked anything in her life. Maybe being a shifter was just part and parcel of a life filled with violence and danger. After all, she’d only been a shifter for a few months and she’d already killed someone. Denying that this was her world now wouldn’t help her put her life back together again. It wouldn’t heal her emotional wounds and it would never bring back her parents from the dead. Maybe Lara needed to learn to embrace her new life, learn to accept that she was a shifter and learn to control her panther so it would never kill again. Maybe the best way to do that would be to surround herself with like-minded people, people who could teach her what she needs to know. People like Seb, Jen and Archer.
Lara sat back in the computer chair and looked out the window. The sun was beginning to set now, and the glow of the afternoon rays were shining past the clearing around the property and into the thick forest of trees that surrounded the home. Thanks to her shifter eyesight, she could make out the birds that were flying low just under the canopy of the tree cover. She could smell them too since she had her window open a bit, only now that she was more in tune with her shifter side, she realised she could smell something else as well. She leaned closer to the window and slowly lifted it a bit more, she flared her nostrils and scented the air. For a moment she thought she could smell fur, but she wasn’t sure. She squinted her eyes against the glare of the setting sun and into the trees across the clearing. She could see the movement of the branches and the leaves in the breeze but nothing else, before she could convince herself that she was just being paranoid, an entire flock of birds flew out of the canopy as if something had threatened them.
Lara felt the cold numbing feeling of fear run through her body as her gaze followed the birds flying away, she brought her gaze back to the dense rows of trees beyond the clearing and what she saw made her freeze in shock. There, in the shadows, lit only by the setting rays of the sun, was a large black panther. Its golden eyes seemed to be focused directly on her as it slowly crept forward, towards her house. Lara kept her eyes on the panther as she reached her trembling hands to the window and closed it, slowly. Don’t make any sudden movements she thought to herself. As the panther took its first steps out into the clearing, exposing its enormous, powerful body, she felt the panther inside her own mind roaring, clawing and trying to rip its way out of her skin to attack the animal.
As Lara took a moment to run her eyes over the panther’s body, she was reminded of the night she was attacked and turned into a shifter. This panther looked just as large and powerful as the one that had bitten her that night. Could this be the same panther that turned me? Suddenly, more and more yellow coloured feline eyes appeared through the thick lining of the trees. She could only see the vague outline of their bodies, but it was enough for her to know they were all smaller than the panther standing in the clearing now.
She watched as the creature continued to make its way slowly to the house, she could feel her own panther hissing inside of her mind at the threat but since she didn’t know how to communicate with it, she couldn’t do anything about it. Suddenly, the large panther stopped in its tracks and began pacing back and forth. It was then that she noticed there was something strange about one of its ear’s. It was disfigured and the top of it had been torn off…Just like the panther that attacked me that night. It was then that Lara’s eyes widened in recognition. This really was the same panther that had bitten her and made her into a shifter.
Suddenly, the panther stopped pacing and turned, walking back to the lining of the trees and Lara let out a breath that she didn’t know she’d been holding as she watched the animal disappear into the darkness of the forest. She wanted to run and make sure the front door was locked, to make sure all the windows were closed and find the biggest weapon she could, just in case the panther came back. She feared however, that if she took her eyes away from the tree line for long enough, the panther would see an opportunity and attack, and being a panther herself, she was coming to realise how fast these animals could be.
After a few minutes, there was still no sign of the panther, but as she sat back in her chair, she saw something emerge from the tree line. She sat bolt upright again as her eyebrows lifted in surprise, it was a man, dressed in black jeans and a dark grey shirt. He was barefoot and had both his hands raised in a surrendering gesture and when she looked into his eyes, they glowed a bright gold-yellow colour. There was something familiar about the way he walked, those long strides and the way he held his hands out…Lara’s eyes widened in recognition…It’s the man from the night I was attacked.
Logic escaped Lara’s mind now and without thinking, she bolted to the kitchen and grabbed her father’s old hunting rifle that was still hanging on the wall where he had left it after his last hunting trip. She rushed to the coffee table drawer pulled open the box of bull
ets and sent a silent thank you to her Dad for teaching her how to properly load a gun. After successfully loading it, she padded over to the front door and looked out the peephole.
The man was standing a small distance away from the base of the porch, his hands still up in the air in surrender and his eyes were now a very human-like light brown colour. She noticed he had light brown hair that looked to be going grey on the sides and he had a brown beard that hung down to the neckline of his shirt. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the smaller panthers that had been watching from lining of the trees step forward into the clearing, one by one. There must have been a dozen of them as they just stood there, eyes trained on the door she was standing behind and when she glanced back at the man, he was now standing on the bottom step of the porch.
She watched the man, trying to decide what her next move was, when he turned his head to the side and lifted up a hand, gesturing to the panthers to stay where they were. It was then that Lara was able to see the side of his face, she could see the grey strands of hair that stood stark against the light brown colour of the rest of his hair, and just underneath that, she could make out his ear. His torn ear. Lara gasped, she assumed this man was the large panther when she had seen the same yellow glowing eyes earlier, but now, seeing his torn ear in human form was evidence that he truly was the same panther that attacked and turned her into a shifter that night.
The man seemed to hear Lara’s gasp from behind the door as he immediately turned back to her direction as he yelled out “I just want to talk, Lara”
If she didn’t have previous confirmation that he was the same man as the night she was attacked, this was it. He knew her name and said it with that same veneration as he did before. That still didn’t answer the question of How he knew her name, though. Gathering all her bravery, she held on the hunting rifle a little tighter as she peered out the peeping hole and yelled back “How do you know my name?”
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