WOLF CHILD: A PNR RH Romance (The Year of the Wolf Book 1)

by Serena Akeroyd

  Twisting around without a word, I began to retreat down the driveway. At the bottom of it, right in the middle of the turn, I saw him. He was sitting there like he was waiting on us.

  Maybe he was.

  My throat grew thick at the sight of Eli in his shifted form. He was the only member of the pack who spent the least amount of time as a wolf, so whenever you saw him, it was always impressive.

  Shifters were always bigger than their natural twins. We weighed three times as much as a regular wolf, for example, but Eli? He was five times heavier, and that much longer, stronger, and ferocious too.

  But at the moment, he was quiet. Pain dulled him, I supposed. I could see the glint of grief in his eyes, saw it in the slow steps he took toward us. I didn’t feel threatened, there was only curiosity as to the she-wolf in my arms, and slowly, I crouched down, keeping hold of her but tilting her so he could scent her.

  She looked small in comparison to the alpha, making me realize she was smaller than a regular she-wolf, but her silver-white coloring, with the golden tips that I knew would make her look blonde in the sunlight, contrasted sharply with the alpha’s pitch-black fur.

  The pair of them were a sight to behold, and when Eli nuzzled into the female, I somehow wasn’t surprised when her breathing calmed, and her eyes sleepily opened to investigate who was touching her.

  When Eli licked at her mouth, snout, and even her eyes, and began snuffling at her, running his nose down her body to comfort her, she let him. All the while, through heavily slitted eyes, she watched him, then, when he yipped at her, the noise almost a demand, she released a big sigh and slumped in my arms.

  For a second, I thought the worst, but the heavy, dull pounding of her heart reassured me that she lived—she was sleeping once more.

  I wasn’t startled when Eli shifted in the next instant, his naked body gleaming in the moonlight. Nor was I taken aback at his harsh command of, “Explain.”

  Straightening my shoulders, I muttered, “We found her bleeding out at the carnival.”

  “Someone bit her?” he growled, his eyes widening since it was forbidden for anyone other than Eli to transform a human. Essentially, this abomination, proof of mutiny in the ranks, was a challenge to his leadership.

  “Yes. She was dying, and we feared the carnage when she shifted.” Ethan licked his lips. “But she never even ran. She started dozing almost immediately after the shift.”

  Eli’s jaw clenched. “She’s—”

  When he fell silent, I didn’t prompt him, instead, I whispered, “Is it true? About the omega? We feel her absence in our souls.”

  He tensed. “Yes. My mother’s dead.”

  “I’m so sorry, Eli,” Ethan and I muttered at the same time. “Anything we can do, just ask.”

  The look he shot us was surprisingly wry. “Thank you, boys.”

  I rolled my eyes at that. We’d been called ‘boys’ since we were children. Didn’t matter that we were turning thirty-nine next week, we’d always be the ‘boys.’

  Either that or trouble.

  Clearing his throat, Ethan muttered, “What do we do with her?”

  “We’ll take her to the house. I’ll say I found her. The council would prefer to think you were involved.” That he believed us was something I didn’t question. He trusted us as much as we trusted him. It had always been the way of it. When he beckoned with his hands for her, dread filled me. It deepened when he stated, “I’ll take her.”

  Everything inside me clamored to refuse, but I couldn’t disobey him. It hurt me, physically pained me to let the she-wolf go, to shift her in my hold, and when I did, I felt the loss of the omega more keenly than when she had passed over earlier that evening. How had she died? Though we were important to Eli, we weren’t council, so we weren’t privy to any information until it was pack knowledge, but the grief inside me was like a brewing storm. When the she-wolf was in my arms, it had been kept at bay.

  Now? I felt faintly adrift. A little lost.

  Maybe Eli saw that, or maybe he sensed it, because he gave us a purpose.

  As he so often did.

  “Return to the carnival,” he ordered, his gaze on the she-wolf. “Find the scent of her attacker. When you find them, don’t kill them. Leave that to me.”

  Eli

  The bundle of femininity in my arms was something I’d never anticipated dropping into my lap tonight.

  After losing my mother, even with her promises of finding my mate ringing in my ears, I’d never thought…

  Did the Mother always heed a sacrifice this quickly?

  I didn’t even need to blood her to know she was mine. I felt it deep in my being.

  My mate.

  My omega.

  But how?

  She’d been transformed against pack protocol, had endured the horror of that metamorphosis without any guidance, without any warning, and yet, here she was.

  And because of the bastard who’d put her through that terror, who’d put her through something that no one should endure without aid, I had my mate.

  It was difficult to be happy when I knew what she’d gone through. I’d transformed relatively few people in my term as alpha, over seventy percent of them women, and I knew how painful it was. I’d been there to witness the first shift, had helped them through the first hunger and the first hunt.

  I’d never, not in all those times, seen a she-wolf as beautiful as this one. Our purebloods were the brightest colors, had gold and silver tints to their fur. The mixed bloods were less shiny. Like natural selection had weeded out the beauty in their animal half. This one, however, was breathtaking.

  I’d scented her from the bottom of the drive, aware the twins had been up to their usual mischief, but when I’d seen her, well, the old phrase was true—seeing was believing.

  It had been easier to trust my eyes than my nose, and now, with her in my arms, it was even more difficult to believe.

  Though I was concerned for her, concerned that she hadn’t eaten yet so soon after the initial shift, I was unsure what I could do for her.

  Was it wiser to take her to the house? To settle her in a room and make her comfortable? I could prepare the pack then for her ‘arrival,’ get things ready so that when she awoke, everything was in place.

  Or I could take her to the woods, bring her food, help her…

  Though the former option made more sense, instinct clamored at me. She didn’t need a soft den, didn’t need the warmth of a centrally heated bedroom with a bathroom nearby.

  She needed the woods.

  She needed nature.

  At times like these, I would have asked my last living parent for advice, would have sought her guidance, but this was all on me now.

  Until this female awakened and ascended to the place that was shaped like my mother.

  My throat tightened at the thought.

  Mother had said within a few days I’d have my omega, but… So uncanny, so surreal, because here was my mate. In my arms. Like a miracle. Except, miracles didn’t come with a blood price.

  Releasing a shaky breath—because I was shaken to my core—I made the decision to follow my gut. I usually never questioned my instincts, because what was an alpha who doubted himself? But in this, I was treading on new territory in a world without the one constant I’d had since childhood.

  So, instead of plowing ahead to my home, I ignored the warmth, the scent of wine that the council was drinking down as they discussed the evening’s events, trying, without success, to plug the chasm my mother’s passing had created, and totally bypassed any and all of my responsibilities to them this night.

  I was alpha to be sure, and my presence was required at the party they were holding, but I figured there’d never been more reason than now to evade my duty.

  Not only had I just lost a parent, I’d gained a mate, and the pack had just lost and gained an omega—in the most unusual ways imaginable.

  The desire to see her in her human skin ate at me as I trudged a
round to the back of the house, where there was a thick gathering of trees. Fall had shed a canopy of leaves, and that would be perfect for her when I settled her down and went hunting to feed her.

  I could feel her weakness, and my wolf was both repulsed by it and enticed. Our baser natures preferred strength over vulnerability, yet my beast wasn’t sure what to make of this. Didn’t know what to do with a creature who was somehow both. Somehow alien. Yet somehow ours.

  The farther away from the house I moved, away from the chatter of the council who was dealing with their own grief, away from the pollution in the air with each step I took, I could breathe her in better, could scent her true essence more easily, and what shook me even more was that her scent wasn’t just her own, but it was tangled with the twins.

  My father had never understood my appreciation for the boys. Well, I called them that, but they were only six years my junior. I’d forever been protecting them, shielding them from his awareness, because I knew he didn’t like their father, but since when was that a child’s fault?

  It had become second nature to watch over them, to put them in a position that was untouchable, where only I had a say in what they did.

  Yet, though I trusted them, though I knew they weren’t lying about their involvement with the attack on the she-wolf, that their scent was embroiled in hers set me on edge.

  It wasn’t uncommon, exactly, for an omega to have more than one mate. The more powerful she was, the more grounding she needed, but powerful omegas were few and far between. Where better to ground a strong omega, however, than in several powerful males who could not only protect her physically, but could shield her emotionally?

  I’d just never imagined that I’d be like that.

  That my omega would need several mates, that I wouldn’t be good enough to be everything she needed.

  Was that why I’d sent the twins away?

  Was that why I was taking her to the woods and keeping her to myself?

  Because my wolf already knew what I wasn’t willing to accept?

  It was a night for feeling like I was walking on broken glass. My blood was pouring from several wounds on my feet, every part of me torn to emotional shreds from what had happened, and this wasn’t helping.

  Overhead, the moon called to me, demanding I shift, and I knew why.

  The Mother was guiding me.

  Showing me the way.

  Because I had no choice but to heed her call, just as any shifter had no choice, I placed my omega on the ground in a dense pile of leaves which was near one of the cache of clothes I had stored around the woods. The crunchy, crispy crackling filled the air as her weight shifted onto them, and she twitched, her eyes opening as she stared at me in a daze.

  I saw her confusion, felt her fear, but also sensed her acceptance.

  The she-wolf—if not the woman herself—knew what I was to her, and she was accepting of my care.

  I cast a look around the area, discerning that there were no eyes to watch, no animals who might think she was prey, but mostly, I just saw my land. It was pack land, to be sure, but it was legally the alpha’s, and no one ever argued with that.

  The endless sea of trees was all I truly looked upon, and in the air, now that it was getting late, there was a chill. A nip that had my breath gusting in front of me.

  I didn’t feel the cold, didn’t wince at it, but I had to wonder if she did.

  Normally, I’d just shift and get on with my business—be that hunting or play. But tonight, I reached into the cache, grabbed one of my jackets, and pressed it around her. When she was swaddled, her eyes opened once more, revealing gems that bathed me in their luminescence.

  There was feeling there, affection. Already.

  I didn’t understand it, but neither did I have the heart to question it.

  She was everything I needed, and arguing against that would have been stupid.

  Swallowing down the sudden surge of emotion that had overtaken me, I shifted, allowing my wolf to take control again.

  My beast held pure dominion over me as I moved closer to her, scenting her once more. I’d had too many questions before, too many things to ask the twins about where this she-wolf who didn’t scent of my pack had come from.

  Now?

  She was here, she was mine, and I had the time. All the time in the world.

  As I ran my muzzle along hers, I scented the twins once more, but beneath that, there was an earthiness that was beyond unusual.

  It should have been repellent, but it wasn’t. How could the scent of freshly tilled earth, damp from the morning’s dew, be repugnant? How could the scent of fire being whipped away into the air be disgusting?

  She was, as we all were, an elemental being, but I’d never scented it as richly as I did in her. She was petrichor in the flesh.

  With a soughing huff, I grabbed my jacket with my teeth, rearranging it better. I understood her needs more now in this form, even if I didn’t have the thumbs to make her more comfortable with ease. She yipped at me after a while, and inwardly, I found myself amused at her telling me that enough was enough.

  Tongue lolling from my mouth, I scampered off, aware that if she could yip at me in irritation, she was well enough for me to leave.

  Again, I felt the moon’s call, guiding me, urging me forward, and I answered it. Letting the Mother take me where I needed to be.

  As she guided me to a clearing where a stag was gnawing at something on a bush, I accepted her offering with thanks, gave my appreciation to the animal for his sacrifice to nourish my mate, and pounced.

  Ethan

  “He was being weird. You can’t deny that,” I muttered, elbowing Austin, who was peering at the back of the candy stand as though it held all the answers.

  Sure, it was the scene of the crime, but there were too many people here to discern one scent over another, and though we were enforcers, renowned throughout the Pacific Northwest for our tracking abilities, even we weren’t miracle workers.

  “She’s a new she-wolf. Of course he was acting weird. Someone just committed a heinous crime on his territory,” Austin mumbled as he crouched. His boots squeaked as they scraped against the wet grass, and I sighed.

  “You’re destroying the evidence,” I snapped at him when he didn’t move away from where he was trampling.

  “There is no evidence. You and I know that.”

  “Then why are you staring at that piece of grass as though it holds the answers to the known universe?”

  Austin huffed before he turned to glower up at me. “Because I want to give him as much information as we can. You’re right, he was acting weird, and when Eli acts weird, it’s best to have all the facts at hand. You know that as well as I do.”

  Because he wasn’t wrong, I just grunted and did as he had—squatted down. My jeans creaked with the motion, making me wish I hadn’t worn the new ones to impress Sally Anne tonight, especially since I hadn’t even had the chance to show her the damn pants before tearing new holes in them on our run through the woods. Though we could shift with clothes on and return to our skin still dressed, the more powerful we were, the less likely the clothes were to stick around. Eli almost always reappeared butt naked, like he had back at the house. Whereas Austin and I tended to go through clothes like a six-year-old in the middle of a growth spurt, because shifting and reverting was a part of the job. Still, couldn’t be helped, so I shoved my irritation aside and focused on the crime scene.

  “She didn’t work at the stand,” I mused out loud. “If she did, someone would have come looking for her. And there are no footsteps in the blood except for ours when we found her and picked her up.”

  “She can tell us that herself,” Austin pointed out.

  “Yeah, in a few days’ time. We need to act now. Before she wakes up.” Because I was right, he didn’t argue. Instead, I carried on, “Someone hasn’t reported all the blood, so that means they either haven’t left the stand since we took off, or they just can’t see it.” I peer
ed around, and figured the low lighting around here would probably make it hard for a human to discern the mess of the attack. To be honest, that made more sense. After all, the reason we’d taken off at a run was because we’d heard movement in the stands that suggested someone was about to leave a stall. “But her outfit…she’s definitely a carny.”

  “Without a doubt. Just not one who was popular enough for them to get concerned about once she went missing,” Austin reasoned, his nostrils flaring as he tried to differentiate between the scents.

  It wasn’t as easy as just sniffing and picking up on something. Every scent was layered, filtered almost, condensing down until there was a pure essence that revealed itself above the others.

  The only trouble was, blood was one of the worst things because it had a cloying scent that suffocated the sources of other smells in the vicinity. Our beasts reacted to it on a visceral level. I wasn’t sure if they considered it a threat or a warning, but it fucked with our senses, making it harder to figure out what and who the woman was.

  “Maybe an attendant and not the main draw?” I stated as I, too, tried to pick apart the scents.

  There was the faint essence of apple, maybe even lemon? As I caught onto that tendril, I discerned cinnamon. Maybe pumpkin spice?

  Frowning, Austin muttered, “Do you scent pie?”

  My lips twitched. I loved our twin brains. “Yeah, I do. Apple, right?”

  He dipped his chin. “So what? She was wearing a costume as a waitress? Or she was selling pie somewhere on site?”

  “Maybe. Or it was her final meal.” I heaved out a sigh. “Okay, we need to clear the blood away.”

  “Happen to bring along twenty gallons of soapy water, did you?”

  “Smart-ass,” I mumbled under my breath, but I reached into my pocket and said, “We need to set fire to the stand.”

  His eyes rounded. “There’s someone in there.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting we kill them,” I grumbled at him, shooting him a scowl that would have felled a lesser man. “You need to distract them. Get them out of there.”