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

by Serena Akeroyd

  She was, in a word, beautiful.

  And even that was too pansy ass a word to describe her. Her eyes were almond-shaped and tipped up at the sides, giving her an exotic cast that reminded me of Jasmine from Aladdin. Odd reference point to be sure, but fuck. She had rich black hair, so dense and dark that it was like rippling silk, olive skin, ruby red lips that needed no paint on them to be that color, and a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones and a pointed chin so delicate that I wanted to pinch it between my pointer and thumb to maneuver her mouth my way.

  I didn’t care that, undoubtedly, she had the rankest breath bar none. She’d eaten raw stag and hadn’t brushed her teeth for a week…she stank. All over. But did I give a fuck?

  And that was when I knew she truly was my mate, because I. Didn’t. Give. A. Fuck.

  Holy hell, was this what true love felt like?

  Still dealing with the aftermath of that, I almost missed Eli’s stern, “Why did you hide from us?”

  His phrasing might have seemed odd to most, but it wasn’t to me. Not to Ethan either, because he stared at her with an intentness that had that rich golden skin turning a rose gold with her flush. “I didn’t mean to.”

  But she had.

  “Why?” I asked quietly, aware I sounded disappointed.

  Mother. This was weird.

  I barely knew her, yet I felt like I’d known her for a lifetime.

  Maybe I had.

  Maybe, in the Mother’s eyes, that was how this worked.

  You went from not knowing someone to suddenly knowing them. Inside and out.

  She bit her bottom lip and muttered, “Do you know what fibromyalgia is?”

  I blinked. “It’s an illness, right?”

  She cut me a quick look before peering down at her blanket-clad knees once more.

  Was she shy?

  Or just nervous?

  Holy shit, she wasn’t scared, was she?

  The thought throbbed in my head like an incessant toothache that no dentist could cure without yanking something out of my mouth.

  My hand snapped out and, lo and behold, she flinched. Even as I cursed myself for the abrupt movement, I let my hand fall on her knee, and I squeezed her there, gently. “Sabina?”

  She frowned. “Yes, Austin?”

  Mother, could she tell us apart?

  My hard-on surged into life once more, making the toothache of mere seconds before disappear into dust.

  “We will never hurt you. And if one of us ever did, we’d kill them.”

  Ethan cleared his throat. “We know that might sound aggressive, and after how you came to us, it might sound ridiculous—”

  “No. I appreciate it. I know you won’t hurt me.” She blew out a breath and whispered, “I’m just embarrassed.”

  “Why? Because you stink?”

  Her eyes widened at that, and her mouth dropped open for a few seconds.

  “Well done, dumbass,” Ethan muttered in disgust, letting his hands flare wide until they dropped down again.

  I shrugged. “Don’t worry. We’ve all rolled around in shit at one point, Sabina. We’ve all smelled worse than you.”

  Eli cleared his throat, but I saw the laughter in his eyes, the bastard. “I think we should get back on track. What’s fibromyalgia, Sabina? And why would it make you hide from us?”

  The accusation was there again.

  Hide.

  From us.

  But again, I understood.

  That was what it felt like she’d been doing. Denying us her presence. And even though she had the right to do that, with everything so up in the air at the moment, with all the fussing over who’d attacked her, as well as Eli’s grief over his mother’s loss and having to deal with a pack who was without an omega…all of that stress paled in comparison to the knowledge that our mate could have walked at our sides but had chosen not to.

  “When I realized something was wrong with me, I had to quit the carnival and stick around… I have a trust fund, and I pulled on it for the first time so I could go to the doctors. It took them a while to figure out what was wrong with me because, at first, they didn’t believe me. They thought I was making it up.”

  “Making up that you were sick?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  My question had Ethan scoffing, “You know humans lie.”

  “Now who’s the dumbass?” I retorted, when Sabina’s hands morphed into fists at her sides. I was almost grateful for my brother’s idiocy, because her tight grip on the blanket lessened and I caught a flash of her cleavage.

  “How dare you say that?”

  “Humans lie.” Ethan shrugged. “About many things. Just today, a girl in the gas station lied to me.”

  “She shortchanged you?” I asked, because I’d told him the Jensons’ girl tended to do that, and he hadn’t believed me.

  “I hope she did,” Sabina muttered.

  “She flushed, and I asked if she was well. She said she was when she evidently wasn’t.”

  Sabina’s brow rose. “What was wrong with her?”

  “She smelled aroused.”

  I rolled my eyes at his words, and on the brink of muttering, “Show off,” Sabina stunned the fuck out of us by growling. The sound was low, menacing.

  Deadly.

  And fuck if it didn’t get my cock harder than a pike. I knew from the sudden haze of lust in the air that I wasn’t the only one affected.

  Ethan, realizing he’d fucked up, backpedaled. “She’s only seventeen, Sabina!”

  That didn’t stop her from growling, but she did stop bristling.

  I pressed a hand to her thigh and had to admit that her possessive jealousy was as much of a turn-on as that quick glimpse of her pussy had been a few moments ago.

  “All is well,” I soothed. “There’s no need to worry.”

  She ground her teeth, and her eyes flickered over us all. “Why do I feel this way?” she rasped, concerned and confused, but still feeling the overwhelming jealousy that had prompted her to growl in the first place.

  And that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

  The human voice box wasn’t made to utter those long, low, throbbing sounds that had the vocal chords ululating like a yodeler singing a voodoo chant.

  I knew her throat was gonna ache like fuck in a little while.

  Eli pulled a face. “It’s complicated.”

  “Life tends to be that way. Explain,” she demanded, her strength throbbing through each word. I’d admit to being surprised by that. Thus far, she’d been a weak little thing, not that I’d minded, but still.

  This whole grumpy, honey, possessive thing she had going on?

  Better than porn. That was for fucking sure.

  Sabina

  I had no right to feel the way I was feeling.

  No right at all.

  But that didn’t stop me from wanting to maul the little bitch at goddamn Jensons, whoever the fuck she was, and send her back to Kali Sara without a smile on her face.

  I’d never felt this overwhelming—

  This…

  This, what?

  So overloaded with emotions, yet so physically secure in knowing that I was safe and sound and well protected? So free from pain that all my senses were allowed to function at a high level once more?

  I hadn’t lied to them.

  My doctors hadn’t believed me when I’d gone to them with my symptoms. They’d bullshitted me. Sent me to different specialists. Then, out of nowhere, they’d begrudgingly come up with fibromyalgia, and all that diagnosis had gotten me was eighty grand in medical debts, and given my father a tail to follow that had had me on the run ever since.

  I’d been nervous about shifting since I’d awoken that first time free from pain. I hadn’t wanted to do anything to jeopardize it, but today, I’d felt stronger than I had in the recent week, and suddenly, touching the men who hovered around me better than any caregivers had become imperative. Rubbing my nos
e against them or touching my face to their arm or leg wasn’t enough.

  I needed a closer connection.

  As a she-wolf, I’d admit that I could hear everything they were saying, and sometimes, I could even reply to them mentally, but nothing beat being able to speak like a normal person again.

  And another reason I’d made my shift was because my little peaceful sojourn had come to an end. I could feel it. Things were changing. The wheels were turning, the cogs of time never stopped, and the next phase of this new path in my life was recommencing.

  Mostly, I didn’t mind that because of two reasons.

  I didn’t feel scared.

  I wasn’t in pain.

  It was amazing how that made me feel like Clark goddamn Kent.

  I’d spent hours on my knees praying to Kali Sara, the saint who acted like our telephone line to God, begging her to heal me, to help get me through, to save me from my father’s terrible wrath, and she’d never delivered.

  Until now.

  It would be churlish to look a gift horse in the mouth, wouldn’t it?

  And this was more than just a gift horse.

  Somehow, I’d been given gift wolves, and I couldn’t be happier about that. Who knew I was so damn easy to please?

  The thought almost made me snort, because what I’d gone through? With the whole throat being torn out and that shift? Yeah, you could probably cave my head in with a hammer and that would be less painful, and I was used to pain.

  Had a high threshold for it.

  Nothing equaled the agony I’d endured that night. But here I was.

  Alive. When I should be dead.

  What was I supposed to do?

  Whine about it?

  Moan about my second chance?

  Especially when that second chance came in the form of three men who looked at me like I was Naomi Campbell?

  I gnawed on my bottom lip and muttered, “Sorry.”

  Austin’s eyes sparkled like new pennies as he grinned at me. “Don’t be.”

  If Eli was beautiful, then Austin and Ethan were handsome. Just a little less pretty than Eli, but somehow, just as magnetic. It wasn’t a competition, and if I had to be the judge, I’d never be able to pick between them. Their characters shone through their faces, illuminating features that made them all the more gorgeous to me.

  Those eyes of Austin’s that glinted with his humor. That faint curve of Ethan’s lips when he deigned to smile—he was far too somber for his own good. Not an ass about it, just serious. Like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders too. And Eli? That tiny nerve that flicked in his temple, and the way his brow puckered, were indicative of a man who worried too much. Not like Ethan, but in a different way.

  The twins were identical in all ways but those eyes and their mouths. Austin’s was mobile, Ethan’s less so. But they both had hazel eyes that seemed to twist into green and blue when their emotions fluctuated. They had high foreheads, sharp noses, full mouths, and cheekbones that were so high, they were made to be kissed by a woman. They reminded me of that model, David Gandy but blond. Ethan’s hair was short, buzzed to his head like a soldier around the ears, and a little longer on top. Austin’s was a ragged mass of waves that my fingers longed to mess with.

  I bit my bottom lip as I tried to process the feelings the three of them inspired in me. I was a woman of powerful emotions. All Roma were. It was a part of our being. The way we were. We felt heavily, we believed strongly, and we lived as though today would be our last because we never knew when we’d move on—be it to another town, another place, or to Kali Sara’s waiting arms.

  “Who am I to you?” I asked when I realized I had no idea what to say.

  Eli cleared his throat, but his hand came to rest on mine. I thought about what Austin had said about me stinking, so I didn’t shift toward him and the warmth and comfort he provided. Somehow, I couldn’t be too embarrassed about Austin’s statement. He hadn’t told me to mortify me, just said it how it was. Simple fact.

  I hated liars, and that definitely wasn’t Austin.

  “A pack is governed by two people. An alpha and an omega.”

  I’d read enough paranormal romance to know about the alpha, but the omega?

  That was new to me.

  Of course, paranormal romances weren’t the Bible. They weren’t like myths and legends stuck together. Hell, my people’s stories were remembered through song. Thousands of years of history all passed down through speech.

  “Aren’t omegas weak?”

  Ethan’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “If you’d met the last omega, you’d know that wasn’t true. Not that she was perfect, because she wasn’t, but there are different strengths, Sabina. Not all require brute force.”

  I blinked at that, appreciating that he knew the difference. A man like him? Built the way he was? Yeah, I hadn’t mentioned how stacked he was. He made the Witcher look like he’d been dieting. These boys certainly ate their spinach. I’d never seen wrists so big in my life, and they were so damn tactile too. They never minded if I touched them, never minded how close I got to them, burrowing into places I had no real right to, invading their personal space in a way that, if the tides were turned, I’m not sure I’d be happy about…

  Or maybe time would tell where that was concerned.

  “You’re right. Strength does come in different forms.” Wasn’t I walking proof of that? I’d been crippled by my nervous system, watched my childhood sweetheart and our son being torn from me and pressed into Kali Sara’s arms, and was hunted by my family for having besmirched their honor… Yet, here I was.

  Still in one piece.

  “The omega doesn’t rule with fists,” Eli agreed softly, his eyes gentle as they looked me over. His gaze was like a caress. It was like I could feel him touching me, dammit. Like he was nuzzling into me, and I him.

  It was as though we’d known each other for a lifetime, and we hadn’t. I’d have remembered a man like this, because he was unforgettable.

  Hell, they all were.

  Licking my lips, I whispered, “But the alpha rules that way, doesn’t he?”

  Eli’s nose crinkled. “I wouldn’t say so. Mostly, I ride a desk.” He added, “That’s what Ethan and Austin are for.”

  “We’re the hammers and tongs,” Austin said dryly. “And we’re loathed for it too.”

  I tipped my chin to the side at his explanation, mostly because it was a weird way of phrasing it, but also because he had the strangest intonation to his words.

  It wasn’t just bitter, but there was a faint confusion, a hurt, and the misunderstanding of a small child who couldn’t comprehend why the world worked as cruelly as it did.

  That one remark made me wish I didn’t stink and made me wish I had the right to crawl over to him, curl up on his lap, and make him feel better.

  But I didn’t have that right.

  Did I?

  My throat felt tight as I whispered, “So, what does the omega do if you three handle the business side of things?”

  “Emotions. The pack’s wellbeing. Inside and out. We’re nothing without someone to protect us physically, and someone to safeguard us emotionally.” Eli’s smile was uneasy. “The pack is reigned over by the alpha and omega and they are united.”

  There was a sudden depth to his voice, an intensity that hadn’t been there before, and it helped me see between the lines. “Romantically?” I hazarded a guess.

  He dropped his chin. “Yes. They’re mated. But alphas, though we’re powerful, aren’t as powerful as the omega, who is a conduit for the Mother herself. Our goddess,” he explained. “It is through her that the omega is given the power to ease the pack’s worries, to stabilize them.”

  “Control them sometimes,” Ethan muttered, and when Eli didn’t correct him, I knew Ethan was right, even if he did sound like he was grumbling.

  “Just like with anything, the leaders can be stronger than another pack’s leaders, weaker than another’s. But always, always, the
omega is more powerful than the alpha, sometimes to the extent where she needs more mates.”

  My stomach churned at that. It didn’t take a mind reader to figure out where he was going. In all the time I’d been dozing in front of the fire like a replete Goldilocks who’d crawled into her stolen bed for a week-long nap, they’d never once mentioned this. Not really, at any rate.

  I only knew that his mother had been the omega. That was it. And it fit. But…nothing else did.

  “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying, are you?” I queried warily, as I remembered them saying something on the morning after my attack, something about omegas needing to be grounded.

  Something about only natural wolves being omegas…

  So what did that mean?

  I sure as hell wasn’t natural. And I probably had the scars on my throat to prove it.

  “You’re an anomaly,” Austin said gently. He reached over and grabbed my hand so he could fold our palms together. The second our skin touched, I closed my eyes and absorbed the delight of having him hold me in that way. So simple, yet such a resonating connection, that I felt it in my bones.

  “Why am I?” I rasped.

  “Because you’re the omega and you’re not a natural.”

  My eyes popped open. “I’m not—”

  “You are. The alpha is only ever mated to the omega. That’s how it works,” Ethan stated, and there was a resolve in his words that made me believe. That refused to let me argue with him.

  Ethan didn’t say things for the sake of it. He was quiet, if anything. Saying fewer words and imbuing each one with power.

  “I-I’m not powerful.”

  “You might not think you are, Sabina,” Eli drawled slowly, “but apparently, the Mother wouldn’t agree with you.”

  Four

  Ethan

  “What are they doing here?”

  My lips twisted into a snarl of satisfaction. I knew it was churlish, knew it was petty too, and I tried to be neither where the council was concerned because it was a waste of damn time, but I had to admit to being satisfied to hear Brandon’s, the beta, and Conrad’s, the council head, discontent at our presence.