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

by Serena Akeroyd

  Those thoughts, the first ones for me to hear at this moment, in this place, where he’d been unable to hear me, suddenly resonated.

  This was the gift.

  This was what all mates had, not just what we’d experienced.

  I couldn’t hear him on that regular channel, I felt his thoughts like they were my own.

  I’d never have thought it possible, but there he was.

  In my soul.

  With a few dull throbs, his knot began to lessen. No longer so hard, it softened, but I felt it still, like it was hooked in me.

  He rolled us over so I was on top of him again, and he grabbed me by the knee, lifting both of them so I knelt atop him. His hand came to the back of my head, and he stroked my hair as I settled on him like a living blanket.

  From his gestures, his movements, I knew this was going to be a while.

  I could never have anticipated that, the next morning, when I woke up in this strange new place, he was still inside me until he woke also, and the knot disappeared.

  Seven

  Austin

  “Won’t they be worried?”

  I stared at her, my lips twitching at her concern as she raked her fingers through her hair in an attempt to get the tangles out.

  We were in a pond that was near where we’d been tossed out into the other dimension.

  I’d heard the rushing water and knew what that meant, so I’d brought us here because I knew she had to be as dehydrated as me.

  The pair of us, laughing like kids, had rushed over to the pond, and I’d had to monitor my pace because, quite naturally, she was stiff.

  Was it weird to feel proud of that knot?

  That living, physical, metaphysical proof that we belonged together?

  I mean, this entire situation was proof of that. I wouldn’t be here with her if we weren’t mates, and yet, that knot would be all that remained of these moments, aside from our memories.

  I’d knot with her until both of us passed over, and while it wouldn’t last the night as it had the previous evening—if a night had even passed since it was constantly twilight here—it would be there.

  My brand.

  Her claim.

  I sighed with delight at the thought, then I stopped floating in the water and gave her an answer that was both confusing and reassuring. “This is our time out. From everything. They won’t even know.”

  “They won’t?” Her brow puckered. “How odd. But I feel certain you’re right too.”

  My lips twitched. “Odd’s the word.”

  She giggled, and the sound filled me with happiness, even as she muttered, “I need a comb.”

  Of course, the second she asked for it, it was there. In her hand.

  Of course.

  I stared at it, she gaped down at it. Then, I mumbled, “I need a burger.”

  It appeared. Soaking wet from the fact I was in the goddamn water, and I snickered at the soggy bread as it floated drunkenly in the pond.

  “Kali Sara, this is so cool!”

  She quickly twisted her hair up into a bun and used the comb as some kind of clip which was magic in itself, and the shit that did to her tits as she raised her arms? Porn worthy. Christ.

  She held out her hands because she was smarter than me, and stated, “I really need a pierogi.”

  I laughed at her request, then laughed again when a dumpling appeared on her palm. She moaned as she took a bite, then her eyes widened with bliss.

  “Damn, that’s good.”

  I requested another burger, this time holding my hands out like she had, and when I took a bite, I had to confirm that this food was the best I’d ever tasted.

  Geez.

  I was almost disappointed that this place was only a one and done kind of visit, because I’d return for the food alone.

  “Charming,” she retorted, and I laughed, well aware she could even hear thoughts I wasn’t used to sharing with Ethan.

  I’d developed a barrier, as had he, that gave us some privacy, and while it was unnerving to have zero, I figured that, along the way, we’d be able to tune each other out.

  As much as I wanted her, as much as I knew she wanted me—I could fucking feel that need now, and I understood why she’d been so despondent when we hadn’t rushed to claim her, her she-wolf had been pining for us—we all needed a break from time to time.

  As I bit into my burger, drooling at how good it was, I asked, “Who’s Kali Sara?”

  She blinked at me, already on her fourth pierogi. “She’s a saint.”

  “She is?” My brow puckered. “I’ve never heard of her.”

  I waded closer to her, over by the shore where she was sitting.

  The place was beautiful, like nothing on this Earth, which was kind of fitting, considering we were on a different plane.

  The pond was perfection, a bright cerulean blue that was tinted with a silver sheen that caught the light—which had no discernible source—and made it glitter like it was metal.

  It was cut into the ground like an imperfect circle, and the water itself was deep, warm, cleansing, and fresh. Rocks littered the shore here and there, and a large collection of them made up the back ‘wall’ where a waterfall tumbled fresher water into the mix.

  It had no discernible source either.

  It was like something from a strange fairy tale, but I wasn’t about to complain because it rocked.

  Totally rocked.

  “She’s a saint who we pray to, and she’s like a conduit to God. We pray to her, and she passes the message along.” Her lips twitched. “I stopped believing in her a long time ago, but it’s habit now, you know? I just call on her like I used to do when I was younger.”

  “You totally rejected your old life?”

  She hummed. “I had no choice.”

  “We always have choices.”

  “Yeah, we do, and mine was to be free.” Her lips twisted into a smile, one that morphed into a gleeful one as she requested some fries which filled the cup her palms made.

  I laughed when she pouted, figuring out she couldn’t hold them and eat them at the same time, and I snatched one before popping it into her mouth for her.

  She grinned at me, then opened her mouth wide for me to carry on feeding her.

  The gesture was innocent, but the trust inherent in it? Mind-blowing. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that not a living soul had ever been this trusting of me.

  I trusted Ethan with my life, but with my happiness? No.

  Sabina, I did.

  I trusted her implicitly. The mate bond wouldn’t steer me wrong, I knew that like I knew my own name, like before yesterday, I’d thought I was only a twin.

  The thought had my hand hovering in midair, and when she ducked her head and dove around to grab the fry, I snorted and gave it to her, amused when she chomped down on it with a hum.

  Fuck, I loved a woman with an appetite.

  “Glad to hear it,” she said dryly. “I have an appetite for all things.”

  Her wink had me chuckling. “You got your wish.”

  Her nose crinkled. “Guess I did, huh? Three of you.” She whistled under her breath. “My God, I’m not sure if I’m lucky or just going to be tired all the time.”

  “Probably both?” I teased, and when she had only two fries left in her palm, I didn’t stop until they were all gone, settling the crunchy treat between her lips.

  The slight sheen of oil on there made me swoop down and trace my tongue along them.

  “Ew,” she grumbled, making me laugh harder because she didn’t push me away, just moved closer to me, settled her greasy palms on my belly, and leaned in.

  When her head came to my pec, and her arms slid around my waist, I found myself curiously choked.

  She held me with no guile.

  Without the thought of seeking anything for herself or for me.

  She held me because she could.

  Because I was hers and she was mine.

  And it was the most powerful
, thoughtful, poignant, emotional moment of my life.

  “I’m the lucky one,” I rasped, dipping my chin so I could bestow a kiss upon the crown of her head.

  She sighed, squeezing me harder. “I like to think that luck is something we make for ourselves, but this entire situation, this whole new world has kind of taught me otherwise.

  “How could I say I’m lucky for what I went through at the carnival?” She shuddered. “Yet it led me here. To this moment.”

  I didn’t want to spoil our time together, but we had to broach this subject. She’d already spoken about what happened that night at Ollywood’s, but I was curious to know if her new senses helped her, if they, in any way, gave her an insight that she hadn’t had before.

  “Do you remember anything?” I asked softly, not changing my tone, just moving my hand up and down her back, soothing her before she could get riled up—the last thing I wanted was for her to get scared.

  “Nothing more than I already told you.” She gulped. “Mostly, I just remember being scared.” She pressed her face into me, rolling inward so that she was hiding from the world around us. “I remember thinking how tired I was of running, and how maybe death would bring me freedom.”

  “Do you really think your dad is still after you?”

  “He’s a bitter, vengeful, twisted man, and he reigns with fear.”

  Her words were simple, but all the more effective for it.

  There was no emotion in them this time. No fear or worry. She was stating a fact. A hard proof.

  Still, the thought of her embracing death, of being in a fucking world without her in it, even for a day, had me tensing up.

  My muscles bunched, and my wolf got in on the action. She hushed me, telling me she sensed the beast’s agitation, and I let her. I also let her pet me, stroking her hand over my arm, her fingers trickling down my side to my back. She soothed me as much as I’d soothed her, which was all kinds of wrong when she was the one who’d gone through all this shit.

  On her own too.

  My anger didn’t abate at that, and I vowed, “I’ll kill him before he even thinks he’s close to you.”

  She tensed, then slowly shook her head. “No. I don’t want you to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because my mother, for whatever stupid reason, loves him.” She frowned—I felt the movement against my skin. “I never understood it, but she always supported him, always backed him. And in my culture, what I did was wrong—”

  “You can’t run for the rest of your life because you think the boogeyman wants you. Especially when the boogeyman is a dumb fuck.”

  “I’m not going to run anymore,” she promised, evidently sensing my root concern there. No way could I survive her leaving us now that she was mine. Before, it would have been impossible. I’d have had no alternative but to follow her, but now? The thought of us being in any way apart was too unbearable for words.

  I knew that, at first, after a claiming, the male was always a little heavy handed. Ultra-possessive, a control freak.

  But I wasn’t feeling aggressive in that sense.

  I just… The way she’d come to us, her threats were real. Living.

  Someone had done this to her. Someone had made her this way, and even though I was grateful for her presence in my world, I couldn’t deny that the danger to her brought something out in me that had always been under the surface before.

  I was an enforcer for the pack. I was a protector by nature and choice, but this?

  Another level.

  She was mine.

  No one would touch her.

  Ever.

  Not her father, not a stray alpha who was trying to fuck with the politics in the pack.

  No way, no how.

  “It’s okay,” she soothed again. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  It relieved me that she understood, but also, that wasn’t enough. “He hurt you,” I rasped. “He deserves to be punished.”

  She gulped. “I don’t want to bring any more shit down on me, Austin. You don’t know how long I’ve been scared, how long I’ve been living with the idea of him catching up with me, and now I’m free of that to a certain extent—”

  “That isn’t enough. I want you to be wholeheartedly free of him. To know that he isn’t out there, waiting in the shadows to catch you.”

  “But death is so final,” she whispered. “That was what I learned when I was spluttering away on my own blood at Ollywood’s.” Her hand moved up and over my throat, cupping me there. “Then you appeared. You and Ethan, and I knew I was dying, and I had this feeling inside me, a feeling that it was too late to be overjoyed by the sight of you.” She shook her head again. “No, I don’t want to bring bad karma on us. He can stay in the shadows, and if he comes, then I’ll show him just what it means now that I’m a gadji.”

  My lips curved despite themselves. “You’d take him down yourself?”

  I had to admit to being impressed.

  Merinda, Eli’s mom, shit, my mom, hadn’t been that way. She’d been defenseless in some regards, refusing to fight…

  Huh.

  I figured there was a metaphor there.

  She’d refused to fight in all walks of her life.

  To the point where she’d given her baby boys over to a woman who wasn’t fit to be a mother, simply to keep the peace.

  What the hell kind of peace was it where your sons weren’t under your roof and were in another’s home?

  What kind of mother let the man in her life overtake the needs of her children?

  “She must have thought she was acting for the best,” Sabina muttered, but I heard her anger and knew she was saying the words simply to make me feel better. However, her words were laced with her dubiousness.

  I grunted. “I think it was the wrong choice.”

  “Me too.”

  “I think she did it because she was ashamed to have twin sons.”

  She growled under her breath. “This is so stupid. I’ve never heard anything—”

  “What isn’t stupid about hate? How can we hate someone for the color of their skin? For their religion? Even as a shifter, beneath it, I’m still human. That connects us all, unites us. We forget that, and we shouldn’t.”

  She huffed under her breath. “My joker’s turning philosophical on me.”

  I grinned, loving how she could snap me out of a funk with barely a few words.

  Of course, I thought that deserved a reward, and wanting to change the subject to nicer things as well as wanting to forget some others, I gripped her tighter in my arms, and when she squealed, evidently aware of my next move, I laughed as I hurled her into the air so she went flying into the pond.

  When her squeal morphed into a whoop of joy, I had my confirmation.

  This woman was perfect for me.

  Eight

  Sabina

  This place was nice.

  Really nice.

  I mean, I’d lived in dumps my whole life, and Eli’s pad was beyond dope. It was like something from an architectural magazine, it belonged on a show or in a book for interior designers.

  But this place?

  Didn’t have walls or a roof.

  If anything, it had a sky that was always the same color, between dark and light, it was rarely cold, and it was just perfect because I was at one with nature.

  All my life, I’d lived in cities, and I’d had to move from place to place, not just because I was on the run, but because that was the traveler life.

  To think that I could stay in the same place and end my nomadic lifestyle was so overwhelming that at times, I’d just reach for Austin and have him hold me tight.

  That was a constant too. Just as the light never changed and the temperature stayed perfect at all times, he was there.

  At my side.

  Of course, it fit that when I rolled over after having a nap, he wasn’t there.

  When my hand reached out, patting beside me where he’d been earlier, our legs
tangled together, our upper bodies curved into each other, and I found him absent, my eyes popped open in surprise.

  Not distress, because I knew he’d be near, but just shock.

  He was turning into my second skin, and I liked that.

  In fact, the verb ‘like’ didn’t describe how wonderful it was to have him so close to me.

  Maybe, over a lifetime, it’d get tiring, but it surprised me how much I loved it now.

  After so many years of being alone, of dealing with the pitfalls and surges of life by myself, to have him here? To know he was going through this with me, loving it and getting to know me at the same time?

  Heaven.

  Truly.

  I figured that we’d been here at least five days by this point. Or, however time was measured in this place.

  I hoped that when I returned to the regular place where Eli and Ethan were waiting on me, that barely a minute had passed, because I didn’t want them to be worrying about me. I didn’t want their concern. All while I loved the time this was giving me with Austin, my most vulnerable of mates.

  He wasn’t like Eli, so sure in his position, and he was utterly unlike Ethan, so confident in his strength, so controlled at all times.

  He wasn’t lesser, like he feared. He was just different. And I wanted the chance to explore those differences and come to love him for who he was.

  What he was.

  So, after five days of being naked, of being with him, of us learning each other, I’d admit I was turning into a glutton, wanting more and more.

  This place made me feel like we were Adam and Eve or something, amid the trees, a pool here to drink from and bathe in, with anything we required just a wish away.

  I’d admit to shifting only to go to the bathroom, because it felt less gross to do that in my wolfskin, but it was nice to dive-bomb into the water afterward, getting to know my other half as well through play.

  This entire situation was a ‘getting to know you’ period. For both me and my she-wolf, and me and Austin.

  The Mother, I decided, really knew her shit.

  I hummed at the thought, then rolled into a standing position that let me take in the majesty of my current location. The place was perfect. Sheer verdant paradise.