by Grey, Aspen
“You can ask me anything.”
“What—what do you do? Because your house is pretty amazing, and your clothes…”
I smiled. “I’m a very smart investor. Started with day trading, which I still do a little of, and then moved on to bigger things.”
“Fancy,” he replied with a smile. He was teasing, but also not at the same time. “So you own the house then?”
“Clarice makes a good amount of money at her nursing job,” I explained. “And while Eric is a bit of a prick, he developed an app that he licensed to a bunch of major companies.”
“And that makes a lot of money?” he asked.
“It does. So I technically own the house, but it’s not like everyone else is broke or anything.”
Blue sort of smiled and then sort of frowned at the same time. It was cute.
“What?” I asked.
He shrugged, his cute shoulders emerging from the water. “I don’t know, it’s just—it’s not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“I dunno!” he laughed. “It’s just like—we’re up here in this Twilight-style town with hardly any people, hardly any shifters, it rains all the time, and you are like this ultra-stylish, ultra-rich guy with a modern house…I guess I pictured you more like—”
“Jacob?” I suggested. “Living in a lodge with a bunch of shirtless guys who hunt for our food and live off the land?”
Blue snorted and nodded. “Yeah! Something like that!”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I teased, swimming closer and kissing him on the lips.
“Oh, it’s not a disappointment. I can assure you of that!”
“Well, good,” I smiled. He smiled back but I could see there was something else on his mind, so I probed.
“And…?”
“Well…,” he replied slowly. “I couldn’t help but notice you have a ring on your finger.”
I looked down at my left hand where the simple white-gold band sat on my pinky finger and felt the same mixture of sorrow, loss and joy that I felt whenev.er I looked at it. It had been years since I’d put it on, once my finger was large enough to hold it, and I still felt those same emotions like it was my first time wearing it.
“I’m sure I’m being silly,” Blue said. “But—that’s not a wedding ring, is it?”
“It is,” I replied. His face almost fell off. “But it’s not like you think.”
“It’s not?”
“It was my mother’s. Her name was Audrey,” I told him. “My parents were both killed in the war with the Kurrens. The family home was burned to the ground and this is all I have left of them.”
As I spoke, I realized that I’d never told anyone outside of my pack the complete story. They all knew it, of course, having been children at the same time as me when the war tore everyone’s lives to pieces, but whenever the humans asked me anything personal I always had to make something up. I couldn’t tell them that a pack of wolf shifters had killed my parents. They’d lock me up in an insane asylum and throw away the key. Sharing it now with Blue, who had no idea the history of the Webbers and the Kurrens, was not only liberating but felt as personal to me as the bond we’d formed while having sex. I’d opened up to him in a way I never had with anyone else, and it felt incredible.
“I’m—I’m sorry, Alexander,” Blue said, swimming up close to me. “I didn’t know.”
“How could you?” I replied, putting a hand against his cheek. “It was Larcon’s pack that was responsible. We negotiated a peace over twenty years ago—Hector did before he left—and we’ve been doing our best to maintain it ever since.”
“That’s why Eric’s so angry with me…”
“Eric’s angry with me,” I corrected him. “And he needs to calm down. While I understand where he’s coming from, he doesn’t even remotely see my side of things. Larcon kidnaps omegas and keeps them as part of his harem—basically his sex slaves—and we do nothing about it because of the peace.”
“That’s terrible…”
“It kills me,” I growled. “I want to do something about it, but what can I do? Put everyone else in my pack in danger? That’s what he was going to do with you, and that’s why I saved you. I couldn’t turn my back on that.”
“You’re a noble man, Alexander,” Blue told me. There was pride in his voice, and despite my tough exterior, it sent butterflies through my stomach.
“I just wish there was more I could do,” I said. “But the peace is the peace and Eric wants to protect it no matter what.”
“And Eric’s the leader?”
Blue’s question was perfectly valid, but it stung. I hadn’t realized just how much I didn’t agree with Eric appointing himself de facto leader so much until I heard Blue talk about it.
“Sort of,” I muttered. “I guess technically. But he doesn’t do much leading, if you ask me.”
“Well, if you ask me, I think you should be the leader.”
Again, Blue’s words moved me. I felt as though I’d already let him down by not being the leader of the pack when he met me. I wanted to be the alpha for him, perfect, a man who could give him everything, be everything he wanted in a mate and never let him down. But right now I felt like I was letting him down.
“Don’t you, Alexander?”
I didn’t answer right away. In fact, I couldn’t. Everything was just so complicated. If I took over as pack leader, how would that even go? Would I have to fight Eric for it? I didn’t really love the guy, but he was part of my pack and we’d been through a lot together, and I didn’t want to engage him in combat. That was the way many packs handled things, though, and I’m sure he wouldn’t step down willingly.
And once I was leader, would he remain part of the pack or would he abandon us the way Hector had done?
“Come on,” I told Blue, taking his hand. “Let’s get you home so you dad doesn’t want to kill me any more than he already does.”
Chapter Sixteen
Blue
As Alexander and I ran home in our wolf forms, I wondered if I’d taken things too far by suggesting he take over as pack leader from Eric. He’d deflected when I pressed the issue. He may be my fated-mate, but I was new to his life and it was probably too presumptuous of me to start making suggestions into how he ran his life and his pack. But if it had bothered Alexander, he hadn’t said anything, and as we came out of the trees into my back yard, I tried to put my faux pas out of my mind and focus on the incredible night we’d had together.
He’d opened up to me, told me about his parents and his pack history. He’d been orphaned at six—that must have been hard. Suddenly my parents’ divorce seemed so trivial. Louis wasn’t dead, he was alive and well back in Santa Monica, and if in the future I wanted to try and mend our relationship, I’d be able to. Alexander would never have that chance.
We stopped at the tree by my bedroom and shifted back to our human forms. I had to calm myself down when I stared at his beautiful naked form.
There’s no time for that now, I thought as I saw the first glow of morning beginning to show itself on the horizon. I had never wanted the night to last more than I did at that moment.
“I wish I could come with you,” I told Alexander. He smiled lovingly and gently petted the side of my head, brushing a strand of hair from my face.
“I know,” he replied. “In time. If I make your father hate me now…”
“He doesn’t believe in fated-mates,” I told him, embarrassed by my dad’s stubborn nature.
“He will. Give him time.”
“Time,” I scowled. “Speaking of which—what time are you going to pick me up tomorrow?”
Alexander chuckled. “What time do you get out of school?”
“One thirty.”
“I’m going to do some trades tomorrow, so I’m not sure when I’ll be free, but I’ll do my best to be there at one thirty.”
“Good,” I said, leaning forward for a kiss. “And don’t be late.”
“Ohhhhh, you tease!”
“Cya!” I laughed as I shifted back to wolf form and scaled the tree. I crept along the branch and leapt back through my open window, returning to human form so I could blow my mate a kiss. “Good night!”
“Good night, Blue,” he said with a smile. I watched as he returned to wolf form and ran back towards Mist Peak and his beautiful home. If only I could have gone with him, but as he said—in time.
I closed the window and turned around. To my horror, my father was sitting in my desk chair, a deadly serious look on his face.
“Look who’s back,” he said, his voice low.
“Dad!” I stammered, suddenly self-conscious of my nakedness. I scrambled with a pair of my pants that lay on the floor and squirmed into them as he got to his feet.
“What did I tell you, Blue?”
“Dad, please just—”
“Grounded!” he roared. “That’s what I said. I also said you were never to see him again, didn’t I?”
“I can’t do that, dad.”
“Oh, you can’t?” he asked, stepping closer to me. I knew he would never hurt me, but I still felt small and intimidated as he glared down at me. “You seem to think this is a discussion. Let me clue you into something—it’s not. I am your father and as long as you still live under this roof, you will abide by my rules!
I’ll pick you up tomorrow after school.”
“Dad, wait!” I called after him, but it was too late. He slammed the door behind him, leaving me standing alone in the dark feeling like a child.
* * *
The ride into school the next morning was tense, to say the least. Neither of us spoke. I felt like anything I said would be wrong, and I guess my father just had nothing to say to me. When we pulled into the parking lot, I opened the door and got out as quickly as possible, hoping to avoid another scolding. But no such luck.
“Don’t forget,” my dad called after me. “Front steps after school. I’ll be here.”
“Okay,” I said as I shut the door, walked quickly up to the front doors and made my way inside.
Under normal circumstances, I would have been concerned with making new friends, finding out what high school life was like at my new school, but these were not normal circumstances.
My head was swimming with thoughts of Alexander, images of his naked body, the things he’d told me about his family and pack history, my father’s anger with me and losing my virginity to Alex last night in the meadow behind my house. I felt like I was living a movie, and whatever the other kids at my school were up to, it could never compare to what was happening in my life.
So I kept my head down through my classes, answering a few more calculus questions. Thankfully we hadn’t been assigned any homework yet, because I definitely wouldn’t have done any of it. I sat alone at lunch and heard a few people muttering about me being “that new, weird, antisocial kid,” but I didn’t care. High school was simply an inconvenience in my life at this point. My real life was out there with Alexander and his pack. It was all I cared about. But as I was finishing up physics class, replaying my night with Alexander for what felt like the hundredth time, I felt something inside of me awaken and slam into me like a truck filled with cinderblocks.
My face went red as a warm feeling ran up my body, starting at my toes and ending at my ears. I felt instantly self-conscious until I remembered that humans had absolutely no idea what was going on with me. But I did—it was my heat. It had come, just as Alexander had said it would.
I wanted to scream, jump for joy and shoot a confetti gun into the air. I wanted to race away and throw myself into his arms and have him ravish me, slide into my ass again and put a cub in my belly and make me a future father, but there I was, stuck in a human school with absolutely no outlet for my excitement, watching the four minutes left in class tick down. Then I would be free!
Except not really…
My father would be coming to get me and take me home—home to my prison.
So just run to him! Shift and go back home later!
It was an idea, but I’d already pissed off my father enough. Was it really worth angering him even further?
I closed my eyes as my heat swept through me like a force of nature, drowning out the sounds of the class around me. My body was crying out for Alexander’s touch. I couldn’t focus on anything else. If this had happened during first period, I probably would have been yelled at by every teacher I’d had. I had my backpack prepared so that as soon as the bell rang, I was on my feet and out the door.
“Have a good day, Mr. Mitchell!” my teacher called after me as I raced into the hallway. I was at my locker when I looked down the hall and out the windowed front door and saw my father’s truck in the parking lot.
Shit!
I chewed my lip nervously as I stuffed my backpack into my locker, thinking about what I was about to do. Alexander was on his way to pick me up too, but if he showed up and I wasn’t waiting for him, he’d think I’d gone home with my dad. But that wasn’t what I was going to do. Not now that I was in heat.
I closed my locker, turned away from the main doors of the school and ran down the hall towards the gym. There was a door the janitors used to get to a small back lot where the dumpsters were. Students weren’t supposed to use it, but I shouldered it open and burst outside.
“Hey!” one of the janitors shouted as I sprinted across the pavement. “That door’s for faculty only!”
I didn’t reply. I kept running, skirting the soccer fields and into the woods.
This is so stupid, Blue! I was scolding myself as I ran, but I couldn’t stop myself. My instincts were overwhelming. My heat was too strong. I was compelled by fate, driven by my destiny, propelled by an unseen force that was driving me back to Alexander and there was no fighting it.
I stopped by a large, unmistakable tree, stripped out of my clothes and hid them beneath one of the large roots that arced out of the earth. Then, without hesitation, I shifted and sprinted away towards Alexander’s house.
I’m coming, baby, I thought. I’m coming!
Chapter Seventeen
Blue
I ran and I ran and I ran through the woods with a fire in my heart and a light in my soul that seemed to cause the whole world to glow. The world seemed to respond too, because as I ran, the clouds began to thin and spots of sun began to pepper the landscape. I darted in and out of them as I made my way towards the Webbers’ home at the base of Mist Peak.
My dad would be pissed at me, of course, but I just couldn’t help myself. My heat was in full bloom and my body was crying out for Alexander’s touch—and more.
The concerns of my other life seemed so small and insignificant now.
Other life…
That was a good term for it, honestly. I already lived in two worlds; the shifter world and the human world, and my human issues simply were no longer concerns to me. I wanted to do well in school, of course, but that was in the back of my mind. Homework, tests, extra credit, it was all just background noise and things to be worried about later. Building a life with Alexander and giving him a cub, or a whole litter of cubs, was what I was meant to do!
I had never taken this route to the house, but I was certain I was getting close and as the wind shifted and I picked up my mate’s glorious scent, I knew I was right. The house came into view and I slowed my pace as I came out of the trees.
What a place!
It really was beautiful, like something out of an architecture magazine. The concrete walls that rose to the sheets of glass were precise and strong and had been designed with obvious care. One side of the house that looked out towards the driveway was planked with long dark wooden boards that made it seem as though the house could have been some kind of futuristic ship cruising through the woods on its way to some important destination. But of course, all of that wa
s simply extra awesomeness. All I cared about was the fact that it housed Alexander.
I made my way up the driveway then shifted at the door. I was naked, but so what? Shifters were used to that sort of thing, and I was pretty sure Eric, Jasper and Tyrese weren’t going to try anything on with me. And Clarice knew that I didn’t swing that way. So, bursting with energy and excitement about seeing my fated-mate, I knocked on the glass door and waited.
After a moment, Eric’s head emerged from the kitchen. He eyed me quizzically—he probably hadn’t been expecting me—cocked his head to one side and vanished.
What…?
After a few seconds he reappeared and walked slowly over to the door. He was wearing a pair of jogger sweatpants in navy green and a tank top that had seen better days. It seemed uncharacteristic for the house, but it fit him. He stopped at the door but didn’t open it. He looked at me strangely and I felt suddenly self-conscious.
I know you don’t like me, I thought. But please, just let me in so I can see my mate!
For a moment I thought he was going to leave me outside, but he finally unlatched the lock and opened the door.
“Blue,” he stated. “This is…unexpected.”
He glanced over his shoulder. Did he have a boy over too?
For a tiny moment a horrible thought invaded my mind: what if Alexander had a boy over!?
Don’t be stupid!
I was furious with myself for even allowing myself to think something so ridiculous.
“Yeah, sorry for just dropping by like this, but I’m—”
“In heat,” he said, his nose curling as he picked up the obvious signs in my scent.
“Yes,” I nodded proudly. “I just had to see Alexander. I know you don’t want us to be together and I know you probably don’t like me, but...”
“I don’t not like you, Blue,” Eric responded. “I like you just fine. What I don’t like is what this relationship could do to us…to the peace and the pack.”
