Wild Ride: An M/M Shifter Mpreg Romance Bundle

by Preston Walker

  “No way! I’ll do it myself!”

  “How?”

  This sucks.

  Chapter 6

  Tristan stood up in front of his pack, looking around at them as they looked back at him. They were eager for news about the stranger in their midst, he knew, and he was the only one who could satisfy that curiosity.

  He just really, really didn’t want to.

  This wasn’t all of the pack present, and it wouldn’t be no matter how long he waited for the others to arrive. The life of a wolf had to continue moving forward no matter what happened, which meant that hunters and guards were still roaming both the forests and the nearby streets of Portland. Still, there were a few others who remained in the camp that he was waiting for. He wanted as many ears to hear it as once, so it could spread and everyone would know.

  Only then could he be done with it.

  A small sigh left his lips as he watched a few cubs scampering around in the direction of his home, their curiosity getting the better of them. It wasn’t unusual for a pack to take in new members or to form a peaceful coexistence with a loner, or a new pack in the area, but they were still so young that it hadn’t ever happened in their lifetime.

  Agatha had come out of his home only an hour ago to report that the omega—Jack, he reminded himself—had finally fallen asleep after being given something to eat.

  “What did you give him?” Tristan asked her, trying to pretend like he cared.

  The older woman had shrugged nonchalantly, but her eyes flashed with mischief. “Oh,” she said, “nothing much. He fed himself a fruit cup.”

  “I see.”

  “That I opened for him.”

  He looked at her sideways, wondering why that was important. “Okay.”

  “And sprinkled with a crushed pain pill.” The doctor smiled, her wrinkles crinkling around her mouth and eyes. “He complained that it tasted bitter but just kept eating.”

  Tristan would have smiled back, except that having Jack around was going to drive him crazy.

  It would be even worse when everyone else knew, too.

  Finally, the children were rounded up by their parents and brought to the meeting, and the last straggler arrived with weary eyes.

  Tristan took a closer look at his people in the second before he began speaking. All of them looked exhausted. Maybe he was pushing them too hard with all the guard patrols last night, and the early patrolling this morning.

  No. I have to do what I have to do. It’s the only way to keep us safe. They’ll get used to it.

  “Good morning,” he finally said, a little curtly.

  The gathered shapeshifters nodded and murmured in his direction, watchful and wary. Tristan sighed. “I suppose you all want me to get right to it, don’t you? Fine, then. The first thing I need to do is clarify some things about that night.” Then, as briefly as he could, he explained everything to the watching faces. There was no more new information, especially since not a single guard or hunter had come across hide nor hair of the mysterious attacker, but he knew that setting things straight in the right order of events would help calm his people. He had kept quiet about it so as not to cause any undue alarm, but it was time to come clean.

  “So, who is that omega, then? Where did he come from?” a nervous-looking mother called out. “He isn’t of our blood.”

  A small mutter of agreement greeted her words, mostly from the younger females. Tristan couldn’t blame them. A mother’s first concern was her children, and bringing a stranger into the midst of the pack, who could potentially harm her cubs, was going to concern them.

  “His name is Jack. He literally just moved to Portland. He was a loner, just left his pack. If any of you have also heard rumors of a brown dog who leapt at a young girl in the city, that was him. He saved her life.”

  More murmuring greeted his words, some of it disapproving.

  “A shifter should know to be more careful.”

  “But he’s young and an omega. Maybe he didn’t know any better.”

  Tristan cleared his throat, the sound nearly as deep as a growl. Eyes turned back in his direction. “There is one more piece of news that I must share.”

  I hate this.

  Still, he knew he couldn’t escape it.

  “I have taken the omega Jack as my mate.”

  For a moment, the pack just stared at him with astonishment in their eyes. Then, a few burst out into cheers and congratulations while the others stayed sullen and silent.

  One of them, an alpha, rose to his feet. Apparently, he wasn’t going to stay silent for long.

  “That’s against everything natural,” he argued. “We don’t know this wolf. I would bet that you don’t know anything else about him other than what you just told us.”

  “He likes fruit cups,” Tristan replied, as calmly as he could. The alpha stared at him; over his shoulder, Tristan could see Agatha coughing to hide her laughter.

  “He’s not of our blood!”

  “A shifter must only bond for love!”

  It was time to lie.

  Shortly before his parents died, Tristan was taught perhaps the most powerful lesson he had ever known: sometimes, a lie or two was necessary to ensure peace.

  He hated to do it, but he was also starting to become frustrated again, and he didn’t want to lash out at those who didn’t deserve it. “Look, my people, I know what our customs are. I know that it’s unusual what I did. However, I feel like my soul is drawn towards Jack. I’m sure that when I have the time to get to know him better, I will come to love him as much as...as much as my parents loved each other.”

  With that said and done, he turned away from them and walked away. He was scowling as he turned his face away, and then he dropped down into his wolf form and began to run.

  He had no true destination. All he wanted was to outrun all this unpleasantness, and his new responsibility to a guy who he’d hardly even spoken to before.

  Chapter 7

  For someone with a mate, Tristan did not act like he was mated.

  It seemed like no matter where he turned, he was hearing those words being uttered quietly from one wolf to another.

  He knew it, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. The few times he dared to try to set foot in his own house, Agatha quickly chased him away because he was upsetting her patient. So, it was impossible for him to make good on his promise to get to know Jack and come to love him—and he didn’t think that it would be possible even if he had all the time in the world to come to know him. What could they have in common?

  Nothing.

  So, he busied himself with patrols. If a leader just sat back while his people did what he told them to, that wasn’t truly leading. A real leader put himself out there at the battlefront, and led by example. If he wanted his people to patrol, then he was going to patrol as well.

  Never in his entire life had he hunted as much as he did over the next few days, until the elders and home-bound mothers had to practically beg him to stop, that they couldn’t do anything with the surplus of food he’d already given them. So, he just shut his mind down and ran.

  Over the next three days, Tristan roamed so far in the mountains that he passed into different forests and felt the earth shift subtly beneath his paws as he crossed into different states. He was always forced to return in the end, but he would set out again the next day, putting his paws to the ground and racing away. He splashed through streams and placed down territorial markers, and he howled from peaks that looked down upon the beauty of the world so far below.

  Part of him was trying to escape from the omega, but their souls were touching even if their bodies weren’t in the same proximity. Often, he felt twinges of pain that seemed to emanate from his chest, echoes of Jack’s injuries; he also felt a deep, urgent restlessness that made him run even faster than before.

  And sometimes, he felt something which pained him the most: loneliness.

  Tristan stopped by a river as a tremor of depressi
on shook through his paws, forcing him to dig his nails into the dirt. He lashed his tail, not quite a wag, and the fur on his neck bristled.

  You did this to yourself, he thought, addressing the omega whose feelings coursed through him. They couldn’t hear each other’s thoughts, but maybe some of his meaning would get through. You’re the one who decided to be a lone wolf. It’s not fun, is it? It’s against nature. Someone like you is meant to depend on others. That’s just how it works.

  Shaking his head again, he lapped at the mountain-cold river water and then took off running again. Part of him regretted everything he’d done. The omega hadn’t given him any new information. Maybe he should have just let him die.

  Then, on the fourth day, just as Tristan was heading out, Agatha stopped him. Her gnarled hand rested on his shoulder, weak but also commanding his respect and attention.

  He turned to her. “What is it?”

  “Jack is healing well now,” she said. “I was right when I thought that claiming him would help him.”

  “Great,” Tristan huffed. “Congratulate me for him, would you? I have to get going.”

  “Oh, do you. Silly me. Here I thought that my gracious and kind alpha, who runs his pack so well, would want to come see his mate now that I’m giving him permission. He needs to see you. You mated him. Your souls are tied.”

  “And?”

  “And so, he would heal even faster and rest even easier if you were together in peace. Not arguing, but peacefully in the same room.”

  “Agatha, please.”

  “I’m not saying you have to have sex with him,” she said abruptly, angrily. “All I’m saying is that you are mates now and that means you have some responsibility to keep him happy. You knew that when you did this.”

  Tristan rounded on her, bristling. “I claimed him so that he would live. I claimed him so that he could tell me about what he saw. I didn’t do it out of the goodness of my heart because he was so cute and sweet that I wanted to protect him for the rest of his life. I did this for my own reasons.”

  The doctor looked vaguely horrified by what he said, but he didn’t care. He started to shift.

  “Your life isn’t the only one at stake here,” she said, but he didn’t wait around to see what else would be said. He raced away, his fur streaming in the wind.

  And it’s not just his life either. It’s the life of the pack. This is what I had to do for all of us. It’s bigger than him, and bigger than me.

  Once he was out of sight of the camp however, he slowed his pace uncertainly. Well...now what? Where else was there for him to go?

  Lifting up his face to scent the air, Tristan discovered that he could smell only the forest—and wolves. Specifically, himself. He had been tromping all over these hills and valleys so much that he was practically part of the mountain now.

  Uneasiness rose in his chest, and he shoved it down irritably. Moving off again, he suddenly realized how exhausted he was.

  A nap, then. No one would begrudge him a bit of rest.

  However, since his bed had been taken over by a weakling, he would have to sleep outside, and he knew no better place to do that than the river he had visited before.

  Lifting his nose to the air again, he scented for water and then began to head down a nearby hill. Through the tree trunks, he caught a glimpse of a broken river winding steadily down the mountainside. Silver and glistening, just the sight of it inspired thirst.

  Picking up his pace, Tristan skirted around a patch of boulders and then dropped down the side of a particularly steep slope. From there, the trees fell away slightly to form a wide, flowering meadow where the thickest part of the river was.

  Slowing his pace now, he padded to the edge of the riverbank and looked down at himself. An enormous wolf looked back at him, and he snorted and slapped at his reflection with one paw before turning away.

  Right where sand met grass, the ground was softest. Tristan found a particularly comfortable patch, turned in a circle a few times to flatten out a nest, and then he curled up. His long tail covered his snout, and he shut his eyes tightly.

  Exhaustion dragged through his entire body, and he was asleep before he knew it.

  Thirty minutes later, something stabbed him in the chest.

  Leaping to his feet and howling, Tristan turned back into a human and grabbed for whatever had hurt him, but he found nothing. Anxiously, he pawed all over himself, turning and grasping at the pain, but there were no wounds to be found anywhere.

  “What’s going on?” he yelped.

  Another wracking jolt of pain shook through his whole body, sending him careening to the side. Collapsing into the grass, he grabbed at his side and gasped. It felt like lacerations were tearing themselves open over his whole entire body. His side felt gouged, and his chest was burning, and his back was being flayed.

  What’s going on? he thought, terrified. Is this poison? A snakebite?

  Then, he felt something that stopped him cold.

  It was more panic, more fear, but it came from somewhere else inside him. It was a twin to his own, which could only mean one thing: Jack was in trouble. It made sense, if his mate was in pain, to be feeling where the pain was; since the omega was weak and slow to heal, that meant the pain was still everywhere.

  Staggering to his feet, Tristan turned in the direction of his camp, his heart pounding.

  “I understand,” he muttered.

  Agatha had said he had a responsibility to keep the omega happy. He had known that all along, but he hadn’t wanted to admit what it meant.

  As long as Jack felt pain, or fear, or anything negative at all, it would torment Tristan.

  If his omega wasn’t happy, it was going to be impossible for him to ever be happy, either. The consequences of mating him were very, very real.

  I’m coming, he thought, and transformed quickly to start the long, grueling journey back up the side of the mountain. His heart pounded, adrenaline coursing in his blood alleviating some of the pain. He had no idea what he would find when he returned. All he could hope was that it wasn’t going to be too late.

  Chapter 8

  That jerk.

  Jack wondered if Tristan was so heartless that he couldn’t feel the unfortunate connection between them. He ached to be out there, running across the mountains with the alpha, and he hated himself for wanting that. He was so restless that it was going to drive him crazy! How was anyone supposed to survive when they were stuck on bed rest?

  Agatha smiled at him kindly the first time he asked that. “You’ll do it the same way that other people have been doing it for thousands of years.”

  “How?” he asked, holding his breath with anticipation of the answer. Was this going to be some sort of big secret?

  It wasn’t.

  The doctor softly patted his shoulder, and that was how he knew he was going to be disappointed again. “You’ll sleep a whole lot, whether you want to or not. After that, when you can’t sleep any longer, you’ll try reading or some other quiet activity. And then, when you can’t hold still any longer, you’ll take your first steps again. After that, you’ll progress quite rapidly. But until then, your body needs rest.”

  “My body doesn’t want to rest,” he said sullenly. “I can feel Tristan out there running around and I want to, too.”

  Her interest seemed to sharpen for a moment. “You want to run with him?”

  Jack shrugged. “If that’s what it takes to get me out of here. Honestly, I would just rather run. Anywhere. I don’t care. I’ll run all the way back to my old home if that’s what it takes.”

  All that earned him was another condescending pat. “All in good time.”

  Time was not good. Jack thought about that sentiment bitterly as he wriggled around in the alpha’s bed, causing the other man’s scent to wreathe around him. Moving around caused his stitches to stretch tightly, and he felt breathless with the pain, but he couldn’t hold still any longer.

  Suddenly, he heard footsteps an
d turned his head slightly to watch as someone entered his room. His eyes widened. It wasn’t Tristan or Agatha. It was someone he had never seen before, and he wasn’t alone. One after another, three alpha male shapeshifters stood in the small bedroom. They were all so huge and bulky that they had to stand with their shoulders pressed uncomfortably together. The scent of them was overpowering, a musk so sharp and pungent that it seared his nostrils.

  “Who...who are you?” he stammered.

  All three of them had similar sharp eyes and square faces. Their hands were huge and looked as though they could snap him in half without even trying. Fear trembled inside his chest as he looked at them, starting to go breathless as stress tightened his stitches. Pain throbbed in time with the pounding of his heart.

  “My name is...” one of them started to say, only to get slapped across the stomach by another. Jack winced in sympathy. The sounded of hard contact thudded in his bones. These guys were strong.

  “Don’t tell him that, are you stupid?” the one who had done the hitting said, scowling.

  “Sorry,” the hit one muttered, rubbing at what was obviously now a sore stomach.

  The other one, clearly the leader, turned his menacing green eyes on Jack. “It doesn’t matter who we are. We ain’t here for you to focus on us. It’s us who is gonna focus on you now.”

  “Yeah,” the third one piped up, silent up to this point. He was slightly smaller than the other two but bore a wicked scar on his cheek. “We don’t think you are who you say you are. What omega just leaves their pack behind? It’s unnatural.”

  “I...”

  They continued to talk right over him, and that was when Jack realized that they had no interest at all in his actual answers. This was not a diplomatic mission meant to sort out some of the mystery. This was something else entirely, and it wasn’t going to be good.