by C. R. Jane
He played with my hair almost as if it were something precious, like he enjoyed the softness against his skin. What was I supposed to be doing right now? My emotions were ruling me, tugging me down every path but the one I was supposed to be on.
He cupped the side of my face, his fingers on my cheek, tipping my head back to look him in the eyes. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe what the town needs is a little bit of your wild,” he whispered.
I blinked at him, my chest squeezing like it was being squashed. “A little bit of my wild? What do you mean?”
He hesitated at first, and I studied the conflict in his gaze as though he battled between telling me what he meant or just being aloof…or an asshole like always.
I leaned against the storefront, unable to believe what he’d just told me. Wild. Me. Like the two could ever go together.
His words were confusing. From the beginning, he’d made it clear that he wanted me gone. And now…it seemed like he was almost asking me to stay.
Nothing was making sense, and exhaustion hit me, wearing me down. I was so tired of all the games. Alistair had played enough games with me to last a lifetime. And I couldn’t take any more.
I pushed off the wall, ready to tell him goodbye for good, when up ahead, the people mulling around burst into cheers.
A dark blur zipped up the street at blinding speed.
I jerked my head up. “Did you just see that?”
The locals around us bustled into excited chatter, more of them pushing forward to see the road. I brushed past Wilder, needing to look closer. Then right before my eyes, a gray wolf bolted up the street…a real-life wolf. He ran fast, the wind in his ash colored fur, determination on his face.
I was stunned, my jaw dropping open.
Was this really happening?
A thunderous sound came from down the street. I bent forward to peer past the masses.
More wolves ran up the road, all of various colors, grays, blacks, tawny, their fur smooth and shiny. They all panted, tongues hanging out, racing each other to be first. There had to be close to twenty animals. Their movements were swift and elegant, each step purposeful, their bodies muscular and confident.
A tinge of fear sliced through me to see these wild animals rushing past me. What stopped one from lunging at the crowd?
The people cheered them on though, obviously not having my concerns. It felt like I’d just stepped into an episode of The Twilight Zone.
There were real wolves running through the town. How could this be happening?
11
Rune
I continued to watch in amazement as the wolves rushed past. When they got around the corner, they looped back and ran the opposite direction until wolves were running both ways. I’d never heard of anything like it. It was as if someone was controlling their movements, synchronizing them into a beautiful dance that I knew I wouldn’t forget for as long as I lived.
Why wasn’t this in the news? Why weren’t there a million people crowding these streets trying to see what must be one of the world’s wonders?
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Wilder suddenly said next to me, reverently. I’d forgotten he was still here for a moment.
“The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” I admitted, unable to look away from the sight. “How long do they do this? And why?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Wilder smile and stifle a laugh as if he was in on a joke I wasn’t. He pointed up to the sky where the blue moon was illuminating the night above the mountains.
“There’s something about the moon. It drives the wolves to run. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember.”
His words made me think of my own urge to run since coming to this town. It always sat there, right beneath the skin, an ever-present urge that I tried my best to control, as I hadn’t found a gym yet and I’d had enough warnings to be careful when running outside.
“You’ve lived here all your life, right?” I asked as we both stood there watching.
He hummed and then nodded. “Born and raised. I suppose I’ll die here as well.”
There was a bit of melancholy in his words, as if that was a big disappointment to him. Which was surprising since he allegedly owned half the town. Wilder didn’t seem the type to be forced to do anything, so why did he seem upset about staying here?
“It seems like there’s more to that statement,” I said carefully, sure that at any minute, this fragile peace we were in while watching the wolves run would be shattered and it would be back to business as usual.
There was a long silence, and I watched in amazement as a ginormous, freaking gorgeous snow-white colored wolf with one blonde paw weaved his way in and out of the animals, taking his place in the front. The other wolves fell in line easily behind him, recognizing their apparent leader. Wilder frowned at the sight.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed that new people don’t really come to this place. But when they do, they don’t leave. Everyone you see around you has been here since birth. We all carry the weight of our family traditions on our back, and any other path is discouraged.”
Wilder was silent again, but his silence was filled with a million unspoken things. He sighed and pushed his hair out of his face. I stared distractedly at the way the moon settled across his features, turning him into some sort of dark prince that I noticed others had a difficult time tearing their gazes from as well. If there was anyone who could distract away from the gorgeous predators continuing to dart past us, it was him.
“I went away for college actually,” he finally said. He didn’t look that much older than me, so I wondered how long he’d been back. “I got a scholarship for basketball.” He looked away from the wolves, his emerald eyes serious as if it was important to him for me to know this about him. “I was good. So good, there was all this talk about me going pro. I suddenly had this whole other life set out for me.”
Something in his cheek pulsed at the thought.
“And then I was back here on break, and Arcadia had called me, sobbing about how she missed me or something, and that she was in trouble and needed me to come pick her up.”
He laughed bitterly at the memory.
“She wasn’t in trouble. She was drunk, at some bar two towns over, picking a fight with some local drug dealers who wanted blow jobs in exchange for their blow. Of course, being the idiot I was, who never could say no to that girl, I stood up for her alleged honor. I beat the crap out of the three of them and walked her out of there to my car. Before we got too far out of town, they came after us and sideswiped my car.”
I gasped, thoroughly entranced at his story, while imagining my own recent crash.
“My leg got struck with the impact, my tibia shattered to pieces.”
“And you couldn’t play after that?” I asked, an ache in my heart as I watched him, knowing he was still mourning that moment.
He shook his head. “I’ve always been a fast healer,” he said in a gravelly voice. “I would have been as good as new the next season. But the drug dealers were actually the sons of the local leaders of that town, the mayor and the police chief of all things. The police of that town were the first to find us, and they read me my rights as I was wheeled into surgery for the injuries to their boys. They made a huge deal about it. They didn’t care what I had to say or what had actually happened, or that their boys had run us off the road.” His body shook angrily at the memory. “The university didn’t want to have anything to do with me after that, and no one else would take a chance on me, not with charges still pending for the next year. And so I came back here, took classes at the local college. And that’s that.”
He laughed again as we watched a wolf nip at the leg of another wolf as they raced by. “My life was ruined, and the girl I was trying to help, the girl I’d been in love with for so long that I couldn’t even remember when it started…she lost another man’s baby. Just the cream on top of everything.”
My stomach churned. So that was what h
appened. Arcadia hadn’t gotten rid of Daxon’s baby, she’d lost it in the crash…which she was in with another man. Fierce hatred rushed through me at the thought of everything she’d done. But these guys had also been idiots. Was her pussy made of gold or something? I felt sick just thinking about how much they’d loved her.
I realized that Wilder had said my name, and I looked at him, unable to meet his eyes for some reason. “I know all about losing your future,” I finally said to him, my body trembling as I remembered when I’d lost mine.
I didn’t remember anything after Alistair severed our mate bond. When I woke up and found myself in a closet-sized room, I had no idea of how I’d gotten there. The only thing I knew was that I didn’t walk into the room myself because I hadn’t been able to move last night.
It felt…like I was dying. There was no other way to describe it. Like someone had taken my soul and ripped it in half. Did Alistair have the other half? Is this what he was feeling too? Or did the rejector somehow escape the pain of the rejected? Wouldn’t that be a cruel twist of fate.
Have you ever tried to survive with your soul split apart, stuck in the agony of a lost relationship only multiplied by ten million because the person you’d lost was the only one in the world for you?
And where was my mother? I felt like a child again, desperate for the warmth of her arms and the reassurance that everything would be all right, even if every word she said was a lie.
I wanted to die. I’d never met a rejected wolf before, and now I knew why. Because it was not survivable. If I’d seen one on the street, I would have seen a ghost, so alone and lost that you would look right past them, not realizing you had in fact passed a real person.
Maybe I had already died. The girl I was yesterday was certainly nowhere to be found. There was no hope for her to rise from the ashes. That girl had been burned until everything was gone, and a new life was impossible.
At least that’s what it felt like right now.
What would become of me?
I faintly remembered being told I would be serving in Alistair’s house, but thinking back on that now, that didn’t seem right.
Alistair at least had to have cared for me enough to not force me to be around him now. Right? Hadn’t I seen that recognition in his eyes when he looked at me, the one that said I was the only one for him? Why would he want to be reminded of what he’d lost?
A part of me was still foolishly holding out for the fact that all of this was just a bad nightmare, a product of the nerves I’d experienced prior to arriving at the dinner. I was waiting for the door to be opened and Alistair to be there, holding out his arms, letting me know that everything was fine, that our fairy tale was about to begin.
Growing up, I’d had nightmares constantly, images I didn’t understand had taken over my nights. Waking up every morning was a relief.
I prayed that somehow, this was the same.
I was a fool.
The door opened, and a stiff-looking woman who looked like she smelled something rotten stood there. She was dressed in an old-fashioned black maid’s uniform with lace on her freshly pressed white apron. “Come with me,” she ordered, her tone cold and unyielding.
I got up and obediently followed her from the room, not sure what else to do. I was in the alpha’s mansion…I thought. Everything around me was so decadent, I didn’t know what else it could be.
“Have you seen my mother?” I asked when the silence became too much.
She muttered something under her breath. “As you know, your mother left last night after your shame was announced. I don’t blame her in the least.”
“As I know?” I asked, a cry caught in my throat. She wouldn’t have left me, not when I needed her so badly. There had to have been a mistake.
She gave me an impatient look. “You were explained all of this last night. Playing stupid will get you nowhere here. You need to accept that this is your new life and try to make the best of it.”
I had so many more questions as it became clear nothing of last night had in fact been a dream, but I got the feeling she wouldn’t be answering any.
We reached what looked like a main living area. All I could see out the window was an inky blackness, meaning that somehow, I’d been asleep an entire day. A solemn looking man dressed in a pristine black suit stood up when we entered.
“Is this her?” he asked the woman, not looking at me once.
“Yes. He wants it done right away,” she answered.
Who wanted what done right away? What were they talking about?
Another man entered the room dressed in the all-black uniform of the alpha’s enforcers. Panic hit me then, and I struggled against the women’s suddenly iron-clad grip. I managed to break away, but then two enforcers were on me and I couldn’t move at all. I watched as the man in the suit walked over to the fireplace and picked up a metal rod that had been leaning against the stone. He picked it up and the dread only grew when I saw that there was some kind of brand at the end of the rod. He put the rod into the roaring fireplace, not taking it out until the brand, which looked a little like a snake wrapped around a wolf, was a burning red color. He began to chant something in Latin, and the brand began to glow even brighter. I began to struggle as ferociously as I could against the enforcers’ grip, my cries filling the air. I couldn’t let that brand touch me, I couldn’t.
“Please,” I begged, but my cries fell on deaf ears.
The man stopped chanting and walked over to me, finally looking at me with a blank, pitiless gaze.
These people were all monsters.
“Mother. Alistair. Alpha,” I cried out, sure that this was all a mistake. Someone was going to come to save me, they had to.
When the man holding the brand was standing in front of me, Alistair appeared from down a hallway, across the room.
“Please, help me!” I cried out to him. He just stared at me though, emotionless, like I was nothing to him…like I’d never been anything to him.
“Rune Celeste Esmaray, you have been found unworthy for the gift the moon goddess has bestowed upon your blemished soul. With this mark, your wolf will be severed from you, protected from the shame you would bring upon it.”
Before the meaning of the words could fully sink in, my blue dress that I was still wearing from the night before was ripped open, and the brand was thrust against the skin on my back. I screamed at the unspeakable pain, my body frozen as agony coursed through my veins. After what felt like hours, the brand was removed and I was dropped to the floor, my whole body shaking with adrenaline for what I’d just experienced.
I begged the moon goddess for death. But it never came.
And my wolf was locked inside of me from that day on, never to be freed.
The brand against my back was gone by the time I looked in a mirror, but I could still feel its curse under my skin.
“Rune.” Wilder’s voice cut through my remembered pain, and I stared at him blankly, trying to remember what we’d been talking about.
A howl ripped through the air, and everything came back.
“Rune, baby. Are you all right?”
I belatedly realized I was in Wilder’s arms, and there were tears streaming down my face.
I breathed in his unique scent for a second, trying to ground myself as embarrassment seeped in at what had just occurred.
I finally pulled away from him, struggling to look at him and wanting to go hide in my room. Any wonder I’d felt at the wolves running past had disappeared.
Wilder tipped up my chin so I was forced to look at him, and I was surprised to see rage etched across his features. His eyes…
They weren’t normal looking. They were glowing. I stepped back in shock, suddenly feeling something sharp scratch and tear at my skin where Wilder had been holding me around the waist still. He let me go suddenly, and I gasped when I saw sharp claws extending out from his fingers.
“Rune, run,” he growled desperately, and all I could do was stand there f
or a second as his teeth began to lengthen in his mouth and his nose began to extend forward.
Wilder was a fucking shifter. I’d escaped from one hell only to find myself in another.
With a scream, I darted away, blindly pushing past the crowds of people that were still watching the wolves.
Were those even wolves? I doubted that now. This whole town was probably filled with shifters.
I was such a fool.
My breath came out in gasps as I ran to the edge of town, expecting any moment for someone to grab me. I didn’t know where to go…what to do.
So of course, I found myself in the motherfucking woods, right where I’d been warned time and time again not to go.
I doubted whatever was in these woods was as dangerous to me as what I’d left behind in town though. I could feel rivulets of blood sliding from the scratch Wilder had made in my skin.
Howls suddenly filled the night, and I stopped in place, not knowing which direction to go. Were they everywhere? I clamped a hand over my mouth, trying to stifle my breathing and the screams that were threatening to emerge.
“Rune, baby,” I heard Daxon call from somewhere nearby just then.
I darted behind a tree and crouched at its base, hoping somehow, I wouldn’t be seen.
He was one of them. I knew he was. Wilder and he were both the alphas of their packs. I was such an idiot. So many things made sense now, all the little jokes everyone had made.
I’m sure they’d all gotten quite a laugh at my idiocy.
Wolves could see in the dark. Daxon was probably watching me nearby. Shivers slid across my skin, and tears fell down my face. I’d vowed never to find myself near a shifter again. And here I was.
“Boo,” Daxon suddenly whispered across the skin on the back of my neck, and this time, a scream filled the air around me.
He didn’t touch me, he just stood there, staring at me, an unfamiliar predatory look in his gaze like he was just daring me to run.
I held up my hands in front of me. “Please, I won’t tell anyone. Just let me go.”
