by E. M. Moore
Her words are uttered in a way that I shouldn’t argue, but I’m sick and tired of bending over backward for Sean when he might be with Gayle, not even thinking twice about me. Actually, I’m not doing myself any favors by only suspecting their transgressions. I know. I just don’t have the evidence. “Ms. Ebon…” I clear my throat as nerves set in, “I suspect that my mate is with someone else in Daybreak. I don’t think going back there will change anything.”
She lifts a judgmental brow. “Is there any proof?”
“I’m here, so no, I don’t have proof. Do I have any recourse if that’s what I find when I return to Daybreak? What if he is with another shifter and that’s why he won’t accept me? Does that seem fair to you? Made to go Feral when he’s the one who’s breaking the mate laws?”
She doesn’t rise to my bait. She’s like an emotionless marble statue. “I suppose there is more than one reason why you should return to Daybreak, then, isn’t there?” She doesn’t pause long enough for me to answer. “I must impress upon you the urgency of this, Miss Adams. Lydia Greystone has set the time limit on your fate with us. It’s now up to you to make the future happen.”
“He doesn’t love me,” I argue.
She shakes her head. “That’s simply impossible. Shifters are bound to their other halves. Find a way to make him see you, Miss Adams. Open yourself up. Fate will do the rest.”
Before I even realize what I’m doing, I’m already shaking my head. My wolf agrees with me. I’ve bared my soul to Sean, only to have him completely forsake me. I don’t think I can go through that again.
“You have two weeks,” Ms. Ebon states.
My heart stops. It’s like a tractor trailer gunning straight for me, its shiny, platinum grill lit up with neon warning signs. In slow motion, the blood stops pumping through my veins, my brain blips out like someone shut me off, and my body practically deflates.
Two weeks.
I’ve been here for over a year, and they expect me to get Sean back in two weeks?
Panic crashes into me, my body coming to life in a thrum of anxiety and worry. Those emotions give way to anger in a split second. “This is bullshit.”
“Be that as it may, Miss Adams, it is reality.”
She returns to flipping through my file, stopping to jot down notes of her own. Adrenaline courses through me like electricity through high-voltage lines. No matter how wrong this is, nothing will change. I can’t change Ms. Ebon’s mind in a few minutes, and hell, it’s not even her mind I need to change. It’s the whole damn system. All eight packs agreed to this barbaric nonsense. Not only is it just not right, but did anyone stop to think that the wrong shifters are at Greystone? Surely Sean should be in here for rejecting me.
I stand, the chair scraping against the stone floor as I move, and Ms. Ebon glances up. “Somewhere to be?”
My fingers fidget near my side. I haven’t exactly been complacent with what’s going on here, but I haven’t bucked the system either. Maybe it’s time I do? I’d rather go Feral than walk my rejected ass back into Daybreak and beg Sean to take me.
Maybe I’m finally as royally pissed off as Nathan seems to be lately.
It’s as if the whole world is against me. Especially Lydia Greystone. She won’t stop until all the rejected shifters are gone. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it earlier. Of course I would be on her radar—I’ve been in limbo for a year. They’re not going to host me here forever.
I spin on my heel and start for the door. Ms. Ebon sighs. “Where are you going?”
“Anywhere but here.” My fingers wrap around the doorknob and I yank the huge, wooden door open. Inside, my wolf raises a fur-covered paw in solidarity with me. It’s not exactly visuals that I get while human, it’s feelings. And right now, she’s on my side, riding this wave of not doing what everyone is telling me to do. I’ve been on that route for far too long.
I hang a left out of the office. Too agitated to go back to my room or eat dinner with Nadia, I need an escape. I’ll end up biting the sweet shifter’s face off, and I really don’t want to do that to someone so innocent. Instead, I head right for the arched wooden doors. They must be at least twenty feet in height. Despite their antiqueness, the front doors open easier than Ms. Ebon’s.
I sprint down the stone steps, leaving behind the castle-inspired academy with its turrets that rise so high they’re practically mingling with the clouds. I’m heading away from the awful place. Away from the uncaring people inside.
Briefly, I stop in one of the changing huts gracing the manicured lawn. The string of octagon-shaped structures are available like gym lockers in high school. They’re actually a nice feature to keep our clothes from getting ruined before we shift or to prevent us from walking around naked all the time.
My wolf paws at her home inside me. She can barely wait for me to slip out of my Greystone Academy uniform. The pleated skirt hits the ground first. Then the buttoned blouse. I practically rip off the hideous, long, black socks. Lastly, my bra and underwear are tossed onto the bench. I barely stand up straight before my wolf starts to take over.
My fingers spread out, then curl under first. It’s always started that way with me. Then my ribs, my legs. The sound of bones breaking filters through my ears as fur sprouts over my arms, rippling underneath the surface, then growing at an alarming rate until my body doubles over, paws hitting the ground instead of hands.
I retreat into a small section of my wolf as she takes over. I can hear her, feel her, but it’s like sitting in the backseat while someone else manipulates the wheel. That’s what I need right now—someone else to drive for a while so I can think.
My wolf shakes, brown fur billowing. She paws the door open, and as soon as it slams closed, she lifts her muzzle into the air and howls. Pain and agony cement in our bones. She’s more connected to our pack than I am right now, and this news has hit her like a battering ram to the chest. What she can’t say with words, she says with yelps and howls until she takes off. Her claws dig through the green grass; muscles stretch and thrum with the feeling of being used.
She tears through the tree line and veers left. We’ve been at the academy for so long that we know these woods in our soul. We only have a few acres to run before we’re in Lunar Pack territory, a forbidden territory for someone like me. Thank goodness we’ve explored this area for so long that we know where all the good—and safe—areas are.
My wolf and I must be on the same page because she heads toward our secret place. She drives forward, the rocky peak in the distance small and then hidden completely from view when she enters the tall, forest trees. She keeps running, jumping over fallen limbs and bushes, streams and rocks, until she gets to the base of the hill. Leaping onto the first rock, she digs her paws in as she climbs upward.
The closer we get to the top, the more the sun shines through the canopy of trees above us, glittering on the dew-laden grass. Striations of rock peek between the ground foliage until she bursts through the last set of trees and comes to a halt on top of the flat hill. It’s not a huge space, maybe a swimming pool size, but what I like most is the view from the top. It’s breathtaking. My wolf and I feel one with nature when we’re up here. We feel like we have a purpose.
We feel...free.
4
My wolf sniffs the air, taking in the scent of the forest below: dirt, the trees, and believe it or not, Greystone Academy itself. The aroma of mixed shifters hits my wolf’s nostrils, making her nose scrunch. We love the smell of Daybreak shifters. The others are tolerable. It’s not like they smell bad, but when we’re next to a Daybreak shifter, we smell home.
Closing her eyes, my wolf shuts everything else out, picking up the scent of Daybreak. It makes her howl long and hard. She misses her home. She misses her people. This is not the life she signed up for when she first came out last year. I still remember her exhilaration. The shifter blood coursing through us until nature took over, shifting for the first time ever.
Both of us s
top the memory before Sean comes into play. It’s not something we like to dwell on.
My wolf’s nose moves as she picks up the scent again, only this time it’s stronger. A branch breaks in the distance, and my wolf crouches into stealth mode. A flurry of movement advances from our right, along with paws thumping against the ground. She shakes her head. My panic rises for a split second before I realize it was an actual Daybreak pack member she was smelling and not just a memory she was holding onto.
Nathan’s black wolf bounds into view, tongue hanging out of his mouth. He tilts his head to the side as if to ask what we’re doing. He and I come up here to talk. It turns out, when the mates who are rightfully yours are probably fucking, you have a lot in common.
He moves forward, and my wolf settles down onto her hind legs as she waits for him to approach. He brushes his head against hers, and a warmth flows through us.
Shift?
I nod inside her, knowing she’ll be able to feel my thoughts like I can hers. She throws her head back at the same time the shift begins. I cringe as I’m propelled to the front again. I’ve always found shifting out of my wolf form the most jarring, like I’m being shot through hyperspace. Before I know it, the fur has receded and I spy my creamy white skin once more. I stand, straightening my back until I realize I didn’t bring clothes with me.
My face blooms red as I take off for the nearest tree to hide behind. It isn’t a particularly big tree, so it’s not hiding much. “Like I haven’t seen you before,” Nathan says, voice warm. “Here.”
A white shirt drops onto a small branch in front of me. I pick it up, turn it right side out, then pull it over my head before I face Nathan.
My wolf settles happily inside me, contentment making me think of her lying down with her tail swooshing from side to side.
“Forgot my clothes again,” I say as Nathan buttons the top of his jeans. He’s shirtless, standing before me, a smear of mud running from his shoulder into his patch of black chest hair. His muscles ripple with his movements, and I have to tell myself not to stare.
Nathan cuts through all the bullshit. “What’s wrong? You howled, then Nadia told me Ms. Ebon wanted to see you. Is it about Kinsey?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s not about her. It’s about me.”
He narrows his scrutinizing gaze. Part of me doesn’t want to say anything to him because if I’m going through this, he’s next. I got here only a couple of months before Nathan. But as much as I’d like to spare him, I know I won’t be able to.
I bite my cheek before pressing my lips together as I glance up at his blue eyes. “They’re giving Sean and I a timeline,” I inform him. “I have two weeks.”
Surprise ricochets through him, apparent by his look of pure confusion followed quickly by contempt. “Two weeks? Sean?”
I nod. “Lydia Greystone. She’s giving me two weeks for Sean to accept me or I’m going Feral.”
“No,” Nathan fumes, hands clenching to fists.
“I don’t think I really have a choice.” I release a humorless chuckle, though nothing about this is funny. I have a time limit on the day I’ll lose everything. It’s not exactly how one wants to live. I’d rather have a countdown to pizza or dessert.
“They can’t do that.”
“Pretty sure they can.”
“This is bullshit.”
“Might have said that to Ms. Ebon, but I don’t think it matters.”
Veins pop out on his forearms. “When I see Sean, I’m going to kill him.”
The baring of his teeth tells me I’m not sure I could count Nathan out if he were to fight Sean. I can’t say I’ve never wanted to get a few hits in on his stupid fated mate. “You might get a chance to do that,” I tell him. “Ms. Ebon says she’s going to petition for Daybreak shifters to go back to their pack so I can see Sean again. She acts like the Winter Solstice party will be my savior or something.”
Nathan’s chest heaves. “You have to find a way.”
My jaw locks. I push forward, hitting his shoulder as I pass. “Just how am I going to do that? I’ve tried for the last year and haven’t gotten anywhere.”
“Does it matter?” His voice is far away at first, but he follows me to the hill’s edge as I sit. I lean against a rock with my legs outstretched, and when he speaks again, I can hear the barely restrained anger as plain as day. “You have to try everything. It’s that or go Feral.”
I shrug, trying to keep my own fury in check. “You act like that’s something new. The stakes have always been the same.”
“Not with a time limit,” he growls. “Fuck, Mia. You can’t go Feral.”
Parts of me harden at his words, resonating with them. I want to fight, too. I want to show up at Daybreak and tell Sean what a huge fucking prick he is for doing this to me. But I don’t think it will make a difference. If he hasn’t decided by now, what else could I possibly do to get him to leave Gayle alone and realize that all he should want has been waiting for him this whole time?
Even as I think it, my stomach roils. “There’s nothing I can do,” I say evenly.
He sits next to me, reaches out his hand and makes me look at him with a grip on my chin. “The fuck there isn’t. You’re going to the Winter Solstice festivities. You’re….” His gaze changes as he looks at me, and I swallow hard at the intensity. A pull starts between us, like I’m tied to a line he’s tethered to and fate is making it shorter and shorter, bringing us closer together with every moment.
“Nathan.”
His lips meet mine. My wolf yips inside, and I accidentally bite his lip, but it doesn’t deter him. In fact, it spurs him on. He delves his tongue into my mouth, groaning, igniting need and hunger deep inside me.
I’ve kissed guys before. Never when I had a mate, of course. Nathan’s been the only one, so I’m not sure if the feelings coursing through me are because of Nathan or the fact that I’m mated, but I can say, with one hundred percent certainty, that kissing another shifter never felt like this before.
“Mia, fuck,” he says, uttering those words just over my lips. “I can’t lose you.”
Air saws in and out of my lungs. With nothing but the natural world as our witness, I want Nathan to kiss me again. I feel it deep in my bones. “What is happening?” I ask.
He runs his hand down my thigh, tangling it in the hem of my shirt. “I don’t know. Shit.”
He goes to pull away, but I slam my lips to his again. In a world that’s so messed up, Nathan and I have always felt right. I’m probably getting this all wrong, we’re probably supposed to just be friends, but I’m sick of being denied a mate—someone who is supposed to be there for me no matter what. Nathan has been that person, and I don’t want to let him go. “I’m going to get sent away,” I say, voice breaking.
“No.” That single sound is uttered with finality and darkness that I press my thighs together. His fingertips dig into my hip. “God, this is so wrong.” Despite his words, he kisses me again with so much force that I drop my shoulders to the ground, and he hovers above me. “I don’t care, though.”
His words squeeze my heart. He’s come a long way from a guy who didn’t want to discuss our first kiss earlier.
“If someone sees us,” I warn.
“What? They’ll make you go Feral?”
“You’ve got a point,” I tell him, my arms moving around his back and tugging him on top of me. Don’t think, I tell myself. If two weeks is all I have left, I want to enjoy that time with the one shifter who has been here for me through all of this. Don’t think about what it means. Don’t try to analyze it.
He dips his hips to mine, and his cock brushes against my lower stomach.
His hard cock.
The intimate touch short-circuits my brain, and animalistic need takes over. I lift my hips into him, and we slide together, grinding against one another to relieve the ache. Our hurried breaths deepen. It’s as if we can’t get enough. Nathan kisses a trail down the curve of my neck to my collarbone, an
d he doesn’t stop there. He hovers his mouth over my breast, then bites down on my hard nipple.
“Holy shit.”
“Don’t tell me to stop,” he grinds out.
My mind blitzes as he does it again, his tongue laving against my covered breast. My shirt is a barrier that needs to stay. Once that comes off, everything will be laid bare. “Maybe we should shift so we don’t—”
Nathan places his palm on my lower belly, his thumb skirting closer to the apex of my thighs.
“We don’t even know what will happen if we do this,” I say, simultaneously wanting him to touch me and dreading it.
“What?” Nathan asks. “You think Fate will smite us? She’s already not doing us any favors.”
I place my hand on his, stopping it from traveling further south. He lifts his head to look at me. His eyes shine with something akin to passion.
I expect to feel a pang for the face that’s not his, but I don’t. All I see is him, haloed by a ring of dark clouds coming this way. Are they a sign from the universe? A negative omen that what we’re about to do can never be taken back?
I have a decision to make: pull his hand away or let him continue. Above me, Nathan turns his head to the side, regarding me in that way he does where it’s like he’s trying to figure me out. “What will it mean?” I ask him.
He presses his mouth into a thin line, lips glistening from our frenzied kisses. I can tell he’s getting frustrated, but that’s why I wanted to talk about the kiss earlier. “Mia, does this feel good?” he asks, moving his thumb from side to side over my eager flesh.
Beneath his touch, muscles tighten in anticipation. “Yes,” I croak out.
“Then stop asking so many questions. If it ever doesn’t feel good, tell me to stop.”
He goes to move again, but I stay his hand. “Does it feel good for you?”
“You have no fucking idea,” he growls.