We just saw his father in all his naked glory. We will never un-see that.
“Shift.” It’s said one last time. Instead of waiting to see if she will follow, he’s on her quick.
Wolf’s teeth are shaking her neck back and forth before letting go. He rolls her on her back, biting to draw just a touch of blood to her exposed underbelly, teeth press into flesh in her tendons of her joints, making her muscles tingle slightly with the pressure. He could have ended her so easily. He keeps biting along her body enough to cause discomfort, but not true pain.
She can’t right herself, unable to get up with his onslaught of teeth.
He comes to her neck, putting the whole thing in his strong jaws. Vibrating her body with his growls, she stills in his grip like a limp doll.
This is not a learned trait; this is the pure instinct of self-preservation to become docile at this moment.
The first law he is teaching her is about hierarchy: he’s the top of the food chain, only listening to the will of the moon herself.
He holds her hard until her tail starts to curl under, crouching low on the ground, belly fur wet with the snow that’s clinging to it, knotting it up on the underside.
With a snarling glare, he releases her from his death grip, only to come back again and attack her over and over and over again until she is crouched down as small as she can make herself, ears pressed flat against her head, whimpering, with a tail that curls around her body. Blood speckles the snow as if someone has flung a paintbrush out, polluting the white canvas that was so pristine just an hour ago.
Sitting on his haunches, he just stares into the Wild’s eyes until she looks away at the snow, eyes going to his again. He’s still staring; she looks away again. This continues with her unable to hold his glare.
Law number one: He’s the Alpha.
Shifting, he starts to dress. With his back turned to her, he calmly instructs her to do what he wants.
“Shift.”
Immediately, she shifts slowly into skin form, still not a pretty sight. Doing up his pants, he turns around as I’m shivering in the snow trying to turn my nakedness away from him.
“Shift.” A long groan comes out my mouth as muscles realign, tearing, popping, fitting into place.
“Shift.” He pulls his tight shirt down over his chest. Reaching for his sweater, he dusts the snow off of it before putting it on.
“Shift.” Sitting in his chair, he just watches me.
“Shift.” He starts to put his socks on along with his boots.
“Shift.”
The Wild’s head angles up with a loud whimper coming out her throat. Whining for this to stop.
She’s splayed out before him, a dominant easily toying around with his play thing.
“Shift.” He says it into her raised ear.
Teeth coming out more, he’s making sure she sees what he’s holding back from her. His war of white teeth.
The Wild’s head angles up with a loud whimper coming out her throat. Whining for this to stop.
“Shift.”
It’s as if he’s sitting at the potter’s wheel, throwing the clay down, releasing it, refining it into what his vision is of the final product. I just hope that I don’t break in his hands before he’s done with me.
“Shift.”
The day is spent with one word in our ears, cracking the cocoon of skin to fur back to skin.
He doesn’t let up, that one-word tempo becoming faster and faster.
Stunned with my loss of focus, colors shift in and out of eyes of the Wild and skin. I sigh as I grope the ground, trying to hold myself in place. I just can’t as I shift over and over again until the night bleeds into the day, taking away all the light.
By the time Luna Grace yells out the door to come and eat, I can shift effortlessly, in shimmering smoothness that all full-grown wolves can do. I have no more awkwardness to my shift. I must have done it thousands of time throughout the day.
In the same breath, he says shift twice and I do before he can inhale another breath.
His eyebrows raise at what I have just done.
“You’re the first female I have ever seen be able to do that.” He’s excited by this, as if this is what he has been waiting to see.
“Come, my Little Moon, let’s eat.” Walking behind him, my legs are shaking so much I have a hard time keeping upright. He hands me a colorful robe from the hook. My fingers feel numb trying to tie up the knot to secure the garment on me.
What must I look like to them as I take my place on the Luna’s left? Kennedy remains in front of me. Her plates have been filled, stacked up high.
I notice the way her body slightly angles Cash’s way. Her nose inhaling deeply, she tries to hide the way her eyes close slightly in pleasure. It’s as if she’s eating the roll I gave her the way his smell affects her with pleasure.
No one else’s plate has food on it. My stomach clenches in hunger.
I can actually feel the saliva pooling at the back of my throat.
“Let’s eat.” He says it fast as hands start to grab platters, filling their plates high. The Luna gives a small growl at all her males as she takes her own portion. The Alpha doesn’t need to growl as big paws swipe what he wants.
It’s whirlwind fast how the food disappears; one piece of bread is left. I go to reach for it, but before I have time, it’s snatched away by Crane, his grinning mouth bites into it fast, laughing silently at me.
Nothing is left.
“If you don’t believe you should eat, you never will eat,” Alpha Clinton says between bites of mashed potatoes. I look at Kennedy’s overflowing plate and I hate her in this moment, yet I understand her need for it.
Yet she didn’t take anything; it was all given to her. I wonder, if her body doesn’t hold the future it’s preparing for, will they always just give her food?
No one shares what they have with me. My plate lays untouched. Ready to be put back in the cupboard without being washed.
“Are you hungry, Rya?” The Luna is leaning toward me with compassion in her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Well, maybe next time when you sit at our table, you’ll be hungry enough to try and eat. You should go and try to get some sleep tonight. It’s going to be an early morning for you.” She dismisses me, yet I don’t move right away. I can hear them eating, forks shoveling food that I didn’t try for.
I realize I’m just sitting looking at my empty plate.
I don’t want to go through the rest of my life clenching my jaw with gritted teeth. Lips in a straight line. I want to stop the pain in my lungs that repress the need to scream out. I don’t want to feel crippled with my need to bend my tail constantly for others.
“You should just quit now, Rya.” Cash’s voice irritates my skin with the way he speaks to me.
“No female has ever lasted out there, let alone in the winter time. You’re going to fail like you failed over and over again. It’s like you were born to be a loser.” Kennedy chokes on her food, looking at Cash in disbelief.
Everyone around the table puts their forks down as if waiting, watching for the next move.
What do I say back to him? He’s right.
Standing up, I turn away from them all, making my way upstairs with my shoulders hunched.
“That’s what I thought. You’re wasting your time on her, Father.” Harsh words tumble out of his mouth. I just hope one day his tongue tastes bad with the way he might have to eat them.
“We feel the exact same way about you, Cash.” Big eyes all around look at Cash for his response. His mouth tries to move, but he has nothing to say.
“What?” I say it quietly, directing it at Cash, my body turning his way.
“I didn’t say anything.” That voice of his that held such a terrible tone has become a little shaky with what his father just said to him.
“I thought you said something. I was wrong.” So much for his prideful effort.
“She has a tongue.” It’s Carson who b
lurts the words out before laughing at Cash. They look so much like each other, except one is growing his hair out and one has a shaved head.
“Don’t pay him any mind, Rya. He’s just upset that he’s been saving himself for that.” Carson’s turn to hit him in the face with his words.
Cash tries to lunge for his brother across the table, but the Alpha stands up as his fists pound against the strong wood. How many blows has that table taken in its lifetime?
“How many times do I have to say it? Not in the house. Outside, all of you.” He sits back down as the rest of the males get up, making their way outside to finish their conversation of fists.
“Rya, would you like to watch them, maybe learn something?” Luna Grace continues to eat her food, along with Kennedy, whose hair is now shielding the side of her face with how her new family feels about her.
I just walk away from them into the room I’m now calling home.
Picking up the paper that fell to the floor from last night, I place it on the pile of other crumpled papers. I look through the stack as if they have been crumpled up over and over again only to be smoothed out, never again coming back to their original form.
His acceptance letter to medical school, the contract of him coming to my pack. Legal terms that I can’t understand. Money, he was paid a lot of money to come. More than I would make my entire life working as a midwife, and I get paid very well.
The terms of him finding a mate and how he gets to bring her back with him.
Another paper shows a house deed in his name and his mate’s, Maysa. That’s her name, and it’s beautiful. She’s the same age as him, birth dates only a month apart. He was born in the spring in the season of new beginnings. Clayton was born in the weaning month of March.
A black and white sketch of his face draws my attention to his eyes. They are sparkling even in the greyness of a charcoal pencil tip.
I wonder who drew this? I bet it was his true mate. She was very talented, an artist—that’s hard to compete against. Natural talent. I bet she was able to eat at their table, unlike me.
The next image takes my breath away. It’s a grainy black and white ultrasound picture. I can read it easily, a big healthy male. Nothing wrong at all with this pup, who looks to be growing perfectly in a little nest made just for him.
He must be around six months in gestation by the measurements on the side of the sheet.
A soft cry wants to bubble its way up my throat. It’s his pup; I can feel it in my heart.
Picking up the phone, I call him again. He answers immediately, as if he’s been waiting all day for this phone call.
“Hello.” The deepness of his voice settles over my skin. It’s amazing that the mark of his Wild allows me to feel him on my body.
I want to ask him, but my mouth refuses to open with its probing questions.
“Rya?”
Big breath in and out.
“I found the ultrasound picture.”
Silence, except for his intake of breath.
“This is hard for me, Rya.”
“I can’t even imagine what you have been through, Dallas.” The truth of what he has had to endure makes my life not as bad. So what if I got rejected by my mate? His has died with a pup inside her belly. How do you go on from that? I can understand now why he tried to give up on his life.
“It’s not easy to move on from that.” His voice cracks.
“Dallas, I’m so sorry.”
“It happened. I had a mate, a pup on the way, and they died. I couldn’t save them, so I decided to save others.”
“You’re a good doctor, Dallas.”
“What did you do today?” His change of subject tells me the conversation needs to be changed.
“I shifted all day long.”
“I remember he did that to me when I first had my shift. That hurt so bad. How do you feel?”
“Shaky, my legs feel like Jell-O.”
“Mine were the same way, Rya.” A slight laugh out from him with his memory that’s not focused on his loss.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything, no matter what.”
“Why does Cash hate me so much?”
“He’s just upset at the wrong wolf, Rya. He thinks that you quit. We were raised never to give up on something we wanted. I think he feels like you just rolled over without a fight. I tried talking to him about it, but he’s got it in his mind that you could have done more, that you gave up, and he told me that you will give up on me too. I think that’s what he’s scared of most—that you will give up on us.”
“Dallas, I was whipped, shunned. I couldn’t even eat with my parents for years.”
“You don’t need to tell me this, Rya. I can’t even imagine how your life was like.”
“Is it true he saved himself for Kennedy?”
A heavy sigh comes out his mouth.
“Yes, he had this image of a mate in his head, and he never strayed in his belief that when he found her, it would be worth not having anyone else underneath him.”
“Did you save yourself for your mate?”
“No. I’d had a few females before her. She’s not my first, Rya.” He sounds slightly disappointed in himself.
I’m slightly shocked by his revelation.
“Were you her first?” I wonder how she felt not being a first.
“No, I was not her first.”
“Really?” I’m stunned; they were young when they met.
A knock at my door has my eyes looking into Kennedy’s.
“I need to go. I’ll call you tomorrow. Bye, Dallas.”
“Bye, Rya.”
“Why are you in my room?”
Leaning against the door frame, she looks at me with pleading eyes.
“I need you to help me. I need you to get me something so I can get rid of it if I become pregnant.”
She’s leaking an ocean of salt tears that I have no intention to provide comfort for.
“I can’t have a pup, I can’t.” Her layers are peeling back like sheets of pastry dough. They look fragile and easy to tear, except I don’t care.
“I can’t help you. I have no access to their clinic. You need to ask Cash or the Luna about this. It’s none of my business what you and your mate decide. Now get out.” As she turns around, she comes face to face with Cash, who must have heard the whole conversation.
He has a bruise on his jaw but otherwise no other marks to say he was just fighting.
“How could you even think of doing something like that?” His whole body posture tells me how hurt he is at hearing her words.
She says nothing back to him.
“Don’t worry, if you get pregnant I’ll raise that pup myself. You can go back to your pack, back to him. But I won’t let you ruin this possible future I might have, my only chance to have something good.” In this moment, I see his fight leave him; all the effort he was willing to put into her has gone away. There’s no more light in his eyes. He’s given up.
“Get out.” Revulsion coils itself deep within me as I look at a female that I envied. I wanted to be like her, to mirror her so that I was wanted by him. She is someone I would never want to be like. An ugliness has settled over her once beautiful features in my mind.
It feels like I just closed my eyes before my name is called to wake up.
“Rya, get dressed. It’s time to go.” Alpha Clinton’s voice is sliding up the steps to touch my ears.
I slip on something that I really don’t like just in case I ruin it with a shift. My muscles are feeling so much better.
The Luna and Alpha are the only ones up this early in the morning, greeting me with heart smiles.
“Come on, Rya, it’s a long way. I want to be back before dark today.” He’s giving me gloves and hat while he is in a snowsuit.
Before leaving, he picks up his Luna in his arms, pressing a lingering kiss to her mouth, which she enjoys. They have a strong bond, I can see this, and it makes my heart want that kind
of love.
***
It was a long ride through giant snow drifts, with only a small path in the bush for the snowmobile to roar down. No four wheel drive could possibly get through this.
Holding onto the side of this male, I asked him where we were going, and he just replied that it’s time for me to learn how to eat.
By the time we stop, my whole body is freezing. He takes away my hat and mitts.
I can hear some fighting in the distance between wolves; it sounds like they are attacking each other.
Walking toward the noise in the deep snow, my pants and shoes are wet up to my knees. A bitter cold is slowly letting me know that I have to get warm soon. The skin side could never survive too long in this weather.
Walking into the clearing, I see a fresh kill that the wolves are devouring. The site is stained in blood, muzzles dripping in the crimson life that the moose has provided them.
“You’ll have to learn to fight for your place in the pack, or else you’ll have no place. Just remember, if you believe you can eat, you will eat. If you don’t believe in yourself, you will starve.” He starts to walk away from me as I start to follow him.
“No, Rya, you’re going to stay out here for a while. I’ll come get you when they think you’re ready.”
“I can’t live out here.”
“You don’t have to. Your Wild has to do all the work. When she has put her effort in and learns how to be part of the pack, then I’ll come and get you so your skin side can start the work it needs.”
The sharpness of authority in his tone leaves no room for argument.
“You should shift soon so you don’t freeze out here. I’ll see you soon. Just remember watch, listen, learn.”
I can hear the start of the snowmobile, its engine roaring to life while I just stand in place contemplating what to do next.
The Wild inside me is excited by all of this, her dreams of the wild coming true. Except she isn’t as wild as she thinks she is.
Shifting, the Wild slowly makes her way toward the pack, one brave step at a time.
She gives them her signs of peaceful friendship, tail wagging, tongue hanging out slightly. She’s cautious but hopeful.
Grey fur bodies turn toward her as they lift their noses to take in the scent. Their muzzles are stained in blood that my wolf wants to taste.
The Wildflower Series Page 22