WOLF CHILD: A PNR RH Romance (The Year of the Wolf Book 1)

by Serena Akeroyd

  A cougar.

  Where on Earth had that come from?

  I leaped out of the way just in time, but Eli, of course, was already in my space.

  He flew out of nowhere, colliding with the cougar, and as I felt him call on all his power, I wanted to die inside.

  I wanted to crawl inside my soul and hide, because this level of power was so intense it scared me.

  The cougar, quite naturally, was aggressive. Kali Sara, I couldn’t blame her. It was either act with aggression or just curl into a ball.

  I scented that she was a she, and she fought with a brutality that was almost beautiful.

  The pair of them struck each other, teeth snapping, claws raking, and blood dripping.

  It was different, so much different than what I’d been exposed to with Austin.

  There, it had been wolf against wolf, and inadvertent though it may have been, Ethan had prepared me for that with his beta challenge.

  This?

  This was different.

  Cougars fought differently. Biting and kind of, well, the only way I could describe it was to compare it to the butterfly stroke in swimming. The curve of its arm was lethal, the way she could stretch and rake her claws was perilous, and even though I was cowed into place, frozen not out of fear but Eli’s dominance, I realized how beautifully she fought.

  How majestic she was.

  Eli was dark and dirty. He nipped and tore, slashed and cut through her defenses, and then I heard it.

  The tiniest of muffled sounds.

  Horror whipped through me as I ripped through the hold Eli had me in and saw the small cougar cub ambling toward us.

  My eyes locked onto the tiny creature as he approached, mewling and crying for its mama.

  My heart pounded as I saw Eli start to attack the cougar with a ferocity that the beast was too drained to survive.

  I sensed her desire to defend her cub, and fuck, I couldn’t let this go on.

  She needed to limp away, go and be with her baby.

  I didn’t give a fuck that this was a different kingdom from the one I lived in.

  I knew this was pure animal, and that it might bite me in the ass at some point, but having torn through the first chokehold Eli had on me, I managed to shred through the rest.

  It was stupid. So fucking stupid. I knew that, but it wouldn’t stop me from doing it.

  As the creature was protecting its cub, Eli was defending me. Making sure I was safe.

  And I had to stop that.

  Neither the cub nor I were in danger. The ones who mattered to us, on the other hand, were.

  So I leaped forward, pouncing into the fray. My abrupt arrival had the cougar hissing, but she took advantage, surprising the shit out of me even as she swiped me with a claw, making blood spurt from my body, which had Eli snarling as my essence saturated the air, before she darted off. Limping as quickly as she could, she grabbed the cub in her teeth by the scruff and hurried away, leaving me a wreck on the ground.

  Eli howled, long and low, outrage and sorrow fueling the powerful sound, and I shuddered, hating that I’d caused that, but unable to feel regret.

  Even if it killed me.

  Ten

  Eli

  “Why the fuck did you do that?” I roared, but even as the thought whispered into her mind, we shimmied out of being.

  In seconds, we were away from the magical space and back in the circle.

  She lay panting on the ground, blood spilling free, as Ethan and Austin leaped forward to tend to her.

  While I was relieved to see Austin was back on his feet, I was terrified that the cougar had gravely injured my mate.

  Shifting back felt impossible.

  My wolf was outraged. Not only from the fight, which still had adrenaline coursing through my veins like I was back in the middle of it, but also from the way she’d done that.

  What the fuck had she done it for?

  Leaping into the fight—

  I’d had her locked down. Purposely locked down. Speared into place with my dominance. She shouldn’t have been able to break free of my hold on her, but she had.

  She’d fucking endangered herself in the process too.

  Outrage swirled with…

  Fuck.

  Was I impressed?

  I knew of very few wolves who had the power to do that. Who’d be able to break out of my hold.

  Ethan and Austin were two of them, but I highly doubted they’d be able to achieve it if I was as pissed off as I’d been back in the woods.

  I’d worked goddamn hard to make sure my wolf was under wraps. Just because he was out and ready to party now that she’d unleashed him slightly, didn’t mean I was easy with him wandering around loose.

  We were disciplined by nature, because we’d been forced to be that way. Years of lessons learned had shown us that.

  But the truth was, with our mate, we wanted to play, and today’s run had been a sheer joy. Not only because I’d been with her, but because she hadn’t been scared of me at all. We’d also been able to explore the crazy world that we’d been dumped in, and the truth was, I’d loved every minute of it, until it had gone to shit.

  My wolf wouldn’t release its chokehold on me, so I dashed over to her side, almost nudging Ethan and Austin out of the way.

  They both growled at me, and while they were still humans, their snapping packed a punch that didn’t hurt me because of who I was to them, but still, their defiance would have impressed me, too, if it wasn’t the wrong time for that.

  I dove at Ethan because he was the nearest, and because, even though I was outraged, my wolf still scented how Austin was healing.

  The second he saw me pounce, he shifted and snarled at me when he was on four feet instead of two.

  His head was as low to the ground as mine was, our shoulders hunched as we circled the other, trying to find an in, but even as the thought to attack him hit me, I felt her presence in my fucking mind.

  “Calm down. I’m all right.”

  The soft words, the tone, none of it mattered. Just hearing her did. I felt myself come alive again as I twisted around and saw her trying to sit up.

  That she was feeling weak was a given, and I turned to face her, instantly ignoring Ethan now that she was speaking to me.

  His rumble told me he was pissed off, but fuck that shit. I’d just been through a fight with a cougar, and as powerful as I was, cougars could take wolves down—especially one who’d been protecting a cub.

  The adrenaline was an issue, and I was going to be feeling fucking hyper for a good long while.

  The second I shoved my nuzzle against her, she sighed, and Austin’s hands hovered over her, stroking her as he tried to soothe her.

  She just lay there, panting, and I got it. She was not only in pain, but the power to leap into the battle when I’d had such a hold on her had to be immense.

  Like trying to break through a concrete wall with a rubber mallet.

  I nuzzled her, as did Ethan, and after a while, she yipped at us, then started to roll up.

  That she wasn’t talking to us, trying to calm us down, told me that she didn’t have the energy for it. I wasn’t okay with that, because I wanted to ask her how she was feeling, but also, I understood how she was having to hunker down.

  How long we stayed there like that, I wasn’t sure, but Ethan shifted back and said, “We need to get her home. She’s bleeding profusely.”

  “We need to get her to shift back,” Austin argued. “That will help.”

  “Like it did you?” Ethan sniffed. “You’re still injured—”

  “Yeah, true.” He pulled a face. “Whatever those creatures are on that other side, they’re powerful. More potent than any of the animals roaming this land.”

  I didn’t have time to worry.

  My wolf was growing more and more frantic over the deep black blood that oozed from his dozing mate’s side.

  Knowing that I needed to wrestle back control so we could do as Et
han said—go home—I managed to tear back the reins from the beast, even though that should have been as impossible as Sabina evading my hold.

  My issue with the wolf was that he could overtake me utterly, and that was why I never let him have full access.

  But here, now, we were both in apparent agreement that our mate needed me as a human.

  Which was when it clicked.

  Deep in my being, in my psyche, my fucking soul, I suddenly became aware of why this was happening the way it was. Why it had unfolded this way.

  Three creatures who weren’t scared of my wolf, one of them so pivotal to me that I wouldn’t be able to take a breath of air without her at my side, and none of them could be suffocated by my wolf’s dominance.

  And where she was concerned, my wolf would always give me free rein because, at her core, transformed humans were always exactly that.

  Transformed humans.

  Human beings first, then wolf second.

  For shifters, it was different. We were half and half, and dependent on the animal, the equilibrium could alter.

  As was the case with me.

  If I didn’t control the beast, he made up more than half of me.

  But even though that was true, here, in my new family, my new partnership, I didn’t have to be afraid anymore.

  My mate could stand up for herself.

  Hadn’t she proven that with Austin?

  My mate was strong enough to tear free of my dominance like she was pushing through the chains of a flycatcher hanging over a door.

  And, beyond that, she wasn’t afraid to get between two dangerous predators in the middle of a fight.

  It didn’t take a fucking genius to figure out that her seeing the cub was why she’d come to the cougar’s aid.

  She’d seen the way I’d been leading up to the killing blows, and she’d known that the cougar was injured.

  She didn’t want that cub to be without its mom, and now? It wasn’t.

  It was wherever the fuck that cougar had been.

  My shifts took less than three seconds, and while my body was torn apart by the magic, I heard Austin hiss, “For fuck’s sake.”

  I almost knew what I’d find the second I was back on two legs.

  Even if I wasn’t happy about it.

  They were here, but they weren’t.

  Just like the first time.

  I rubbed a hand over my face, prepared for Austin’s demand of, “What the fuck happened?”

  Though his tone pissed me off, I got it. I’d been with our mate. It was my duty to protect her.

  Just as he had.

  From a pack of eight goddamn wolves.

  Me? I couldn’t keep her safe from a fucking cougar.

  I shoved my fingers through my hair as mortification and horror filled me. “We were exploring the woods,” I rasped. “We ambled onto a cougar’s territory.”

  Austin winced. “Shit. I thought I scented them.”

  “You did?” I arched a brow. “Did Sabina?”

  He shook his head. “No. That last morning…” His brows wiggled, rising and falling as I saw him trying to process what had happened. From scent alone, I could tell he was still injured, even if he was mostly better. “I headed out to take a piss, and when I did, I knew something was watching me. I went off to try and find it, because that scent—”

  My nose curled because we both knew what the scent was like.

  Carrion eaters always smelled the same fucking way.

  Natural wolves had the odor too, but it was different. On our kind, it wasn’t alien, but it was on others.

  “Then, out of nowhere, I heard Sabina scream.” He ran a hand over his head and down to the back of his neck.

  When he rubbed it, I just muttered, “You fought them off well.”

  He shrugged. “Almost lost. Would have if she hadn’t pulled the goddamn gun out of nowhere.”

  I nodded. “That place, fucking weird, right?”

  “Yeah. Fucking weird.” He slouched over, his elbows stacking on top of his knees. “Once she’s claimed Ethan, maybe things will be a bit more normal.”

  My nose wrinkled at that. When I thought about what had just happened, and what had gone down with Austin, I could only imagine what lesson Ethan would have to learn. I knew, for our mate and him, it didn’t bode well.

  I just prayed to the Mother that by the end of it, they were both in one piece.

  Ethan

  I’d expected the place because Austin had warned me.

  They’d only been gone a handful of minutes, far longer than the first time, even though it was relatively still no time at all, before he’d shifted and clued me in.

  I appreciated that, even as I eyed my new surroundings warily.

  I was in a copse of trees, only they were like no trees I’d ever seen before, coming in rich verdant greens that were beyond the color spectrum back home.

  I’d say they were glowing, or glittering, but that felt impossible, even for this place.

  Of course, that was denying just how odd this new realm was.

  In all the books I’d read, in all the shit I’d learned, from our culture and from the human’s, I’d never picked up on this before.

  On an alternate space where the Mother brought an alpha to claim his omega.

  Truth was, you’d think it would be widely discussed.

  Things like that cemented a leader’s power. Not only was he granted an omega, a mate, he was also granted a unique glimpse into the Mother’s world.

  A touch that was unlike any other.

  That it wasn’t discussed made no sense to me, but also, I got it.

  This wasn’t exactly how I’d expected to claim my mate. Yet here I was. In a clearing with cougar blood polluting the area, as well as my mate’s.

  I picked up on what had happened from scent alone.

  Eli had been close to killing the cougar—maybe he even had, though she’d clearly run away. Not before she’d taken a lick at our women who, somehow, had decimated the hold Eli had on her to leap into the fight.

  How she’d done that still perplexed me a little. Especially as the scent of his dominance polluted the space as much as the cougar’s scent did.

  She was a newly transformed she-wolf, even if she was the omega.

  It should make no difference.

  Yet she’d done so, managed to injure herself in the process, and here we were again.

  I stroked a hand over her dozing body, trying to soothe both of us, but it didn’t work. I hated the lack of a voice in my head, and I had to admit, I was disconcerted.

  Austin was always there, but he wasn’t here. And my mate, my connection to her, was somehow muted.

  I couldn’t get through, even if I wanted to, not without a headache exploding behind my eyes every time I tried, so I figured I needed to stop doing that and move the fuck on.

  She was still bleeding, and the sight of that told me if I didn’t do something to stop it, she might die.

  On my watch.

  Damn.

  Heart in my throat, fear in my veins, I jumped to my feet in this strange world.

  The copse of trees was filled with a rocky terrain that was covered in a deep moss. The rocks were there because I could feel them underfoot, even if the moss was slippery against my bare heels.

  I peered around the place, scenting out danger, but also trying to see if there were leaves I could use as a poultice.

  When I peered around the twilight-strewn area, the sight of one particular tree had me freezing in place.

  It was odd.

  Unlike the others.

  The leaves were thick, and from this distance, I could see they had a strange texture. There was fruit on it, too, and around them, there were a thousand little lights.

  Fireflies?

  Were they eating the fruit?

  Because it caught my eye, I couldn’t seem to stop staring at the tree or the fruit that had light dancing around them.

  That was the glitte
r I’d seen earlier, I realized, but it didn’t come from a light or from the sun overhead, since there didn’t seem to be any sunlight. It came from insects.

  I strolled toward it, something in my gut telling me I was being drawn to a path that I needed to take. As I approached, I could hear the buzz of the insects, and the lights seemed to alternate between dimming and growing brighter, like they were beckoning me toward the tree.

  When I reached it and peered up at it, I saw how massive it was, and the fruits were all hanging high on the branches.

  With an ease that came from a childhood doused in mischief, I started to climb the branches, hauling myself up the bark, uncaring that I was nude, that my body was scraped with the tree’s hard outer armor.

  I knew my strengths and my weaknesses.

  I had a certain single-mindedness that was akin to tunnel vision. But that was nothing compared to how I moved then.

  I felt almost like a zombie, under another’s will as I strove to reach the branches with the fruit that hung over eighty feet in the air.

  I moved until I was there, and I saw the flies were dining on the fruit as I expected, but there was one that had only a few around it.

  I wasn’t sure if they’d bite me or not, and while I didn’t care if it hurt, I cared about them somehow incapacitating me and never being able to return to my woman.

  So, I went for the fruit that was the least surrounded.

  It was plum-sized, but the flies, though tiny, like flying peridots, shone like LEDs, giving the fruit a disproportionate appearance.

  I eyed it, its flesh morphing from the green of a Granny Smith apple to the bright red of a strawberry. It had the coloring of a mango, I guessed, but there was something a thousand times more vibrant about it.

  It had a thick stalk that connected it to the tree, and I raised my hand, studying the movement of the flies to discern when I could snatch it off the stem.

  They moved in a counterclockwise motion that was close to transfixing, but I focused, knowing my woman needed me.

  I felt sure this was the answer.

  That I’d been led here for a reason.

  I sucked in a breath and snatched the fruit.