I closed my eyes and tried to absorb his words to no avail.
He kissed my nose and forehead, whispering more kisses on my cheeks and jaw. “When you didn’t show, I assumed the black wolf took you, too, but all black wolves were accounted for and I could feel you around Sandstone. I cancelled the formal gathering for fear of alerting the wolf that I knew something more and left for Sandstone. You were well guarded by Rhona’s force. I couldn’t get to you.”
“Thank you for trying. It’s done now. Is there a way for me to leave the valley?” I peeked up at him.
Sascha froze. “You can’t leave the valley. It’s too dangerous.”
That put me in a pickle to say the least.
“Andie,” he said. “We’d be honoured if you remained on pack lands.”
My brows shot into the stratosphere. “There’s no way your pack wants me here.”
He didn’t answer.
Yep.
“Whether you wish to stay or not, there’s no other place for you now. The pack has acknowledged that.”
Tears clogged my throat.
Sighing, Sascha gathered me close.
After a moment, I sniffed. “I’m naked.”
His voice dropped. “I realise that. I thought you’d be more concerned about how Wade’s doing.”
Gasping, I shot upward. “Wade!”
Sascha caught my hand before I could launch out of bed, assemble an army, and find a flamethrower.
“We have him.” Sascha rushed. “I saw the images Daniil showed you. Hairy and Leroy found him last night. He’s okay. Tired.”
“I need to see him.”
He tugged me back a second time. “We returned him to tribe lands.”
My face fell. I stopped pulling away. “You did? I mean, that makes sense. He’ll be okay there.”
“We don’t have medicine here. We’ll lose points for one of our wolves harming Wade. The penalty would be greater if we held Wade here.”
Of course. “I can message him.”
My phone.
Was in my car.
“I need to get my car.”
“It’s in tribe territory,” he said. “I can ask for it, but you cannot enter Sandstone without sanction.”
I sat on the bed. “Right. Okay.”
“I’m so very sorry, Andie,” he said after a beat. “You must regret the day you ever met me.”
Did I?
I’d certainly told him that numerous times.
Did I regret that day in Timber when we met?
If that never happened, I wouldn’t have my wolf, and I could never give her up. Cut off from her with the tranquiliser, I’d felt less than half of myself.
My regrets could fill a book—maybe more. But I couldn’t regret the end result.
I wouldn’t be this amazing being if Sascha hadn’t caught a sniff of me.
And I wouldn’t know Sascha Greyson.
“If anything should be blamed, it’s the mating call. Blaming nature for the state of my life seems ludicrous. I just know you weren’t responsible for the way I chose to handle everything. You’ve respected my choices, Sascha. I haven’t missed that even if I threw stuff in your face along the way. It was just a lot. I’m sorry too.”
Sascha shoved back the blanket to expose his bare torso and low-slung sweats.
He drew me onto his lap, and I craned my head to meet his beautiful eyes.
“I just want to give you everything you want and need,” he said softly.
My chest rose. “Should I give you a list?”
He gripped my jaw between his thumb and forefinger. “Yes.”
In a blur, I was straddling him, pinned by his unrelenting grip on my chin.
I stared up in challenge, gaze dipping to his lips—that full bottom lip that haunted my dreams. Warmth pooled between my thighs, and something thrummed between us.
A heartbeat.
The tugging sensation beneath my ribs was almost painful as it urged me to close the gap. To put my mouth to his.
We’d played a dance in recent weeks, both of us delaying the kissing meet with weak excuses.
When I kiss you because no one else exists for me any longer, I want you to kiss me back just the same.
His words at the waterfall had entered my heart that night, and since then, a growing part of me cared about Sascha’s dreams.
About not breaking more of them.
This kiss was more than a kiss. It could be more than anything I’d ever shared with another.
If I let it.
“No one else exists for me any longer, little bird.” Sascha lowered his head, eyes blackening.
Mine were the same.
Did anyone else exist for me? I opened my mouth.
“Boss?”
I jerked, dislodging Sascha’s grip.
Twisting, I glared at a grinning Leroy.
“Bad time?” the blond alpha asked, his grin wiping clean when Sascha began to growl. He straightened. “There’s a steward here to see Andie. It’s the tribe’s marshal.”
“Pascal?” I slid off Sascha, really hoping Leroy didn’t make a comment about this place smelling like a sex den.
Because it definitely did with what we were giving off.
I glanced down. “I’m naked.”
Leroy shrugged. “Normal here.”
Sascha strode to a wardrobe and tossed me sweatpants and a huge shirt. The sweatpants didn’t work, so I shrugged on the shirt and followed Leroy out, Sascha at my back.
I looked from Ella F to the grey-haired marshal just beyond. “Pascal. What are you doing here?”
She’d turned from her vigil over the harvest fields visible in the distance. “Andie, how are you?”
“Alive. How is the tribe?”
“Alive.”
My heart sank. “Is Wade okay? And Cameron.” She’d spoken for me—who knew what Rhona might do to her.
“Wade is awake and healing in your cabin. He asked me to convey that he’ll bring over your things when he’s up and about. He’s very unhappy with how you were treated.”
I waved a hand. “Cam?”
“She’s fine. Rhona’s battle was with you.”
I paused. “Is she okay?”
“Rhona hasn’t been okay for a long time.”
A sigh left my lips. “Thanks for bringing my car.”
“I thought it best before angry tribe members got a hold of it. I wanted to come to explain a few things that may be unclear.”
She glanced at Sascha and Leroy. “If I may?”
Sascha’s eyes skirted her frame. “Don’t upset her, marshal. She’s dealt with enough from your kind to last a lifetime.”
“To my memory, both sides attacked her,” Pascal replied.
Stepping between them, I gestured to the stream. Not that every pack member wouldn’t listen in.
We walked to the water side by side.
“Is there more to what happened with Murphy?” I asked.
She smiled. “I’ve become rather a good liar after all this time, but you inherited Herc’s uncanny knack for sniffing out the truth. Something Rhona unfortunately inherited without the reasoning ability.”
I slid a look at her. “That’s your head steward, Pascal.”
“Your loyalty though. That’s all Charise. Neither Savannah and Herc possessed much of that.”
A bench faced the stream. The overhead sun gave it a golden hue that was so at odds with how cold I felt.
“Tell me.” I sat.
She joined me, fixing her unseeing gaze on the water. “My story happens before what happened with Murphy. I met a Luther during Grids forty years ago and something happened to us. It continued to happen to us, though neither of us wanted it.”
My mouth dried.
She stole a look at me. “The mating call.”
Oh my god. “What happened?”
“The process was only slightly less messy than your own, I’d say. With the difference that Daniil and I hated each other well and
truly.”
Daniil. The black wolf.
She clasped her hands. “Though we detested each other, we had to continue the meets to the end when we could both go our separate ways.”
I felt the but.
“The grid was the easiest place to complete the meets. Cars weren’t a common thing in the valley back then. To drive a car to pack lands would be obvious to his people and mine. To walk would take too long. During one game, we were seen during the kissing meet by Murphy.”
She broke off, then took another breath. “Daniil bit Murphy, certain it would keep him quiet. Murphy could scarcely point the finger if he became the very thing he hated. And so it appeared to work for a time. Daniil and I got through the remaining meets. But at the end, Daniil pleaded that I change my mind. He’d… altered his stance on things between us.”
I’d smelled the black wolf during our fight. He was single and not immortal. Pascal didn’t change her mind.
“You can imagine my relief when it was done,” she whispered. “Murphy had disappeared too. Against the odds, I’d kept the truth from the tribe. I was free. Overnight, I felt young again.”
I’d so often yearned for the same thing. “But Murphy returned.”
She nodded. “Murphy returned. He met with Herc, as was later divulged to me. He confessed that a Luther bit him years before and that’s why he and Ragna ran. They never intended to steal you, but Savannah was hospitalised in Frankton Gorge due to an exacerbation of her multiple sclerosis. Ragna was left in charge of your care just as she’d planned to run. To make matters worse, she’d just posted an explanatory letter to Herc that would arrive at the manor in a matter of hours. She had no way to communicate a change in plan to Murphy, and there was no plan B. So she raided your parents’ room for necessary documents and clothing and took you too.”
I could imagine Ragna’s cold terror at the thought of never seeing Murphy again. There was no doubt about that after reading her journals that he was her everything—the single person that could have compelled her to steal a child.
“Murphy couldn’t condone what they’d done,” Pascal continued. “Ragna was unhappy away from the valley, and he wanted to broker a deal for them to safely return. You would be returned to your parents. He and Ragna would live with the tribe in whatever working capacity Herc deemed fit.” She glanced to the clear sky. “Herc agreed. He hardly had any other choice if he wanted to get you back.”
“But Murphy would have smelled Herc’s dislike.”
“Of course Herc disliked him. Murphy couldn’t expect anything less for taking his daughter.”
I supposed so.
“Herc searched Murphy’s belongings during a tribe night. He found a letter from Bluff City with an address on it. It was filled with baby photos. Of you. He’d found where you and Ragna were hiding. He no longer had a need for Murphy—a Luther in the tribe. Preposterous. I’m sure you can imagine Herc’s sentiment on that front.”
I arched a brow. “Yes.”
“He asked if I could go rock-climbing with them. He’d sold it to Murphy as a bonding activity, I think. I didn’t want to go for obvious reasons. Murphy knew too much about my past.”
He had to have suspected something was up, but he’d come to the valley eager to build bridges for him and Ragna. Maybe even me.
“I was setting anchors,” she said. “I heard a commotion and ran around the corner just as Murphy fell from the very top. Straight onto his back.”
Horror crept over me.
“He wasn’t dead. I raced to help as Herc reached him, shouting for help. Murphy looked straight at me and said, This is because your mate bit me. This is what he did to me and Ragna.”
Shit. He’d dropped Pascal in it.
She sighed. “Herc put it together. He dropped the act and got down to business. I would keep my mouth shut and help him. If I didn’t, the tribe would learn the truth. Herc had sprayed him with wolfsbane and cut the rope. We switched the ropes and tampered with the belaying station to make our story plausible. He wasn’t dying fast enough, so…” Pascal swallowed. “Herc smashed the back of his head against the rock until he was gone.”
A crawling sensation crept over my skin.
“I should have been stronger that day,” she said. “That one experience shaped me so completely. After that day, I realised that Luthers weren’t the only monsters in this valley. Seven mating meets didn’t achieve that, but Herc’s actions did.”
That wasn’t all. “I’ve never lived in Bluff City.”
She arched a brow. “It was a nice day when Herc made the discovery. The address never gave him any lead. It made me happy that you and Ragna could be free of this.”
“She was never free after Murphy left.”
“No. His words played in my mind often as you can imagine. This is because your mate bit me. This is what he did to me and Ragna. For a long time, I assumed he meant that Ragna had to leave the valley for him. But they always shared a bond unlike any other I’d seen, even while he was human. How did Murphy know what a mate was?”
“They mated,” I said.
“You know this for sure?”
“I think his death broke her. His absence broke her to a degree that I can now see was unnatural. When he died, she stopped doing mostly everything and started gambling. She always tried her best but could never quite manage it. I guess that makes sense now.” Tears burned behind my eyes. This was the truth. I felt it. This was why my mother did those things. To herself and me.
Pascal rested a hand on my shoulder, and it felt strange coming from the composed woman. “It’s a good thing when the world makes sense. Often, it doesn’t.”
We sat for a time.
“Why did you tell me all this?” I asked.
She looked at me. “When I turned Daniil down, he was never the same, but his change in behaviour not long after you entered the valley was startling. I believe when he learned of the connection between you and the pack leader, the information changed him.”
“What happened that day in Water?”
“I found an empty boat waiting at the bottom. There was no one in sight, so I took it, believing a steward left it for my use. Daniil met me later after confirming some of the underwater points. I didn’t think anything of it.”
He’d come to meet her and then jumped overboard. Clever bastard.
“But then Rhona forced you to bring the theory of Sascha Greyson’s obsession to the head team. I knew what that meant. You were going through a mating call together. At that point, I wondered if that explained Daniil’s sudden change. But rather than come clean, I decided to monitor the situation and swallowed my concerns.”
I’d never told the head team about the black wolf’s other attacks. She wouldn’t have known about anything other than what happened in Water. “It’s not your fault. He chose to act that way.”
Pascal dipped her head. “He did.”
I inhaled her pain. “You’re mourning him.”
“Strange thing that mating call,” she said quietly. “It never quite leaves you. I wasn’t able to complete one of the meets—the scenting meet. Daniil believes this might have disrupted the process for us and left us in limbo.”
Standing, she dipped her head and turned away.
“Pascal?” I called.
She peered back.
“If you could go back to that moment with Daniil. Would you change your mind?” I didn’t bother specifying which moment.
The older woman regarded me. “It was harder to choose him than not. I found out later that the hardest path is usually the one worth taking. A few decades bring clarity that youth doesn’t have.”
Nature was so very cold. Really, we had no choice in the mating call at all.
To create a Daniil.
To become a Pascal.
To end as Murphy.
To exist like Ragna.
I searched her face. “Daniil attacked Rhona to force me to shift. Other times, I was sure he wanted me dead.”
>
“I’m not sure Daniil knew what he wanted. Did he want to force you and Sascha together or tear you apart? I’m undecided.”
Daniil turned me into a Luther. That would only help us to progress through the mating call.
But he took Wade to lure me out alone.
In my mind, he attacked Rhona to reveal my true nature to the tribe. Something that landed me here.
His scent was spicy to me and not to Sascha.
Of course, Daniil then tried to kill me in the challenge.
No one would ever know the truth.
Part of my heart ached on Daniil’s behalf, which only proved I’d lost my damn mind. “I’m sorry you lost someone you loved, Pascal.”
She blinked several times. “You deserved more from a tribe and sister that you broke your back to help, Andie.” She turned toward the bungalows. “My condolences to this pack who lost someone they loved dearly.”
The marshal walked slowly away, and a huge part of me longed to follow and comfort her.
Sascha joined me on the bench and pulled me onto his lap. “Are you alright?”
Am I?
I hadn’t paused for breath since Ragna’s death. I certainly hadn’t processed what happened in Sandstone.
For the first time maybe ever, I had absolutely no plan or idea of my future.
I did recognise that this moment was a happy bubble in what was a harsh, centuries-old war. That war wouldn’t stop just because the tribe had cast me out.
At any second this happy bubble could pop.
“I’d given up on getting any answers about Ragna and Murphy.” I looked up into gorgeous honey eyes.
Sascha held me close. “Then I’m happy for you. Pascal gave the pack closure, too, and I’m grateful to her. We never had any idea Daniil had entered a mating call, but it explains a lot.”
I toyed with the ends of his dark-brown hair. Something I’d always wanted to try, but never dared do with so many barriers between us.
In this bubble though, I could do such things.
I rested my cheek against his chest. “Sascha? What happens tomorrow?”
He kissed my temple. “I’m not sure, beautiful wolf. But we’ll get through it together. How about that?”
Another happy bubble.
Forcing the thought away for now, I closed my eyes. “That sounds like a dream I’d like to share.”
Moon Claimed: Supernatural Battle (Werewolf Dens Book 2) Page 29