It was only after I drew in the first deep breath in what felt like hours that I realized how tight my chest had previously been and that I'd been inhaling shallow gusts of air rather than truly breathing for what felt like hours. Wolfie is still our mate. The words rolled through me, buoying me up as if I'd dived into the ocean and was now being swept aloft by the force of something much greater than myself.
Of course he is, my wolf replied. Her voice, although silent, had an edge of humor to it, as if she was amused by my tendency to make us both suffer over mole hills. Did you really think Wolfie would leave us over a matter so small?
Sneaking a glance toward the backseat, I had to disagree with my lupine half. Ember might be physically small, but her effect on my heart was anything but little.
And her effect on Wolfie was equally profound, as I could see when my mate's gaze followed my own. "She's safe," he murmured, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the tired little girl. "And Chase is okay too. Which is why I headed out this morning and finally found a cell tower." He paused, his lupine half rising higher behind his human eyes, then finished: "Or maybe I could just hear your wolf calling to mine."
My mate wasn't much of a talker, but he knew how to get his point across. Two warm hands enclosed one of my own, and when Wolfie raised said appendage to his lips, my stomach turned another somersault...this time from excitement. I required so little attention from my mate to get my motor running.
"I'm glad you showed up when you did," I whispered back, reaching out to touch his cheek. My mate bent into the caress, then turned his head to nibble on my fingertips, the gesture making me smile.
"You had it all under control," Wolfie answered, keeping our verbal conversation trained on Ember's safety even as his fingers began to skim across my skin. He seemed sincere in his assessment of my skills, too, even though I'd felt anything but in control when facing down the uber-alphas. "So why do you still think I'm mad at you?" he finished.
"Because I forced Ember's shift," I replied, my voice raising despite my best intentions to keep our conversation quiet. Agitation also made my hands pause in their explorations beneath Wolfie's shirt, and I was disappointed but not surprised when my mate pulled subtly away from our embrace as well.
My forceful words had yet another unintended consequence. "Mommy?" Ember murmured in her sleep before turning back over to burrow her face into the dark of the cushions, and my heart lurched for an entirely different reason.
I'd never called myself anything but "Terra" in front of our adopted bloodling, and her unschooled decision to address me and Wolfie as her parents felt like Cupid's arrow piercing my soul. If I'd ever thought my love for Ember was anything less than pure before, I now knew that I'd been wrong.
For a second time in mere minutes, I could barely breathe. But this time it was because my chest felt so big my lungs didn't want to release any of the love clutched deep inside.
Wolfie had the sappiest smile on his face when I turned back around to face him. And, to my relief, he also appeared unfazed by my decision to inject our wolfling with F2F. "You did exactly what I would have done in your shoes," Wolfie rumbled by way of reply. "In fact...."
My mate paused, whatever he wanted to say clearly taking considerable effort to spit out. "You were right," he said at last. "I listened to all of your voice mails during the drive up. So I know you tested Dale's drug six ways to Sunday and found the one low-risk way to keep Ember out of my brother's hands. My feelings on the issue were clearly overridden by necessity."
"We can always shift her back later," I began. But Wolfie stopped me by placing one finger on my lips. My skin seemed to explode all over again at the sensation, and I suddenly regretted the fact that we needed to drive all the way back to Haven before Wolfie and I could shed our clothes and run our hands over each others' bodies. With Ember in the car, neither checking into a hotel nor loping off into the woods was a possibility. No, we'd just have to wait another four hours until I could finally have my mate fully to myself.
"Maybe we'll shift her back, maybe we won't," Wolfie said, proving once again that he was able to keep his mind on business far more ably than I could in the face of sexual hunger. His nostrils were flaring, though, as his wolf stole a bit of the motor control from his human body, and I almost thought his teeth were growing just a little longer and sharper. So perhaps my mate wasn't as unaffected by our contact as he'd initially appeared.
"We can talk about it later," I agreed. "Or let Ember decide, maybe. Right now, since I know you're not angry, I'd really rather just get home as quickly as possible."
"On that, I'm in total agreement," my mate and his wolf growled together.
Chapter 14
The pack welcomed us home with open arms...and with half a dozen dramas that required our personal attention ASAP. To my extreme embarrassment and joy, Wolfie merely raised one eyebrow at the assembled shifters, transferred our sleeping bloodling girl into Cricket's willing arms, and spirited me away into our cottage.
We locked the door and didn't reenter the real world for hours.
"So," Wolfie said at last, tracing a spiraling pattern across the tender skin atop my collarbone with one lazy finger, "you're relieved and our wolves are happy. Now it's my turn."
My human half was sated and my wolf was playful, so I couldn't resist the obvious quip. "I think you already had a turn. Or two, or three."
Wolfie's eyelids drooped back down to half-mast as he smiled indulgently. "Mmm," he hummed, obviously just as content as I was. Then his voice firmed back up. "That's not what I meant, though."
"So what's wrong?" I asked.
For the second time that day, my mate appeared to be uncharacteristically tongue-tied, and the silence stretched between us like a suddenly taut rubber band. Unable to bear the suspense, I nudged him both physically and verbally. "Do you need to go back to check on Chase? Are you worried about Ember?"
"No and no," Wolfie replied. He took a deep breath through his nose, and his words came out faster than usual. "It's about our claiming moon...."
At his words, the smile that had been dancing across my lips quickly faded away. I couldn't say that I'd forgotten about Wolfie's previous request. But, somehow, I'd hoped that Chase's and Ember's dramas would have made my mate overlook the fact that I never gave a real reply to his request.
Fat chance of that, my lupine half said succinctly.
My wolf was trying to cheer me up with her snark, but my human mind wasn't so easily sidetracked. Instead, despite my best efforts to stay snuggled into my mate's side, I couldn't help sitting up and clasping my hands across my bare breasts in an effort to turn invisible. And I could hear the child-like tremor in my voice when I finally filled the long silence with words. "Do we have to talk about this now?"
"Hey, this is me, remember." Wolfie tipped my chin back up with firm fingers, then ran the same hand gently across my hair. The gesture had always soothed me in the past, but now I could only think about the uber-alphas and their dominance display earlier that afternoon. A display that hadn't affected Wolfie one bit...making me realize that my mate was yet more powerful than I'd at first imagined. How could I fully commit to mating with an alpha who could send me to my knees by simply varying the intonation of his voice?
Not that he ever has, my wolf reminded me. Well, not much.
"Tell me what you're afraid of," Wolfie said softly. In his shoes, I probably would have been tempted to push a little alpha compulsion into the command, but my mate's words were a simple human request. And behind his eyes, my mate's wolf was alert but sanguine, resting his head on his paws as he took in the conversation that would determine both of our fates.
So I told him. At first, it felt like pulling teeth to emit each word, but soon every one of my worries was pouring forth in a seemingly endless stream of angst and woe. Apparently I'd have more bottled up inside than even I had realized.
And as I spoke, I realized how unfair it was to be putting this load on Wolfie's
shoulders. After all, he'd done nothing to earn my distrust and had instead used every trick in the book to turn us into equal partners both in the eyes of the pack and within our personal lives.
So my misgivings should rightfully have annoyed my mate. But, instead, he simply accepted each of my concerns, filing it away within his bloodling understanding that always seemed to reach far beyond the surface and deep into my heart.
"So if you could know for a fact that I wouldn't command you against your will, then you'd accept us," Wolfie said when my disjointed rambling finally petered out. "There are no other reservations?"
I was surprised to hear relief in his voice, as if my mate had truly thought I was withholding the final piece of our mate bond because I wasn't fully committed to our relationship.
What else was he to think? my wolf grumped. You never told him any different.
"Yes, in a heartbeat," I promised. "I'd beg you to join me on a claiming moon if that were the case. But don't you see, Wolfie, that what you're suggesting is impossible? You are who you are and my wolf could never overpower yours."
"Not unless I commanded you to do whatever you want now and in the future," my mate said simply.
As his words sunk in, I found myself both amused and shocked by Wolfie's suggestion. My father would never have dreamed of releasing a shifter within his pack from the bonds of alpha compulsion. After all, what was the point of being a pack leader if you didn't have the ability to tell everyone else what do to?
In fact, I wouldn't have even thought the trick would work if I hadn't understood the way the pack bond was built. Most of the time, the invisible tether stretching between an alpha and his pack mates formed organically over time, but now and then a newcomer would choose to swear to his leader as a show of good faith. I'd seen myself the way the fealty oath immediately strengthened the ability of an alpha to use compulsion on his new subject, so it made sense that Wolfie might be able to use the same method in reverse to give me my freedom without casting me out of the pack.
But why would an alpha as strong as Wolfie want to relinquish so much control?
I must have spoken my thoughts aloud because my companion answered easily. "I'd give anything for us to be true mates," he said. Then I saw Wolfie's lupine half nudging his human side and he glanced up at the ceiling with a little smile on his lips before returning his gaze to mine. "Plus, my wolf says it's just the smart thing to do. Our pack is stronger with you to back me up and with me to back you up. You have skills my wolf and I lack, like nurturing the pack, understanding the brains of those strange two-leggers...and driving in a straight line."
I chuckled at his joke, but didn't let the levity get us off the proper track. "You know you don't have to do this to keep me," I told him earnestly.
It felt absurd even providing the reassurance since I felt that, if anything, Wolfie was the one who would be better off without a half-strength female alpha weighing him down. But he must have needed to hear the words as much as I needed to say them, because both man and beast immediately relaxed back into their usual harmony as I spoke.
"Thank you," Wolfie answered, his words a balm for us both. "But if it makes you feel even a little more comfortable being a part of this pack, then giving you the freedom to do as you wish is the right choice for all of us."
Then, without giving me a chance to backpedal further, my mate pulled up his full alpha persona. For a split second, the same pall that had weighed me down on the peacekeeping grounds made blood rush so hard behind my ears that I could only see Wolfie's lips move, not hear the words he was using to tear apart and then reform our mate bond.
I felt a twinge, as if a loose tooth was severing the final bit of flesh that held it rooted within my gums. But then the tiny jolt of pain was replaced by a strength that made me want to jump to my feet and see whether I really was abruptly able to lift Wolfie off the floor with a single hand.
Side effects: delusions of grandeur, I thought inanely as my ears popped and my connection with the physical world solidified once again.
"...yourself," Wolfie finished. He cocked his head to one side and peered at me while I assessed my own body. My head was dizzy, my sight spotted with black, and my breathing once again as erratic as it had been upon leaving the peacekeeping grounds. But I felt good. Better than good, I felt amazing.
"Did it work?" I asked. Because, except for the sudden exhilaration, nothing seemed to have changed within my skin.
Wolfie had initially appeared less affected than me, but I could now make out beads of sweat on his forehead despite the cool temperature inside our bedroom. His eyes crinkled up into a smile, though, and his mischievous streak was clearly wide awake.
"Let's see," he said. Then, without giving me a chance to recover further, Wolfie put our revised bond to the test. "Terra," he commanded, "go straight to the Barn and kiss the first yahoo you see on the lips."
I could sense the compulsion rising in the air, but it seemed to flow around me now instead of affecting my behavior. So I was able to ignore his request easily, just shaking my head at my trouble-making mate. "That's a low blow, Wolfie. Sick of me already?"
His resulting grin was so wide it looked as if it really should have cracked his jaw. "I would've stopped you before you got there," he rumbled.
And then our wolf spirits rose, refreshed, from within our skins and took our human bodies back to bed.
Chapter 15
"Wolfie's brother is at the end of the driveway requesting permission to enter Haven," one of my younger cousins told me breathlessly as he slammed into my office without knocking. The teenager was clearly shaken by coming in contact with Justin's growly presence, and my wolf spared a moment to nudge our visitor's inner beast back to calmness.
The endeavor required much less effort than previously, but so did everything else that morning. Having Wolfie back home and removing the sword of Damocles that had been poised above our adopted daughter's head seemed to have turned the whole world brighter.
Which is why I was currently forcing myself to tackle some of the more problematic issues that had been pushed to the back of my desk over the last week. So sad, we won't be able to hit that stack of paperwork this morning after all, I thought gleefully as I rose to my feet. Aloud, I merely said, "Track down Wolfie, please, and have him meet me there. I'll go speak with Justin immediately."
Despite the near giddiness that persisted in rushing through me that morning though, I wasn't really planning on facing my brother-in-law alone. Sometimes it was annoying that everyone residing in Haven knew everything that happened in my life within seconds, but now werewolf nosiness worked in my favor. I fully expected an entourage to appear behind me before I reached the end of the driveway, and I wasn't disappointed. Yes, without any extra effort on my part, half a dozen burly shifters were arrayed at my back by the time I came within sight of the edge of our territory. Then Wolfie stepped out of the woods fully clothed but with his wolf form panting behind his eyes just as we rounded the final bend to face his brother.
Justin hadn't come visiting alone either, but the single older male shifter who leaned against the door of their car wasn't the accompaniment I would have expected the power-conscious alpha to bring along. In fact, Justin appeared remarkably small and weak this morning, the daunting presence I'd met just a few months earlier seemingly absent from his current human form. I think we could actually growl him into submission, I thought in surprise, and my wolf huffed her agreement.
Wolfie was less sanguine. "What do you want?" he demanded, striding forward with the menace he usually lacked radiating out of his form. I could feel the shifters behind me quivering at even the hint of dominance that bounced off Justin and veered back in their direction, but my mate's words didn't slow my own steps. Instead, I let my feet continue forward until I stood shoulder to shoulder with Wolfie, then I surreptitiously slid my hand into his.
My mate's wolf immediately calmed at my touch, and Wolfie's human muscles seemed to loosen a t
rifle as well. So when his brother's first words were a meek request to enter Haven land and speak with us in private, Wolfie merely nodded curtly and led the way back into the center of our village.
I soon learned that the other outpack shifter was Wolfie's uncle Thomas, a strong but quiet werewolf who reminded me of my mate much more than Justin did. "It's good to see you again, Wolfie," the older werewolf said cordially once we'd all settled into the parlor of our cottage, excess shifters sent about their business while we four gathered around the coffee table for a tête-à-tête.
I allowed my wolf to rise up and sniff the emotional currents whirling around the room, assessing our companions. Both sides of my personality agreed that Thomas appeared innocuous, and it seemed like my mate genuinely liked the man. And yet, Wolfie didn't respond to his uncle's greeting beyond raising one eyebrow warily. Justin's mere presence obviously put my mate on edge—not that I could blame him.
So we waited....and waited...and waited. If our visitors had been anything like my mate, in fact, we likely would have sat there in silence for hours until someone finally broke down and initiated the conversation. But Justin had a more human need to fill empty air time. "You can ignore me," he said self-deprecatingly just as the silence began to stifle my senses. "I'm only along for appearance's sake."
The alpha concluded by waving at his uncle to take the floor, and the latter nodded cautiously in response. "Yes, right," Thomas agreed. Then, turning to face Wolfie, the weaker shifter kept his eyes lowered as he made his request. "I was hoping you would allow me to see the family sword."
Ah, yes, the weapon that Frank had mentioned and that I'd yet to find time to query my mate about. Inside my human body, my wolf perked up and sniffed the air with interest. Justin and Thomas were being awfully polite and submissive, but something didn't feel quite right. Was that a hint of glee hovering at the corners of Justin's eyes?
I shot a quick glance at my mate, but Wolfie didn't seem alarmed by the request. Instead, he simply shrugged and fetched the ash-stained lockbox that we'd dredged out of the remains of his former compound.
Alpha Ascendant: A Fantastical Werewolf Adventure (Wolf Rampant Book 3) Page 10