by Tamar Sloan
Noah’s hand tightens around mine, and I mirror the action. This is big.
“And another precept appeared. My guess is this is the last one.”
Mitch and Tara glance at each other as Tara rubs her belly protectively. Beth has rested her hand on Adam’s arm.
Noah is tense and taut, his hand a solid anchor. “Dad, if you could get to the point, that’d be good.”
“It said ‘united we conquer’.”
United we conquer.
My world contracts, narrowing to become just Noah and me, looking at each other, trying to process the implications of those three words. It seems the Prime Prophecy has clearly and irreversibly spelled out its intentions.
We stay there for long moments, processing this individually, but also as one. It feels like a great unknown has just been answered, along with a gazillion questions being born.
Tara pops a cheesy chip into her mouth. “In some ways it’s nothing new. We kinda figured that’s what you guys are all about.”
Mitch nods as he slips an arm around her shoulder. “In other ways, it’s another puzzle, with quite a few moving pieces.”
In a flash, I’m dizzy again. I pretend it doesn’t happen, but Noah notices. “Eden and I are going to have to talk about this.” He looks up. “In the morning though.”
Adam nods and stands. Beth smiles in understanding. “Get a good night’s rest, honey.”
I thank them as they file out the door.
They leave behind a host of unknowns.
Noah leans down to rest his forehead on mine. “United we conquer, huh?”
I can’t help a smile. “Seems straightforward enough.”
“Well, look at what just the two of us have managed to create.”
I feel the love pouring from this mate of mine, and my smile grows. “It’s more than I could ever have dreamed of.”
I push up, touching my lips to his, my own love flowing freely. These feelings have always been bigger than us, we just need to find out how much bigger.
Chapter Four
I glance around, I’m pretty sure I have everything. It’s not like there’s much to get together after an impromptu overnight stay.
I grasp the wolf pendant resting on my chest. In just twenty-four hours the world of Weres has changed, and changed significantly. I was rushed in unconscious and now I’m leaving to a world which is even more unsure than the one I left. I just have to believe that as long as Noah and I are together, then we can do whatever it is we’re meant to do.
United we conquer.
It would be nice to know what that actually means.
A wave of light-headedness washes over me and I hold myself still. There’s no way I’m mentioning to Noah or the nurses that those annoying little ripples haven’t completely disappeared. They’ll hopefully be gone by tomorrow, and right now we don’t have time to find out they probably mean nothing. I decide to grab a bottle of water from the vending machine in the hall, just in case I’m looking pale or something when Noah arrives.
As the bottle clunks into the chute, I hear a male voice hurl from the room next to mine. “That’s because it was stolen!” A beeping sound within picks up tempo.
“Mr. Davenport.” A placating female voice, a nurse I’d say, sounds like it’s starting to lose its patience. “Now isn’t the time to address that. You need to rest.”
“Easy for you to say, young lady. You didn’t lose something you’ve been working years to find.” There’s a pause, and the sound of something clunking. “Stop tucking me in, damn it.”
“Harold, you recently had quite a scare. You need to remain in bed.”
I step back, realizing I’m eavesdropping. Noah will be here soon. I need to get ready for the next stage of being Prime Alpha.
“I will not. There was a photo of a scarlet warbler on that camera, and now it’s gone! And now I’m stuck in this bed and can’t go find it.”
A scarlet warbler? I can’t help myself as I step forward again, this time in the direction of Harold’s doorway. The scarlet warbler is one of the rarest birds in the park. In fact, they were assumed extinct. Peering inside, I see an older man, lean and mostly bald, trying to push back the sheets and stand up. The nurse is gently but determinedly keeping them in place.
“I’m sorry, did you say a scarlet warbler?”
The man stops and looks up. “Yes, I did.”
I step in the room a little. “Everyone thought they were extinct.”
In all the times Orin and I have wandered the woods, animals and birds and insects greeting us and surrounding us, I haven’t seen the bright crimson markings of a scarlet warbler. The presence of another endangered species in that glorious forest would be useful information.
“I know.” He glances at the nurse. “That’s why that camera is so important.”
The nurse straightens, eyes pleading. She wants me to come in? Only a few feet from the bed I stop. “How did you manage that?”
The man sits back, now busy tucking himself in. “Years of work. Bird-watching takes patience, young lady.”
That has me smiling. “Yes, it does. What a wonderful achievement. Where were you?”
The man’s eyes narrow, assessing me. “I went west from Fitz’s Hill.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “That’s quite a hike. But the lodge pole pines there are quite thick, which is the warbler’s ideal habitat.”
It’s also quite a distance from the visitors’ center, heading in the direction of the Phelan house in fact.
“Exactly.” He squints pale blue eyes at me. “What’s your name, young lady?”
“Eden. Sorry for interrupting, I just overheard—”
He waves an impatient hand. “It’s nice to meet someone with some knowledge about our natural world.”
The nurse steps back, finally able to tuck him in without a fight, eyes surreptitiously rolling.
I can’t help but smile at this cantankerous bird-watcher. “I have a friend who hikes around the reserve quite a bit. Maybe I could get him to have a look out for it.” Orin would definitely spend some time looking for the camera or the bird if it meant proof of scarlet warblers in the park. Oh, except Orin has gone away…
Harold harrumphs. “It’s too late for that.”
“Why do you say that?” I’m about to ask where he lost it when the monitors beside Harold start beeping.
The nurse peers at them, then pushes Harold back onto the pillows. “Taking it easy, remember?”
Harold’s hand comes up to massage his chest, face suddenly looking pale. “I might rest now.”
I’m already walking backwards toward the door. “I think that sounds like a great idea.”
The beeping slows as I leave the room, and I wonder if I was actually helpful. I decide to tell Orin about the scarlet warbler and keep an eye out for any sightings. Heading back, I sit on the bed, glancing at the clock. Noah will be here soon.
I’m sitting on the edge of the bed when Dr. Martinez enters, eyes scanning me. “All ready to get going?”
“I just need your tick of approval.”
She comes over as I pull up the leg of my pants. A white gauze is all that covers the handful of stitches. “How’s the pain?”
“It aches a bit, but I haven’t needed to take anything for it.”
She throws a sharp look my way. “Good. Any more dizziness?”
I slip my trouser leg back down again. “Nope.”
Dr. Martinez makes some notes on her clipboard. “Eden…” Something in her tone makes me look up. “We did some routine blood tests that I’d like to talk to you about.”
What? I wait, wondering how many times I’ll have to hear that serious tone directed at me. It can’t be anything too major, I’ve been feeling fine until yesterday.
Dr. Martinez glances down again. “How old are you again?”
“I’m eighteen.”
“So young,” she says to the pages she’s flipping through. “And your boyfriend?”
&n
bsp; I shift on the white sheets. This conversation is getting odd. “I’m not sure where this conversation is going, Dr. Martinez.”
With a sigh, the doctor lets the clipboard drop. Her steady brown gaze is directed straight at me, and for some reason I know I’m not ready to hear what she has to tell me. “Eden, we’re going to have do some more tests to confirm, but it looks like—”
There’s a rap on the door before it pushes open. Noah, handsome and smiling, strides in, then stops. “Ah sorry, didn’t think I’d be interrupting anything.”
My smile is reflexive—it’s like everything in my world becomes okay when Noah is here. “Of course not.” I reach out my hand and he comes to stand beside me, our hands winding together. “Dr. Martinez was just giving me a clean bill of health.”
The doctor closes the chart, never missing a beat. “Yes, everything seems to be in order. The leg should heal fine.”
I can feel Noah’s relief. “And the dizziness?”
Dr. Martinez glances at me. “Perfectly understandable considering what’s going on.”
I let the gratitude wash over me, knowing Noah would understand this emotion. There’s too much going on for me to process whatever Dr. Martinez was about to launch into. We’ve got enough on our plate as it is.
I stand, ignoring the twinge in my leg. Right now, I just want to get home. “Thanks, Doctor. I appreciate it.”
“Don’t forget, though,” now her brown eyes bore into me, “I’ll need to see you in a few days.”
I smile up at Noah. “To get the stitches out.”
Noah nods, sensing my need to be out of these white walls. I suspect this is why I was never good in cities. I need to feel connected to Mother Earth.
Out in the parking lot I take a deep breath. The air smells of city; grey car exhaust, black bitumen, and someone smoking nearby. But underneath it all, Mother Nature is there; in the clear air that fills my lungs, the reminder of the cold to come. It settles and invigorates me.
“Better?”
Noah is smiling at me, watching me reconnect with the thread we all carry. “Much. I can’t wait to get home.”
He pulls me into his arms. “I missed you.”
I wrap my own around his shoulders. Our first night apart since our Bonding. Why does it feel like we’ve always been together? “It was lonely without you.”
“It just shows you, it takes a rabid bear to keep us apart.”
I tuck my head into Noah’s chest, hearing his heart, feeling the warmth of his wolf tattoo. “But we’ll always come back together.”
His lips brush my hair. “Always.” He opens the truck door for me. “We need to talk before we get home. Are you up for it?”
I roll my eyes. “It was a cut and whack to the head, not a near death experience.”
His lips twitch. “Sorry, protective Were needs to calm down, huh?”
“My wonderful, amazing protective Were. But yes, I’m fine.”
Noah sighs as he turns on the ignition. He pulls out of the parking lot before he speaks again. “Okay. So what do you make of the latest Precept?”
United we conquer. “I’m not sure. Like Tara said, the united bit we already figured.”
Noah is watching the road as he thinks. “Yeah.
“It’s the conquering bit which sounds tricky.”
“Yeah. And like it’s not going to be easy.”
I stare straight ahead. Conquering sounds so…forceful. Is it the peace-loving Fae in me or the nervous human who feels intimidated at that thought?
But then I think of Kurt, and what he’s done, and what he wants to do. There is no way he’s going to let go of that without a fight. “But the Precept rock has always been the one that reveals the truth.”
“It does seem to know what it’s talking about.”
I can’t help but smile. “Which means we need to unite. It’s just the how we need to figure out.”
Noah rubs his lip. “I’ve been thinking about that. Kurt has had to have been moving around, looking to gain supporters.”
“Talking to other packs?”
“Exactly. And feeding them his twisted truth. That’s what he did with Daniel Tate.”
We pull up at a red light. I’m staring out the windscreen when it hits me. “He wants Weres to conquer.”
Noah’s shocked face turns to mine. “He’s been trying to unite them.”
Oh god. The last Precept is only going to fuel that belief…for him and every Were he speaks to.
Noah’s fist thumps on the steering wheel. “And the Prime Alpha run didn’t happen.”
I bite my lip. We knew that run was important, that Weres needed so see us together.
My hands tighten into fists. They needed to see me.
Instead I was rushed off to hospital after fainting. What a fragile human thing to do, not to mention there’s no speedy healing for me.
But what Kurt has yet to realize is that things have changed. I’m not the nervous, hesitant human that he tried to attack the first time. I’m also more than the Changeling who subdued his supporters as they tried to kill me.
I’m all that now and more.
“I think that’s what we do too, then.”
Noah glances at me as we pull onto the dirt road which takes us to his home. Our home. “What?”
“We talk to the packs. Show them what the Prime Prophecy really means.”
Noah’s smile is slow. Slow but heart-stoppingly beautiful. His whole face is a glowing mixture of pride and inspiration and possibly a little excitement. “That’s exactly what we need to do.”
I push forward, my seatbelt digging into my shoulder but I don’t care. “We’ll travel around the state, showing them that the Prime Alpha is about more than just the strength of Weres. Showing them what uniting is really about.”
We reach the house and Noah pulls up in the drive. His hand comes out to clasp mine. “You’re amazing.”
I shake my head. How could he not see this? “I’m everything because of you, Noah.”
“I’m nothing without you, Eden.”
This kiss is lightweight and loving, yet weighted and wonderful. With each day we are closer, and stronger.
With each day our challenges become bigger and more intimidating.
We pull back and I gaze into those summer-sky eyes. Noah looks so sure as he asks me, “Let’s do this?”
I nod. “Let’s do this.”
It’s time we became Prime Alpha.
Chapter Five
The following morning, after talking and planning long into the night, I’m wishing I could have bottled that sense of I-can-do-this. Today we get organized to go on our Prime Alpha road trip because it seems we have the not-so-small task of uniting all Weres.
As we stand in the driveway again, I ignore the dizziness which swirls around my head. Obviously the late night didn’t agree with me. Caesar leans into my leg, and I’m glad he can’t talk. Noah doesn’t need to know that the dizzy spells are still here.
Tara comes to stand beside me. “I wish I was going with you.”
Mitch slips an arm around her shoulder. “Only because you love Ned’s Nachos.”
Tara pats her belly. “One. Ned was smart enough to place a restaurant in almost every town between here and the border. Two. They’re Jellybean’s favorite.”
I frown. “I thought Penny’s Pancakes were her favorite.”
Mitch’s arm tightens around Tara’s shoulder. “He,” Mitch’s brows come down, “has a healthy appetite.”
Tara rests her head on Mitch. “Yes, she,” she elbows him playfully, “does.”
Noah comes from around the house. My guess is he was on the thinking chair with Adam, going over what we’d agreed on. We’d poured over the map of Wyoming, identifying where each pack lived, who would be pleased to see us…who may not be. We’d mapped out our trip, the one that starts tomorrow.
“You ready?” he asks.
Ah, loaded question much? “Let’s do this.”
> Noah’s smile is full of love. It makes me feel like we can do anything, including the daunting task before us.
We head around the house and come up against my mother’s birthday present. Crap, I’d forgotten about all that. We both stand and look at it. Caesar wanders over to it and I send him a warning glare. This car isn’t his personal fire hydrant.
Noah nudges a shiny black wheel with his shoe. “It would be a more comfortable ride for the road trip…”
I arch a brow. “Yes, it would be. And you’ll owe Alexis for. The. Rest. Of. Your. Life.”
Noah retracts his foot. “But my trusty old truck is certainly up for the miles.”
“I thought you’d say that.”
Noah steps around. “We’ll do something with it when we get back.”
Whenever that is. Who knows how long this is going to take. I don’t even know if we’ll be back in time for college to start.
“Actually…” I wait for Noah to turn. His eyes ask the question I’m about to answer. “Maybe I should do that today.”
“You want to bring it back?”
I sigh. “I’d prefer to deal with it before we leave.”
Noah is back at my side, his hands cupping my hips. “Are you sure?”
Now that the idea has been born, I’m realizing it’s what I need to do. I need to tie off these loose ends before we embark on something that could be bigger than either of us are expecting. “Yeah. I need to do this. Do you mind?” It will mean Noah will have to do the supply shopping without me.
“I’ll be fine. You sure you want to do it on your own?”
I nod. “It’s better that way. We need to get organized.” I shove him a little. “Plus she seems to get defensive when you’re around.” Even more so when there are more Weres acting like my protectors.
Noah’s shoulders rise and drop on a huff. “Good. She’s learning you’ve got back up.”
With a lingering kiss we say goodbye. It’s a kiss that says we don’t want to part, but responsibilities are calling.
Noah is just about to climb into the car when Mitch comes jogging over. “Thank the gods of sanity I caught you.”