I ran my fingers down his spine, humming as I felt the muscles contract—Kali Sara, I loved how stacked he was—and when he shivered, I smiled because I loved his responsiveness to my touch.
“Why? Because it’s winter,” he said dryly. “You’re pregnant. You need your den.”
“I like it here,” I complained, then I shivered, my nose crinkling as suddenly, the totem circle contracted then relaxed in a way I’d come to know meant someone was joining us.
The fact that Austin hadn’t pushed away from me to cover me told me it was one of my mates, and I let the walls in my mind, the few barriers I’d learned how to construct, fall as I reached out to connect with the mate who was here to hustle my ass into moving.
When I felt Eli’s dominance, I shuddered, because even though I was used to it, his power would always overwhelm me.
In the best possible way.
I loved his strength, was nourished by his dominance, and felt secured by his power—no one could or would touch me.
Even though I knew some were plotting to try.
Like she knew what I was thinking, the alpha bitch and my protector, Berry, howled, which set up an orchestra of songs from the packs.
The two had merged, one from the very natural world, and the other that hailed from our little sojourn on ‘planet Lidai,’ the place where I’d claimed my mates.
They worked as a team now, and I knew their primary directive—I knew that was insane, since they were wolves, not trained operatives—was to keep me and my family safe.
I was surrounded by protectors. People who’d lay down their lives for me and mine, and that was another reason I slept so well now.
Safety was a precious commodity, and it came infrequently to people like me.
Ever since I’d become theirs, I’d always felt secure, even though there were political issues within the pack.
“Come on, it’s not good to sleep out here,” Eli rumbled, making me heave an impatient sigh because I got this crap every night.
Hey, just because I was mated and fated to be with these dudes didn’t mean we always agreed on everything.
“My back aches less out here.”
“You need your den,” Austin reasoned.
“I think I know what I need,” I muttered with a huff.
“No, that’s what we’re for,” Austin told me with a laugh. “We know all, didn’t you know that?”
“Considering I can read your minds, nope, I just know that you like to ogle my tits when I’m meditating, and that Eli loves watching me bend over the dining table.” A chuckle escaped me. “I’m more than down for you taking me over that obnoxious thing.” Obnoxious because I was pretty frickin’ sure Washington had eaten on it. The thing was ancient and not to my taste at all.
Eli groused, “Don’t hand out promises you can’t keep.”
My nose crinkled again. “I totally would go down for two in one night.”
Ever since the knots had started taking less time to bind us together, and with the start of my pregnancy making my hormones out of whack, we’d all been screwing more. But I was heading out of that phase, to the part where I was beginning to waddle.
I remembered this time from Joshua—how awkward it was to suddenly have a basketball glued to your belly. Oddly enough, I loved it.
I loved being pregnant, even though I was getting cankles, my tits ached, and my belly was starting to stretch to the point where it was getting uncomfortable.
The disadvantages more than outweighed the advantages, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t happy as a clam to be pregnant, to be carrying one of my men’s children—and I figured it was Eli, as there was a single child in my womb. A boy. Not that I knew how I knew about that, just that I did.
Sometimes, when I tried, I could hear his heartbeat, and other times, I got the vaguest of impressions that he was starting to know what was happening outside the womb.
Of course, if I thought about that too much, I’d stop having sex period, so it was easier to shove aside the knowledge that even in utero, shifter babies had better senses than regular ones.
When Eli bent down and hauled me up, uncaring that I was dirty, uncaring that my hair was tangled with leaves and that I was probably dripping the last remnants of spent seed down him—God, I loved how earthy they were—I grumbled, but let him hold me like I was a child.
As he started toward the circle, I muttered, “Can’t believe you brought in the big dog, Austin.”
My mate snickered. “He knew you’d twist me around your finger.”
I peeped a smile at him over Eli’s shoulder. “That’s how it’s supposed to be. You’re supposed to keep your mate happy.”
Eli snorted. “I have ways of making you happy that don’t involve you freezing your ass off out here. I know the temperature is regulated in the circle, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t drop below freezing.”
I heaved a sigh. “I’d come in if I was cold.”
“You wouldn’t if you’d already turned into an ice cube,” Austin pointed out.
“When would that happen? People don’t turn to ice when it’s just above freezing,” I argued. “Anyway, you’d take me home if that was the case.”
“This way, you get to wake up in a feather bed with all your mates,” Eli reasoned, not even with a drop of his tone indicating that he’d been zapped by the totem as it relinquished us to the woods.
It was a strange thing to say, but I was pretty sure the line of the circle that separated the totem and the forest was a portal. But that was too The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe even for me, so I grumbled, “Now it is cold.”
“You’re naked,” Austin commented dryly. “Of course you’re cold.”
“Why you come out here bare is beyond me.”
I ignored Eli’s annoyance to reply, “I like to feel the rays of the moon on my skin.”
I tipped my head back and watched the full moon as I was carried back to the packhouse.
The dimples and divots, the shadows and crevices were a welcome and soothing sight.
When Austin and Eli started talking about a conversation they’d been having at dinner, I tuned them out and focused on Berry.
She was the she-wolf Ethan had managed to save in the other realm. She was my guardian, and while I could hear disjointed thoughts from other animals, sense their locations if I focused on them, hear their heartbeats if I ‘tuned in’, she and I were on a direct line. A strange wavelength that meant I could understand what she was feeling.
“Something in air.”
I arched a brow at that, because if that was her first greeting with me outside the totem’s circle, I figured shit was weird tonight.
“Storm brewing?” I asked.
“Something brewing.” She huffed, then howled, long and clear enough to tell anyone and anything in the vicinity that she was nearby.
Even though I was used to it, I still jolted in response. Austin and Eli didn’t, of course.
Jerks.
By the time we made it back to the packhouse, even though it wasn’t that far away, I was yawning as we moved through the front door and down into the hall.
Our bedroom was a communal space, and it was pretty much the only place we’d changed since I’d become omega of the Highbanks pack.
With time, I’d change more and more things, because in all honesty, I hated the formality here. All the antiques and the fancy shit made me scared to break things.
I’d prefer to donate all the crap to an auction house, ask them to get the highest bids, and donate it to charity, but this was Eli’s stuff. His inheritance.
And what was I supposed to do in the interim? Go to Home Depot or Ikea and just buy a mass of flat pack furniture?
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
While I was more than happy with flat pack furniture, we were the leaders of the pack.
We lived in a frickin’ mansion. It would be like riding around in a Ford Focus that had been modeled to look like a Ferra
ri—just not right.
As we trudged up the steps, I could feel my eyes drooping, and I sighed with delight when I smelled Ethan.
He was awake.
He didn’t say anything though, just curled into me when Eli plopped me on the bed.
Eli always slept to my left, and Ethan and Austin tended to alternate between laying to my right.
I didn’t think they’d admit it, but I knew they slept better too, now that we were tumbled together like this.
There wasn’t anything weird about it, but the twin bond ran deeper than anyone knew, even them. The ties between them were links they often messed with, and I knew they didn’t always see eye to eye, but there was no denying how much more restful they were since we’d knocked down the wall between my bedroom and Eli’s and had made this our room. One bed for all of us to share. One place for all of us to wake up.
Unless I went wandering in the middle of the night, of course.
If that was the case, then one of my guys would always go wandering with me.
I knew that was to keep me safe, not so that they could get some one-on-one time, but I figured it was a good opportunity for a bit of both, and I saw nothing wrong with that.
We were busy people, the leaders of a growing, powerful pack as shifters drifted toward us, seeking a home for their family, with an alpha and an omega who were fair and just. And I was only one woman. My nighttime forays were a way of keeping us all bound together, and even when it was cold like tonight, I knew that was why they never grumbled.
It was our time. No one else’s. And I knew they loved that as much as me.
When Ethan curved an arm over the swell of my belly, I felt the baby respond. He didn’t kick, just twisted inside me, like he was pushing into Ethan’s hand. Ethan let out a soft chuckle, because I knew all the men were getting used to the tactileness of our child. But he didn’t say anything, just anointed my cheek with a kiss, snuggled into me, then rested.
To the sounds of Eli stripping off and Austin clambering onto the bed behind his twin, I drifted off too.
Only to be awoken by a howl.
Berry.
I jerked upright as she howled into my mind, “Attack. Twenty of them. Useless. Traitors.”
The disjointed words had me rubbing my temple.
Useless?
What did she mean by that?
And traitors?
Then, it hit me.
The old councilors. The women who’d always sniped at me, the men who were bitter about being replaced with everyday folk in the pack… she’d always called them ‘useless’ because they were all talk and no action.
I sent my thoughts to my mates, and when they slid into wakefulness, already half-cocked for a fight, I knew I’d never seen anything hotter than the three of them pumped up with an aggression I’d only ever witnessed when there was a challenge. We’d had a few of them since Eli had turned the pack on its head, but this was different.
This was underhanded.
This was not how the pack worked.
“Stay here,” Austin snarled, and his hard tone, so unlike my mate, had me jerking a little in response.
“I will.”
“Don’t move from the bed,” Eli ground out. “They’re in the house. You can’t get to the safe room.”
“Fuck. We need to get one installed on this level,” Ethan growled, head tilted to the side as he used all his senses to key him into the invaders’ intent. “I never thought they’d get into the house. Someone must have let them in.”
Austin rasped, “They’ll die before the night is over.”
They each shared a look, nodding as if transforming the statement into an oath.
Glancing over at me, rage and fire in his eyes, Eli repeated, “Don’t. Move.”
I knew why—for me to move was tantamount to admitting that they couldn’t protect me, keep me safe. So I nodded quickly, and promised, “I won’t.”
I wasn’t a fighter. My role was not to fight, but to nurture, so I decided to help them the best I could.
Behind my eyes, I could call upon the energy of every single member of the pack.
The only issue?
As the wave of shifters approached, I could feel the disconnection.
They were no longer pack in my mind.
Their energies no longer resonated with me.
My mouth worked as I realized I couldn’t help my men, and then when I heard a snarl, one that echoed in my mind, I opened my eyes because I knew my men didn’t need any help.
Not against twenty-two imbeciles who’d torn themselves from the pack by their own volition. I hadn’t even known that could happen. That by their will and deed, they could rupture the bonds between us.
I stayed there, still and watchful, listening, unable to help and hating it, then Berry did something—I knew it was her, because I couldn’t have done this in a million years—and out of nowhere, I felt a blur of light hit my eyes, making me wince until it cleared some. The angles were strange, wrong…more like what I saw when I was shifted. That notion had me flinching, because no way in hell could I see through her eyes.
No way.
No. Frickin’. Way.
And yet…
It was more than just sight.
I could…feel through her senses. Kali Sara. I could hear what she heard and scent what she scented.
The whisper of the wind as a wolf howled in pain, the scent of fresh blood spurting, and death—
Bewildered and slow to process this new ability, I wasted precious moments as I tried to focus, then finally, managed to take in the sight of the hall where Eli was surrounded by three wolves, four downed corpses littered the carpet like so much trash. Already.
They’d barely gone downstairs five minutes ago!
By the front door, Ethan was fighting four, with two of them bleeding out the last drops of lifeblood, and Austin was outside in the yard. He had seven around him, with three of them down, and four still actively tearing into him.
My stomach twisted and turned, and I knew that was both my nerves as well as the baby moving, responding to what Berry showed us. Weird, no?
I blew out a breath, trying not to panic, trying not to worry that whatever the she-wolf was doing would stop. I didn’t want to blink, but my eyes burned as I kept them wide open. However, when I did, the image didn’t disappear.
It was like when you wore those goggles that let you play 3D games, except better. This wasn’t just a picture I was virtually standing in, I felt like I was there.
When Austin was speckled with blood, I felt the droplets on my skin.
When a wolf snarled his agony as Eli tore into his hind leg, I felt the sound piercing my ear drums.
It was insane, but wonderful to see them doing so well.
Because that was it—they were winning.
Easily.
I didn’t even have to ask Berry to step in, for her pack to help them out. I knew that would not only shame my mates, but alter the pack’s perception of their leadership, and that was the last thing I wanted, but I’d do it if I had to. If it meant saving them, I’d sell my soul. Still, there was no need. My mates had the situation in hand.
I’d come to learn that there were tenuous lines between us and the naturals.
They weren’t below us in the chain of things, but neither were they above it, or on the same line even. It was like there was a whole other scale, and they served us. By choice.
If we were weak, they’d stop. They’d leave
But we weren’t weak.
My men were strong. Powerful. And that was clear as the three of them took down the males and females who’d once helped counsel this pack.
My faith in them was such that I didn’t even feel fear over the knowledge that if one of them died, that was it for me. I was done. My life would be over too. Knight would be left alone, as, like a tumbling house of cards, my other mates would pass over shortly after me…
Those thoughts were unnecessary. A needless
waste of energy for there was no need for fear. None whatsoever.
As I viewed the carnage, I was overwhelmed by just how little terror I felt.
When it was over, I shuddered, disturbed by the loss of life, the waste of it, the wreckage, and when the image disappeared, I knew Berry and I were in accord—the challenge was done.
Over.
I loved her for giving me that sense of security, for helping me, even when I hadn’t known I needed help, and even though it was crazy—even though I’d question my sanity later on—to the sounds of my men clearing up the mess they’d made, I fell asleep. The lack of turbulent energy in me didn’t last however. My slumber?
Full of dreams.
Full of questions in need of answers.
The cackle set my nerves on edge.
It was like nothing I’d ever heard before. Nothing I could ever imagine hearing again.
It wasn’t amused, wasn’t even jovial. It was wicked and evil. Bestial. It shivered along my spine, making all the tiny hairs on my body stand on edge.
It was creepy and haunting, and I twisted around, trying to find the source.
I was, I saw, in a forest.
A forest that wasn’t the one I’d come to call my home.
Berry wasn’t with me. I was alone, and it had been such a long time since I’d been that, that for a second, I panicked. My heart pounded, and when I felt nauseated, I peered down, plopping my hands on my knees, only to realize the growing baby bump wasn’t there.
Fear hit me, terror swirled inside my blood, making me feel like I was being poisoned… Then, just as my heartbeat started to rush in my ears, because I knew this was only a dream and my baby was safe, I heard it again.
It split through the blood rush, making even that seem quiet.
I whipped around, my skirt billowing in the wind, and out of nowhere, like what had happened in the other realm, I found a bow lopped over my shoulder, a quiver of arrows in my hand.
I stared at both items and realized that I needed to kill whatever was making that sound.
The Mother had granted me the weapon for a reason, and even though I didn’t understand why she did what she did, I wasn’t going to question why.
Moon Child: A PNR Shifter Romance (The Year of the Wolf Book 2) Page 2