Moon Child: A PNR Shifter Romance (The Year of the Wolf Book 2)

by Serena Akeroyd

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’m doing this for a reason, aren’t I? I figure I’ll find out when I’m old enough.” Daniel gave her one last hug. “Sabina?” She hummed. “I love you.”

  “Love you, too, baby,” she rasped, and with a quick peep at us, he darted away from her and headed to the SUV.

  I bit my lip as I watched Yardley drive him and his boy away, slowly down the drive at first and out toward the main road.

  The supernaturals, led by Berry, started howling as he left, and I saw him twist around to watch. His face was turned toward the house until Yardley had to take the turn off, and just before I caught the last sight of him, our gazes connected and held.

  Until we were broken apart.

  I blew out a breath, but was unsurprised when Sabina started bawling her eyes out and she threw herself at me and Eli. We both moved to shield her, but there was little use.

  Everything happened for a reason, just like Daniel had said. But we were as in the dark as him as to what those reasons would be.

  In the interim, we had to live our lives. Had to tend to our family, watch it grow, watch Maribel birth the Sun Child, when the dawn of a new day would rise.

  We didn’t know when that would be, and to be honest, I didn’t want to know.

  I just wanted to hold onto my mate, all while making sure Knight was ready for whatever was thrown his and his own mate’s way when the time came.

  Because the one certainty in this life wasn’t death, nor was it taxes.

  It was that the time would come.

  It always did.

  And the clock never stopped ticking. Not for anyone.

  Man, beast, or spirit.

  Nineteen

  Lara

  Three months later

  There was knowing everything, there was having an internal filing system in one’s cerebellum, and then there was listening to your mother talk about sex.

  I felt like a child again as I squirmed, utterly uncomfortable with the conversation, though Sabina didn’t appear to be. If anything, she was relaxed, her back against the sofa, the phone in between us as we spoke to the woman both of us called mother and who didn’t deserve the label.

  “I-I thought I was going crazy,” Catharina whispered, her voice low like she had to watch herself just in case someone was listening in.

  I sent Sabina a look, saw her lips twitch before she asked, “You weren’t.”

  “Who was he?” I asked, even though I didn’t need to know my biological father’s identity to recognize he was a low life I didn’t need polluting my air. Still, a girl had to ask, didn’t she?

  I had a family that mattered now. Sabina, her mates, Knight. Then there was Todd and his grandparents who were finally starting to like me—not just accept me as his mate, but appreciate me as a person.

  Life was good.

  So, asking about my father was merely token. Something I should ask, not something I needed to know.

  “I don’t know his name. Draga never warned me.” Her voice waned before she sputtered, “Did you know he bit me? Hard enough to scar. Why do you always think I wear that scarf?”

  “Because I thought father asked you to,” was Sabina’s reply. Then, she surprised me by being a little cold as she said, “That’s what you always did. He told you to jump, so you jumped.”

  Silence fell at that, then she hissed, “If you’re going to be mean, then I’ll put the phone down.”

  She pursed her lips. “If being mean involves speaking the truth, then by all means, put the phone down.”

  A second later, we heard the dialing tone.

  “Guilt,” she declared coolly as she wiggled her foot, dangling it and her shoe as she crossed her legs.

  “She was a shit mother,” I agreed.

  “The shittiest.”

  “I don’t know why you needed to talk to her.”

  I held out my hand at Todd’s words, beckoning him to me. He’d been listening in, standing at the fireplace in the family living room of the Highbanks’ packhouse, watching on with disapproval.

  He hadn’t agreed with us talking to our mother, simply because he thought it was raking up a past that couldn’t be changed.

  But I’d never lost contact with her, just had never been all that close.

  What was there to be close to? She’d made her decision a long time ago—my father over me. Over all of us.

  She had to have known that our father had asked Cyrilo to end Sabina’s life, but what had she done? Acted as if Sabina had never existed after she’d run away, and she’d certainly never defended any of us when he’d hit us.

  Father was always right. That was the law under our roof.

  It was a wonder that Sabina and I didn’t loathe each other’s guts, to be honest. Neither of us felt any ounce of remorse over Jana’s passing, or Cyrilo’s for that matter, but while I’d had some reservations when I’d first arrived here where she was concerned, they’d gone.

  Sabina was a dedicated mother, a loving mate, a wonderful and caring omega, and a sister I was still coming to learn, who never ceased to amaze me with her generosity of self.

  No, she wasn’t perfect. She had a little temper, she was too overprotective of Knight, to the point where I knew we’d have a conversation about smothering him with attention, and she was a workaholic, but dedication wasn’t a weakness, was it?

  She just needed a friend.

  So did I.

  Mates were one thing, sisters another. Friends? We could be that for each other. I wanted that, more than she could know.

  When Todd’s hand slipped into mine, he perched on the edge of the sofa, which immediately creaked, before he muttered, “Talking to her did nothing other than make you both scowl.”

  Sabina shook her head. “I wanted to understand.”

  He sighed. “You wanted to hear something that wasn’t the full truth. You heard her side, and she didn’t understand what had happened to her. There’s no reassurance to be found there.” He squeezed my fingers. “Hyena males often do what they did to her—bite her, scar her, impregnate her, then leave them.”

  “Don’t they have mates?” she asked.

  “No. They just call them that, but they’re chosen life partners.”

  “Why? Do they like to be confusing?”

  Lips twitching, he murmured, “No. It’s just a cultural thing. But everything is different for tigers, eagles, bears, and wolves.”

  Sabina tensed at that, and her shoulders hitched up as she gaped at him. “Tigers, eagles, bears, and wolves?”

  Okay, so it made me teacher’s pet, I knew, but I chimed in, “They were the first animals the Mother created. They were her first born.”

  Her eyes rounded. “No way.”

  I wasn’t sure why she was surprised, neither was Todd, but he confirmed, “Those four species were her first children.”

  She bit her lip. “I had a dream about a totem after the hyenas’ attack.”

  Todd’s shoulders straightened at that. “What kind of dream?”

  Warily, she whispered, “I don’t know. It was a totem with one of each of the original shifters depicted there. Not like ours. Ours consists of only wolves.”

  “The onerai?” he asked, his voice a tad dreamy, like I’d just given him the Kama Sutra and told him to pick one for us to act out.

  Hey! There was an idea.

  Still, sex was for later, so I snorted. “Like she’d even know what the onerai is.”

  “The first totem. What was it like?”

  His eagerness had Sabina rearing back. “I don’t know. It was stupid. Just a dream.”

  I knew my mate wanted more answers, but he didn’t press.

  That was Todd—ever patient. But Sabina’s distress and confusion were clear to see, and Todd wasn’t the kind to push. That was one of my favorite things about him. His intensity bled through in other ways, but he’d wait for her to ask questions, and if she didn’t, then he’d let it go.

  He had the wi
sdom of someone who’d lived a thousand years in a hunk with a twenty-nine-year-old body.

  I was such a lucky bitch.

  “Why do those four creatures do things differently?”

  “They just have distinctive rulings and methods of governance. They’re older, have deeper, more integral laws that make this society churn. It’s not entirely surprising.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s always harder on the eldest children?” I hazarded a wry guess.

  She blinked. “Is that why, Todd?”

  “Well, that, and their culture has had a lot more time to develop structure, and they were granted more blessings and curses along the way.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, wolves get a mate. That’s a gift, but it’s a curse to die if the other dies. While that’s a relief at the time, because it’s painful to do without them, if there are children, then it’s not a blessing, is it?

  “Then, there’s the fact that they have alphas and betas and omegas. Strict delineated rules for pack governance. The reason your sister could overtake the clan was because there’s nothing like that for the hyenas. They pick them like humans pick their leaders. It’s not innate to them. Which, as we know, doesn’t always work either. Look at the Rainfords. But there’s proper protocol in place that will help a pack overturn despotic rulers.

  “For hyenas, it’s just chaos. They spend all their lives trying to make money and trying to gain political power in the human world, because they have no leg to stand on in this one. Jana, if she could see anything about the future, maybe have a vision of who’d become the next president or…well, whatever, she’d be very useful, and that kind of usefulness can be monetized, which leads to power in the clan.”

  “She said her mate was powerful too. Came from a strong line,” Sabina muttered, like her mind was elsewhere.

  “So she pussy-whipped him, and then backed it up with her visions,” I guessed.

  Her lips twitched. “It fits. He wasn’t very dominant.”

  “The males aren’t. There’s a reason there are a lot of males born but fewer females, and even fewer still who’ll shift.”

  Sabina bit her lip. “Is that why Lara didn’t shift? Because she isn’t strong?”

  “Hey! I’m plenty powerful,” I groused.

  “Yeah, but in a different way,” she teased, and I was glad she was lightening up some.

  Todd slipped a hand over my shoulder and hugged me tight. “Her hyena blood helps make her the Moon Child.”

  “What does the Moon Child actually do though?” Sabina asked, her curiosity clear.

  And while neither of us knew the real answer to that, because we hadn’t been let in on the secret either, when Todd spoke, a shiver whispered down my spine, because his words felt real. They felt like a portent.

  “She changes everything.” Then, he beamed a smile at us, and said, “Anyway, enough of the past. You can’t control it, but you can control the future. You can make sure that you learn from your mother’s mistakes and that you’re better than she was.” He kissed my temple as he quoted, “‘We learn from history that we learn nothing from history…’ Don’t be like that.”

  Sabina’s gaze turned pensive at the quote, but she asked, “You know the night of the attack?”

  “How could we forget?” I quipped, as I squeezed my mate’s hand.

  “What did you turn into, Todd?”

  His brow arched. “What do you mean? I turned into a wolf, of course.”

  We shared a look, and I smiled at her. “You seeing things, sis?”

  She pursed her lips at me, and her nod came slowly, but her gaze? Dubious. I wasn’t surprised when she claimed she had a headache five or so minutes later, and to be honest, I was glad for it. I mean, I didn’t want her to be in any pain, but equally, that was an awkward conversation we couldn’t have.

  In the eyes of the world, Todd was a wolf shifter.

  Simple.

  As we left the packhouse, a place where we were both welcome now, I sighed at the sight of the blossoming trees and murmured, “I want to get married here.”

  He arched a brow at me. “I haven’t proposed.”

  “No. That was a nudge.”

  “I’ll take the nudge under advisement.”

  Winking at him, I said, “Hey, I’ll be able to access my trust fund when we get married.”

  “Yeah? I’m okay with being your sugar baby,” he joked, hauling me into him and palming my ass at the same time.

  “You’re sweet enough as it is,” I teased, leaning up on tiptoe to kiss him. Fuck, he pleased me. Everything about him just fit. I’d been one of those ten-thousand-piece jigsaws that had been missing a single piece until him. Until he just slotted right in.

  In more ways than one.

  After a kiss that was far too carnal for the vestibule of another pack’s packhouse, we wandered outside, and I waved farewell at Maribel, who was sitting on the veranda with her husband. I didn’t like Leon, but his intentions toward her were good, otherwise I’d have told Sabina, warned her of his true nature.

  Jerk.

  Todd snorted, evidently seeing the distrustful glance I’d shot Leon. “You’ve turned bloodthirsty on me.”

  I grinned up at him. “It’s hard to believe that before I came to this place, I wouldn’t say boo to a goose, isn’t it?”

  His eyes twinkled. “Just a little. But I wouldn’t change you for the world. You know that, don’t you?”

  I sighed, wondering how he knew what the perfect way to shut me up was, and whispered, “Good answer, babe,” as I leaned up on tiptoe and gave him a well-deserved kiss.

  Which, after the ride home, led to a well-deserved blowjob.

  And a well-deserved lay.

  It was a tough job being the Moon Child, but hell, somebody had to do it, didn’t they?

  Sabina

  With my hands at my back, I leaned into them, digging my fingers into the soil, seeking solace, as I watched Knight crawl around the sacred circle.

  Even as I heard the whispers of the pack in my mind, their woes and their happiness, their troubles and their strife, I felt the totem regenerating me, healing the headache the call with my mother had triggered.

  Not liking what I’d heard, not appreciating having my dubious attempts at rationale confirmed, I’d needed the calm of this place to bring myself to a semblance of peace, which was stupid. The totem shouldn’t represent that anymore, not after what had happened barely twenty feet away.

  On top of that, this was Lidai’s home. And she had a plan for us.

  Sure, she had them for all her children, but we were different. My family were over-achievers.

  So my finding peace here was ridiculous, but it didn’t take away from the fact that I did feel more at ease.

  Well, until I thought back to that conversation…

  Father had pimped mother out.

  He’d done it often.

  Just like he’d wanted to do with us when we were old enough to sell into marriage.

  It was the twenty-first century, and he’d wanted to sell us. Kali Sara.

  I pursed my lips, and even though I didn’t like my mother, didn’t respect her or love her, my eyes stung as I thought about how devastating that must have been for her. I wasn’t sure why her own love hadn’t turned to hate, how she’d been so devoted to our father, but was that because love was blind?

  Had to be, didn’t it?

  There was no reason or rhyme as to why she’d been the way she was with him. So, love, crazy, foolish love was the only answer, the only justification, but even that wasn’t enough.

  As I stared blindly ahead, my feet twisting in the dirt of the circle as Knight looked around, a slight movement in my peripheral vision caught my attention.

  Berry.

  I relaxed my guard, but watched her as she wandered forward, tongue lolling out of her mouth as she followed Knight. My lips twitched as, whenever he moved too close to the edge of the circle, she’
d yip at him, then pounce forward, dancing out of the way when he gurgled with laughter, but stayed this side of the barrier.

  Watching them was pretty relaxing, and a very good distraction. My mates weren’t here, off on pack business. That was why Lara and I had decided to call our mother without them being there to discourage me.

  I thought about her silver-penny eyes and her dubiousness as Catharina had made her explanations, justified her actions, but they were thoughts I couldn’t seem to avoid and which I desperately wanted to. So, needing the distraction, and seeing the two of them together, I got to my feet and wandered over to my son.

  After I grabbed Knight, I sat cross-legged at the edge of the circle, then stared at her. She moved as close as she could, sitting down on her haunches, head tipped to the side, like she knew I wanted to talk to her.

  And I did. I had a lot of questions. Today, my brain was abuzz with them. First with my mother, then with Todd, and now with Berry. We’d never managed to pin her down, never managed to figure out exactly why she was here as Berry and not Merinda.

  Maybe today was the day for me to get the answers we, as a family, needed.

  “Daniel said you can’t shift.”

  She dipped her chin.

  I stared at her. “Your sons are very bitter where you’re concerned.”

  “Earned.”

  “I thought you were going to leave us,” I whispered, surprised by the welter of tears that hit me at the prospect. I didn’t want her to go, even if I didn’t understand her or her actions. We’d grown so close since she’d come into my life, and every day, I missed not having her at my side. She was there, in the periphery, but not dancing around my feet like I’d grown used to before Lara had come to the pack.

  “Hated.”

  My brow puckered at that. “You hate me?”

  She growled at that, which had me jerking in surprise, but as I moved back, Knight moved forward, and his hand slipped over the border of the circle and clutched some of Berry’s fur.

  “As if I could hate you, child.”

  The words slipped into my mind as easily as they did when my mates talked to me.