1. Voss

1

VOSS

Mate.

It was the first word that rushed my mind as my feet came to a grinding halt in the middle of the fucking woods. My cock stiffened against the zipper of my jeans. My skin crawled with bugs that weren’t there. I felt her hair. Tasted her curves. Her wild brown locks, wafting in the breeze as it tossed its scent in my direction through the air. I knew what she looked like just by how she smelled. I scented each and every trait that my DNA gravitated toward. Those light brown eyes that, when catching the sun just right, looked yellow. Those toned curves that meant strength. That tall, straight back of hers, holding proud and steady with broad hips ripe for bearing children and?—

Dear fucking hell, she was tantalizing.

Just by her scent.

“Alpha? Is something wrong?”

I sniffed the air. Mate.

My hair stood on end. Mate.

One of the kids I had taken hunting pointed his finger due west. “I hear that deer. It’s not far off.”

Holy shit, I finally found her.

A little girl slapped my arm before she rushed by me. “Last one there’s a rotten vamp tongue!”

Where’s my fucking mate?

The wind kicked up and the smell swirled around me. Tantalizing and juicy, like the curves I had always dreamt my mate might have. Forty years. I had spent forty fucking years dredging the lowest parts of the woods and the highest parts of the mountains of Washington trying to find that smell. That musky, heady scent that snapped the whole of my DNA into place.

I wanted to sink my teeth into the underbelly of that smell.

“Come on, Alpha!” one of the kids exclaimed. “We’re on the hunt!”

My shoulders rolled back. Mate. My body hunched. Mate. She was there. In the wilderness. In the woods. Laying her scent to waste around the trees as I sniffed the bark beside me. I patted the tree trunk, thanking it for bringing me such a delectable scent.

I smelled her in the wind, and I wasn’t going home without her.

“Alpha!” one of the kids barked.

I whipped around at the sound. “You have spears and traps! Get on with it!”

The kid threw his arms into the air. “We’re supposed to stay with you! Ronyn’s orders!”

I rolled my eyes. Of course, I’d have to be in charge of a half dozen snot-nosed brats when the most important moment of my fucking life comes along.

“Let’s head this way,” I called out, pointing toward where the scent heads, “I saw a deer?—”

“No, no, no,” a little girl with bouncing blonde curls said as she bounded up to me. “The deer went this way. I saw it, until it disappeared behind that big tree.”

I looked to where she pointed. Which was, of course, in the motherfucking opposite direction of where I wanted to go.

No, where I needed to go.

Mate.

“No!” one of the kids yelped.

“Mikey!” the little girl at my side exclaimed before she took off. “Guys! Mikey just fell out of his tree!”

“Oh, shit!”

I pointed. “Language! Your mother wouldn’t like that!”

The pups groaned and grumbled beneath their breath as they took off toward a tree that Mikey fell out of. I swear to hell on high, no one would know that Little Mikey belonged to one of the most capable shifters to ever be part of the Thunderfall Pack. I hated ushering in the heat of summer with a hunt. It couldn’t even be a hunt for capable shifters to get away from everything to have some fun.

No, that hunt had to be at the beginning of spring, to protect us from the bare bones meat stores the new hunters brought in all fucking season.

No, it had to be teaching time for the pups of the pack. Stumbling, bumbling, incapable little pups.

My father would have never allowed such stumbling.

“Keep your head up, boy. This will be your pack someday. They deserve an Alpha that doesn’t snivel like a child.”

“Dad, no!”

My back sizzled as the whip cracked in my memory. It jolted me out of my trance, and yet another harsh bout of wind kicked up. The scent swirled beneath my nostrils, threatening to tug my balls right up into my fucking throat if I didn’t smother myself in its existence. The memory of the pain immediately dissipated. I had something better in front of me.

Something juicier.

Something happier…

I finally found my fucking mate.

“Alpha! Wait! Where are you going!?”

I took off running as quickly as my legs could carry me. “You heard Ronyn’s orders! No heading back without that deer!”

“But you’re supposed to stay with us!” Mikey cried out.

“I can’t kill the fucking thing for you,” I snarled as I slammed to the ground on all fours, “so whoever bags that meat for dinner gets to shirk dish duty tonight!”

The kids scurried off, making bets on who’d hunt down that deer first as my entire body morphed. I slammed down onto all fours, taking a deep breath through my nostrils as they flared with the scent of peppermint and womanhood. I smelled her saltiness as it floated through the air, teasing me onward. I jumped over a fallen tree, keeping my groupthink open and focused on the kids just in case they got into trouble. I wasn’t going to abandon them. Not by a fucking longshot. But, I also wasn’t letting her get away. I’d drag my mate home by her fucking hair if that’s how this had to pan out.

But now that I knew she was out there, existing without me, I couldn’t let her be alone. Not out here in the deep, dark dankness of these woods.

Nightmares crept around in these woods.

Ronyn’s voice came alive in my head. Want to tell me why you’ve abandoned the kids during their yearly practice hunt?

I skidded to a grinding halt as another swirl of air wrapped around me, damn near holding me hostage. They’re not helpless, I’ve got a clock on them.

You sure about that?

My fur shivered. My back flexed. She was close. So close that everything was coated in her. I stuck my wolf’s face into a patch of flowers and inhaled the luxurious scent. I slid my snout against the cold mud as I ignored my general’s voice.

He’d understand if he knew.

I’m not far off. Now, get back to work. I left you with orders, too, Ronyn, I practically snarled.

If Ronyn responded, I wasn’t sure what the fuck he said, because the second I heard laughter rising from in front of me, my head snapped up. Flower petals ricocheted everywhere as my eyesight sharpened and my footsteps muted themselves. I crept close to the ground, allowing the tall grass of the emerging meadow to cover me. And as a campfire burned in the middle of the open field, I watched as half a dozen people or so danced around it. They tossed bits of food into their mouths and people cheered. A man tilted his head back and poured fresh water down his throat, being careful not to spill a drop. I watched a few kids run around their parents, whacking one another with sticks and tackling one another to the ground. And through all of it, my eyes darted in between the women. Trying to figure out which one was her.

Which one had the scent that called to mine?

I couldn’t figure it out until the crowd parted. Until three or four little ones leapt over the fire, slamming down onto their feet, and soaked up the cheers and whistles that went up from the small crowd around them.

“That was good!” a voice like thunder rang out. “But, can you do this?”

And as everyone in the meadow cheered at the top of their lungs, a woman with wild curly brown hair did a backflip over the open flame, slamming down onto her feet, and shot right back up to receive her applause.

While her yellow eyes sparkled in the setting summer sun.

I found you, mate, I thought to myself as I shifted back into human form, and you’re coming with me.