1. A Dream of Two

Chapter 1

A Dream of Two

NIKA

"Nika!"

My name was whispered on the wind as I stood at what appeared to be a crossroads.

No. That wasn't right. I stood on a tiny piece of land surrounded by water. There were two land bridges that ran toward paths on either side. One led into the forest of my pack's lands.

Home.

The second trail wound through the grasslands on the opposite side, toward a strange forest I had never seen before.

"Nika!" A different voice this time. The previous one had been self-assured and possessed an ache to it that I could taste in the words. This voice whined with desperation, and maybe a hint of apology in the notes. It was odd that I could taste a word – the flavor of a name. There was no one on either side of the island. The voices seemed to call from each forest. I had a choice to make, but I couldn't for the life of me understand why.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

My hand flew up to swat away what I thought was a fly, but the disturbance caused a ripple in the vision before me.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

No! Not yet. I haven't chosen!

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

It was too late. Everything drifted away, leaving me with an unfulfilled, sinking sensation that was historically followed by receiving bad news in my waking life. My alarm trilled out the annoying buzz sound once more, and finally awake enough, I reached over and smacked it and quickly threw my legs over the bed and sat up far too fast.

I waited out the dizzy sensation before huffing into the too-chilly morning air of my dorm room. My roommate had left her window open again; despite the cold front I told her would be coming through last night. Did she listen? No. Would she care that she froze me out? Also no. Guess where my roommate hadn't slept last night? That's right, in our freezing ass dorm room.

It was still winter. We would be heading home next week. She was off to big things in Boulder, Colorado. I would quietly head home to my pack with the degree I had earned. Since I had finished two-years-worth of college courses while still in high school, and added a heavier load in college, I graduated early. There would be a smaller ceremony for the few of us graduating in the winter semester. We were told that we could also walk for the large, full graduation ceremony with everyone else in the spring, but I didn't plan to do either. There was no point, since I had no one to watch me earn that achievement.

My last assignment had been turned in three days ago and all my exams were finished. Technically, I could have already gone home, but my impending birthday was the reason I stuck around. The big two-oh. That meant exactly two things. I was no longer a teenager in the human world. And likewise, there was a milestone for the shifter community as well. No longer would I be a novice wolf after my birthday. My final transition would happen much like my graduation from university – with no one else to witness it and no fanfare to speak of.

The last time I wore unsettled feelings draped around my insides like a cloak of impending despair, I lost the only people who would have cared about any of my milestones, graduation from university, turning twenty, and becoming a full-grown wolf. I closed my eyes and whispered the prayer for lost souls.

"May your soul be reborn, that you should walk this land again, your mate by your side, and fate in your hands."

That evening, with my bags packed into my Jeep, I headed to the national forest area that had been the place where my wolf was allowed to run free when I felt too cagey to keep her in any longer. I parked my car in its usual spot, near a trail head, and then moved further into the forest on my human feet. It was imperative for me to move as far off trail as I could before giving into my shift.

My first shift, when I was thirteen, had been just as awful as the elders of our pack had warned it would be. Back then, I felt every bone crack, reform, and push into a new place. Everything felt different after years of shifting. The itchy tug of course fur sprouting through skin, that moments before hadn't been equipped to hold more than the dainty dusting of hair normal to humans, was unnerving but bearable in comparison. Hands quickly disappeared, reshaping into paws. My face shifted to accommodate my snout, senses sharpened, and eventually I was all wolf. The only exception was my mind. That was the one place where the human and the wolf were left to a fight of dominance.

We were one and the same with two distinctly different thought processes. My wolf side thought more in pictures while using instinct to guide her. My human half thought through words and logic. During the first shift, we battled for control, and that too had come with its own form of pain – the mental version of bones breaking and reforming.

We still wrestled for control sometimes, though we had come to terms with our respective positions over the years. According to the elders, when a shifter wolf turned twenty, the melding of minds took place and became a true and permanent change within us. After my next shift, there would be no more battles of will between my wolf and human sides. Instead, we would act as one being, able to call up the abilities of either side of our nature as needed.

There were some wolves who never truly melded with their humans. They would always be the lowest members of the pack because they were the hardest to deal with and the weakest link due to their indecisiveness. Since there was always an internal battle with them over what to do, the lower ranks were usually cantankerous shifters to deal with. This was the reason I opted to stay at school a little longer and have my shift in private.

After the dreams I'd been having lately, where I was being pulled in two different directions, I thought maybe it was foreboding that I would not handle melding with my wolf well. The only question then was if I would become one of the tainted or a wild one. The tainted favored their human side while the wild ones shifted to paws and never really reverted.

I shook off thoughts of my first shift and the anxiety that had weighed me down all week. "Are you ready for this?" I asked aloud, even though my wolf side knew I was speaking to her. The itchy, tightness of my skin as I disrobed let me know that my shift would happen momentarily, whether I was ready or not. Up until this day, my shifts had always been ruled by the moon. After, if everything went well, shifting would become something we could do at will and with ease.

"Here's hoping," I mumbled as I crossed my fingers in the human version of a good luck charm. Then, without a moment to spare between one thought and the next, I stood on four paws and stared out at the forest through my wolf's eyes. A sniff of the air later and the picture of a rabbit appeared in my mind, instinct told us to follow the trail, so we did.

Little snack was fast, darting through underbrush, sliding under fungi-covered fallen trees, and skittering to-and-fro to avoid capture. We were amused by the chase and hungry for little snack. Too hungry. It had been nearly a month since we ran and hunted. For a moment, the chase was lost as wolf and human souls snapped at one another, then the moon's light filtered through the trees and bathed us in all her glory. The inner battle was lost to peace as both sides agreed they had missed the hunt and would no longer deny long, playful runs through the forest.

Little snack darted out, confused by the pause in the chase, and our paw smacked down across its back. Just as we got ready to chomp down and shake little snack to break its neck, a voice called out to us.

"Beautiful wolf," her honey-sweet voice held us in her thrall. Little snack wiggled beneath our paws as we looked around for the owner of the voice. "Look up," she whispered.

When our snout rose into the air and eyes connected with the moon, we could have sworn it twinkled. "You will face a cruel reality in the many moons to come, little one. Let your heart guide you on the right path. You are meant to be a ruler, my little wolf queen. What kind of ruler will be determined by the choice you make. One path will damn you, sicken your wolf, and the people who follow you. The other will guide you to become the ruler you were always meant to be, at the side of a mate who is truly worthy. Neither will seem like a good option when first presented."

My will to speak caused the shift to roll over my body and give me feet where once there were paws. As the tingles swept over my body and everything settled into our other form, I stood tall and held the rabbit under my foot as I addressed the moon who spoke to us.

"I don't understand. If they're both poor choices, how will I know which is the right one?" I called to the moon. She had never spoken to me before. There were different wolves out there, some like the pack I hailed from, who believed that the moon, our symbol for the Sky Goddess- Selene, was our guide. Through her, everything was fated and would be revealed in time. There were others who were elementals and had powers beyond the moon-blessed abilities our pack was given. They were able to control some form of elemental magic or other.

Moon-blessed wolves weren't necessarily in touch with the moon herself though. No, the big orb in the sky wasn't the goddess, just a symbol of her power, and yet… I stood under the full moon speaking to her just the same.

"What choice will I have to make?"

"You already had the dreams. There will be two paths to choose from. Your past and your future. They might be one in the same, or you may choose differently. I cannot offer you guidance, as the choice must remain yours. Now, little wolf queen in the making, there are hunters about. You need to finish your little snack and run back to safety. Remember to follow your heart, dear one. It won't lead you astray."

After shifting back to paws and sating our belly with the fresh bunny kill, we ran. My logic overruled the innate desire for the wolf to run free through the forest with no boundaries. The moon had warned of hunters in the area after all. It was safer to stick to the places we had already scouted. As we ran, images began to trickle in of the man who had become my pack's Alpha in the past year.

There was a flash of him smiling at us during a pack gathering, then another of his own musky scent mixed with a hint of pine from the forest. He reminded us of running free and giving into the wild spirit of the wolf. Interspersed were flashes of another powerful male wolf, one we had never met. The final flash was of my new Alpha. He was waiting on a throne, one I recognized from his family's dwelling.

Instinct kicked in, and before I realized where we were headed, I stood over the clothes that had been discarded just before the shift took us. There was one pervading thought riding my mind as I shifted back to my human form. We must get back to our pack and claim our mate.

It only occurred to me after I shifted again, and was halfway finished dressing, that I hadn't even felt the shift. It had been seamless from one moment to the next. No need to coax the wolf side to give our human body back. There was no pain, no popping and reshaping of bones. We were one.

"We have a mate," I whispered into the wind while making my way back to the Jeep that had been left at the trailhead a hundred yards down the old forest service road. When I got back to it, there was still no one around, so I hopped in, and started driving as if my very life depended on it. I had a mate, and it was time to go claim him and be claimed by him in return. Giddy excitement rode with me the whole way back to the pack lands, even as a little seed of doubt creeped in at the thought of the other, unknown wolf who I had seen in the visions.