Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

ODETTE

Just when I didn’t think things could get worse, they did. The water finally stopped flowing in. Everything seemed to be at a standstill. I left Amelia on the concrete slab, still in her fox form, and crawled through a hole in the concrete as my fox. Then shifted back into my human form to creep into the water. I was shocked how cold it was but powered through. My fox was not happy with the idea of getting wet. I was trying to figure out a way for me to dig our way up when I must have bumped something loose. I barely saw the live wire before it toppled off the ledge it had been on, hit some broken furniture, and fell.

I leapt up, scrambling to get out of the water. My fox took over automatically and I squirmed back through the concrete hole. I nearly crushed Amelia in my haste, but thankfully didn’t. When there wasn’t a big electric surge, I looked through the hole to see the wire dangling precariously above the flood water. Sparks flew off of it, illuminating the few precarious inches between the live wire and the water that surrounded us. If that wire hit the water, there would be no way out for us. As far as I knew, electricity couldn’t pass through concrete, but it would prevent me from being able to dig ourselves out.

It would also make it harder for anyone trying to dig down to us.

I sat back as far as I could from the water and cradled Amelia to my chest. I crooned to her, trying not to let her know just how utterly terrified I was. There was no way she wouldn’t be picking up on my scent of fear, but I had to try.

Hold on… I’m coming my love…

My head shot up, my spine stiffening. The words in my head came from the deepest, most masculine voice I’d ever heard. Certainly no one in my pack had a voice like that.

I knew mates had the ability to send telepathic thoughts to each other, but I’d always believed they had to be bonded to be able to do it. Yet, unless I was crazy, there was no other voice it could have been but my mate.

I always dreamed of having a mate. My sister and her mate had met so young. It seemed unfair that I’d lived for hundreds of years but my thirty-year-old sister was the one mated with a kit. I wasn’t jealous or bitter. I was envious, certainly, but I loved my sister, my brother-in-law, and my niece.

For shifters, sex was an expression of companionship, of a need to feel close to someone. But it was always described as bleh in comparison to making love with your mate. Unlike humans who remained virgins for religious purposes, I chose to do so because I had no desire to touch or be touched by any male but my mate. It was an odd choice for a shifter, sure, but I wasn’t the only one to have ever done it. Most shifters took advantage of the fact that females weren’t fertile prior to mating and had many sexual partners before they met their mate. For me, though, I didn’t see the point.

If sex truly was bleh and boring in comparison, why do it?

Many shifters claim that you don’t realize how dull it is until you’re mated. Which means that, while you do enjoy sex prior to mating, sex with your mate is so much better. I doubted that my mate would abstain for me. That was perfectly fine. I would not be offended. Depending on his age, he could have waited a long time for me. I was only two hundred and twenty-two years old. My own father was almost a thousand. Forever could be a long time to be alone. I would not judge his choices just because I had made mine.

I’d had a lot of fantasies over the years about my mate. Would he be tall, short, skinny, muscular, hefty…? I wanted a male who would be both a protector and a friend. Someone who didn’t mind the quiet nights on the back porch but would also chase me through the trees under the moonlight. I wanted to be cherished and loved. To feel so connected to him that we could read each other’s thoughts without having to actually read the other’s thoughts.

Not all matings were happy. I’ve seen a few that made me question if I even wanted a mate. Just because our animals chose the other to mate with did not mean our human sides got along. My worst fear—other than being trapped under my father’s collapsed store with my niece during a hurricane—was to end up with a mate who wanted to change me. Who didn’t look at me like I was already worthy.

But the truth of the matter was, if that voice did belong to my mate and I was not going insane, then he was Amelia’s and my only hope to get out of here.

I closed my eyes and thought loudly, Hello? Can you hear me?