Chapter 4: Gavin

Chapter 4: Gavin

Sounds of crackling fire infused the otherwise silent campsite. Shredded fabric tinged with blood was caught in the grass and bushes, and metal rods and a slickened knife glinted on the ground. Orange glow flickered against the trees and cast a long shadow beneath my feet, where above, I crouched with my head in the cooler, crunching through the plastic packaging of the campers’ food. The blood mostly smelled like my own; I remembered clamping down on a sleeve, only to be stabbed in the gums and sliced on the shoulder with the knife. I’d let the campers flee after the pain gave me a flash of clarity, but the instant they were gone and the smell of cooking meat took my attention, hunger enveloped me. I couldn’t stop myself. I ate everything I could see.

The sting of my bloodied gums only flared up after the carnage. Plastic was not easy on the teeth. If I’d been thinking rationally, I wouldn’t have reduced myself to devouring the campers’ food like a mutt with its snout in the trash. I was embarrassed to pull my head out of the cooler and realize the damage I’d caused. I couldn’t see much of the campsite by then. My vision was blurry and dark, my mouth tasted of blood. Rational thought felt just out of reach and I was too dizzy to grasp it. Nothing made sense until a light materialized out of the darkness ahead of me and I was transfixed, hoping that following it would wake me from my haze.

Stepping slowly into the shadows, I watched the light transform, pieces of moonlight concentrating into long legs and a slender body, gleaming and wispy fur flowing into the dark. Deep inside, I knew who this was, her eyes white as the moon itself; the Moon Goddess appeared before me, shepherding me from my destruction and back into the night. I prayed that she would snap me back into consciousness, but as my mind sleepily wandered, my body continued to move without my command. I was helpless, the same way I always was in my wolf. Helpless to lash out, helpless to eat, helpless to follow… until I realized where the Moon Goddess was leading me. Moonlight illuminated the clearing where a heap of fur was tangled in the bushes. Pale brown and liquid gold coloured her agouti pelt in markings I’d never seen before. Gentle whining tugged me closer, hinting to me that she was hurt, and I didn’t know if what I felt for the injured creature was hunger or compassion. I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel until I got close enough to breathe in her soothing lavender smell and glimpse her woeful green eyes, latching onto me like she saw who I really was.

I knew who she was. And I knew what this meant.

Grunting, I startled awake with my head still in the cooler. I scrambled to my paws and backpedaled, disoriented from the dream—I must have gone unconscious after chewing through everything in the cooler. It was a miracle the campers hadn’t returned. Night still closed around the campsite, but my vision had returned crystal clear, my thoughts now articulated with human awareness. The aftermath of what I’d done lay scattered around me, and the sight of it was as harsh as the revelation I’d just emerged from. That was the Moon Goddess leading me through my Moondream, at long last showing me who my fated mate was. She was out here in these woods, lost and injured, with pain in her feet that I could feel too. But I didn’t want to go to her.

What I had done here was despicable. It made me hate myself, and knowing I was bound to someone who knew me for my savagery and cruelty only made the hate worse. The Moon Goddess had done this to punish me.

Although my instincts screamed to return to Hexen Manor, I went in the opposite direction. I left my fated mate in the woods, half hoping she would die out there, and ran all the way back to the borders of Grandbay territory. Where the conifers became birch and aspen, and the river curled protectively around the little town I called my own, I knew I could be safe from my destiny, at least for a little while. I arrived in the yard of the pack house my grandparents had built in the seventies with its grey paint peeling off the siding and wood trim rotting away. The light in the kitchen window was on. That was Aislin, the daughter of Grandbay’s Betas and my childhood friend, likely waiting for me to get back. After shifting to my human form and pulling on the sweats and t-shirt I’d left hanging on the clothesline, I went inside and didn’t speak. I avoided Aislin’s probing brown eyes. She must have sensed the mood I was in, because she didn’t ask, and I didn’t want to tell.

The Moondream was at the forefront of my mind when I woke the next morning. The stinging cuts in my mouth and the gash on my shoulder paled in comparison to my lingering frustration, but sleep had granted me the lucidity of realizing I needed to confront my destiny sooner rather than later.  Based on the text Catrina sent me, Catrina and David had already found out, ‘You need to come down to the manor ASAP.’

I already knew how this was going to end. Any chance of controlling my wolf was gone with the declaration of my fated mate, who I couldn’t accept under any circumstances, even if I wanted to. I had to get this over with.

Aislin sat at the kitchen table with a plate of bacon and eggs she had cooked for herself. The smell made my stomach rumble, but last night’s shit show had ruined my appetite. “Where are you going? You’ve barely been home the past couple of days,” she said, brushing red hair behind her ear as she shoveled food into her mouth.

I hovered at the back door. “Be back soon. Just gotta deal with something over at the Hexens.”

“Please tell me this is about the wolf that terrorized those campers last night.”

“What?” My stomach sank.

Aislin snickered. “Heard it on the park ranger channel last night.” Sometimes we listened to the radio to know what was going on in the forest when we weren’t out there. The campers must have called for help. Some of our own wolves worked among the rangers, so if Aislin didn’t know it was me yet, she would soon.

I only shook my head and left out the door, knowing I was better off not saying anything, especially about my fated mate. Aislin probably would have tried to change my mind, anyway.

My body was too sore from the hunt and all the shifting I did yesterday so I took my car instead. My dark grey sedan was covered in muck since I hadn’t run it through the car wash yet; it always slipped my mind, I had other things to worry about. The drive was ten minutes, and in those ten minutes, my mind raced thinking about the pressures David was going to put on me after last night. I didn’t want to face him. As bad as it was, I just wanted to shut Dalesbloom out of my life and focus on my home and my pack, as if all my problems came from David and Catrina. I wanted to run away from them.

What kind of Alpha was I? Running from my problems, abandoning them in the forest. I parked in front of Hexen Manor and festered in self-loathing for a minute before stepping into the humid morning light.

The front door opened to Catrina, beckoning me inside. Her taut mouth suggested she blamed me for something, but I didn’t think she’d be angry about the campers incident. Before passing the threshold into the manor, I stood beside her and met her eyes. Her cold blue stare was like needles sliding into my brain.

“Mr. Steele,” David greeted loudly, his voice booming in forebodingly good nature from the parlor. He stood behind a sophisticated mint-green sofa with silver wood trim that faced the wall, his hands on the back of it, smiling my way. Colt with a bandage over the bridge of his nose stood a few paces away from the sofa, and sitting on the sofa with her head demurely bowed and shoulders hunched, there was the Jesper girl.

Fire burst to life in my chest. Crackling fire like from the campsite last night. Wicked and unruly fire I couldn’t control. This had to be taken care of now, no pussy-footing around the truth. I ripped away from Catrina and trudged into the parlor, magnetized by conflicting forces to the runt on the sofa, to the stink of her blood under that lavender musk on her skin. It would damage my relationship with Catrina if I showed hesitation now. I couldn’t imply that I might accept the Moon Goddess’ choice of my fated mate. Catrina would kill any threat that stood between her and her goals of taking over Grandbay. So for my fated mate’s sake and my own, I had to sever the bond between us before it even had a chance to develop.

I stared down at Jesper with my jaw tense. “You told them?”

Just the sound of my voice made her flinch. She nodded, avoiding my eyes.

“Don’t think I had any choice in this,” I snarled. “You’re nothing. You don’t even exist to me!”

Each word made her shrink a little more. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

She didn’t have a choice either. I knew that. “It might have been you I saw in the Moondream last night, but that doesn’t mean there is anything between us. You’re weak, cowardly, and feeble. You don’t even know how to hunt. I need someone who can be a leader, but you have no place alongside an Alpha. So far, you’ve been nothing more than a liability.” The venom stung as it poured out of my mouth, but I couldn’t stop myself; like everything else about me, it felt out of my control. My wolf was raging with anger at me, anger at her, anger at everyone and everything until I erupted. “You think I would waste my time on you? A wolfless speck of dirt who can’t even look someone in the eye? You’re better off running back into the woods where you came from and praying that when something else finds you, it kills you quickly because if it doesn’t, I will!”

“Don’t be such a dick, Gavin,” Colt interrupted.

I slammed my eyes onto Colt and grabbed a fistful of his collar. “I’ll say what I need to say so it gets through her fragile little skull.” Then I pushed him away and stared down at Jesper, my gaze searing hot, boring into her narrow shoulders that shook with despair. “You are not my mate and you never will be. I’m rejecting you, Billie Jesper. Stay out of my way or I’ll make you regret ever having that fucking Moondream.”

Not once did she ever look up at me. I hated that almost as much as I hated how she’d looked at me. All the runt could muster was a frantic nod of her head, her hands balled up on her knees and tiny hiccups betraying that I’d made her cry. I didn’t care. I didn’t care!

I cared a little.

“Get out of my sight,” I growled.

She promptly stood up and I didn’t realize how close I was standing to her until she had to shoulder past me to escape. Her arm brushed against mine and my muscles twitched with the urge to grab her, but not to hurt her—right then, what I wanted was to drag her out of Hexen Manor and take her away from the anger I’d conjured in front of the Hexens. I didn’t know what I would have said to her, or what I even would have done; I just knew, watching her run away, that that wasn’t how I wanted meeting my fated mate to end.

I just… had no choice.

Colt caught my eye with an indignant scowl before jogging after Jesper. I flashed my teeth and whipped toward the door, deciding that my business here was done.

“Gavin,” barked David, “I’m not finished with you.”

My anger was molten all through my body. I leered at David and Catrina standing beside him, looking satisfied that I’d rejected Jesper.

“You told me last night you’d be hunting for Grandbay. I don’t suppose you went home with fresh kill, did you?” David said coolly.

I didn’t want to deal with this. I wanted to run away. But I was trapped here in Hexen Manor with all my rage and uncontrollable violence like I would be without my fated mate for the rest of my life. There was nothing else I could do, so I just glared.

David sneered. “Sit down.”