Chapter 9

Seren

The night air was so warm that it made the autumn winds feel like they were still just a dream. She knew that as soon as September rolled into Wyoming, it usually brought early morning frost and cold nights with it. It was a rare Halloween that anyone was able to go out in a costume without a coat stuffed underneath and boots incorporated.

Seren stood with a group of women she'd been introduced to that afternoon. The excitement in the air was palpable. She was great with names, but there were so many people there that she couldn't remember them all. Some preferred not to give their names and to remain near the back. She got that. A pack was a secret, private place. Even though she'd gotten a bit of a history lesson on the Nightfall Pack from Briar May and Prairie Rose that afternoon while they supervised a massive group of children, Waverly right in the thick of them and having the time of her life, she couldn't begin to fathom what life was like here.

She now knew that Rome's father had been alpha for nearly forty years. In that time, he'd done his best to bring the feuding packs in the area to a tentative peace. He'd grown their lands and built on the wealth already passed down to him, but peace was most important. They were able to flourish because they kept their borders protected and their private lives private. She couldn't believe it when Zora had told her that as an outsider until she mated Kieran, she didn't even know there were children in the pack who didn't belong to the alpha and his mate. That's how secretive the pack was.

It made Seren feel doubly honored that she'd been asked to participate in the run.

It also made her extremely nervous that she'd mess things up or commit some wolf faux pas that she didn't know existed. She didn't want to shame herself and she didn't want to shame Rome.

She tried not to think about him as the women all around her started taking off their clothes. She flushed at the brazen, unembarrassed way they stripped down. The males and the females started in one area, and then join each other in a common part of the woods for the run. They'd branch back off hours later.

Prairie Rose, Zora, and Briar May made absolutely certain that she knew what to expect. They'd prepared her all afternoon. Unlike their brother, they were kindness itself. Rome's mother was super sweet as well. Every single person adored Waverly. All her aunts and uncles, and there were so many that it made Seren's head spin. The children of the pack, who were raised solely on pack lands and went to the community school there, made Waverly feel like she was one of them. Many hadn't shifted for the first time yet either. They ranged in age from babies to kids in their late teens.

Kieran and Zora's twins especially seemed enthralled by Waverly. Maybe it was because they'd been raised in the city until they were ten and hadn't even met their dad. That too was pretty hard for Seren to believe. Zora didn't hold back. She was very open about her and Kieran's relationship. Briar May and Prairie Rose hadn't talked at length about their mates, but Seren had met them briefly. They were fearsome looking men. They were probably even scarier as wolves.

Seren stripped off her shirt and pants and left them in a pile. She stood in her underwear, fighting the urge to cover herself, and looked up at the sky.

She'd been on runs with her parents. There were more than a few secluded areas outside the city, but she'd never truly seen the night sky like this. Dark purple-blue with billions of stars. She'd never been interested in astronomy and she knew very few constellations, but if she lived out in a place like this, she wouldn't have been able to help herself. She would have belonged to the sky, enchanted by the power it held, the way it changed with the seasons.

The way it changed nightly.

"Seren."

She cranked around to Briar May, who stood just behind her.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

"Yes. I'm… fine."

"Okay. It can be intimidating, I'm sure. You've never been with so many wolves before. You can stay beside me if you want. No one will hurt you, so you don't have to be cautious or wary or anything, but if you feel more comfortable with someone familiar, feel free to run with me."

"Thank you."

"You won't have to worry about getting lost. This is a pack activity. There will be wolves everywhere. If you need anything, just let someone know."

"I'm not even sure how to do that."

"Don't worry. They'll know. Wolves understand each other."

"Yes. I've only ever run with my parents, but that's true."

Briar May put her hand on Seren's shoulder. "Is there anything else?"

Around them, women dropped to the ground and started to shift. It was the craziest thing to watch. Seren blinked several times, half feeling like she was in a dream. Most of the wolves were stark white, a few were gray or brown tinged. None were black.

"What color is Rome?" She immediately regretted whispering that out loud, but Briar May only gave her a soft look of understanding. No one knew that she wasn't really with

Rome. She felt like a liar, like an intruder.

"He's a black wolf. He never did look like any of us. I mean, he does in his features. Just not his coloring." She sighed and put her hand over her heart. "I wish he was here. Every single day I wish he hadn't had to leave. We all miss him so much. You know how you get used to someone being that wretched older brother who is endlessly annoying, always playing jokes on you or poking fun at you, but when they're not there, you miss them so much because you realize that being awful was really their love language?"

It was framed as a question, but Seren didn't have an answer. She didn't feel like she should really be here with this pack. A run was sacred, and they were a secretive community. For them to open their doors to her meant they accepted her and Waverly as a part of them. She'd never felt more like a fraud.

She didn't feel that she could say no. She'd truly wanted to see this and experience it, as all shifters should. Since her parents were packless, she was packless. There was almost zero chance that she'd ever be accepted into any other pack, and so she'd never tried. She'd never considered finding a mate in order to have them share their home and family and pack with her. This was another world. She was struggling in more ways than just fitting in physically. Mentally and spiritually, it was also hard.

All afternoon since she and Waverly were picked up from Brooke's cottage, she'd thought about Rome. She'd wished a thousand times or more that he could be here on the run with them. She knew that even when she shifted and tried to give herself over to the wolf to enjoy the once in a lifetime experience, she'd be thinking of Rome. Wishing, even as the wolf, that he was with her or that she could catch sight of him in all his animal freedom and glory.

He was a bastard. He was such a fucking bastard.

Being in that bed, broken and banished, was half his fault and probably half his karma, as far as putting bad energy into the world.

And still. She couldn't stop feeling. She wanted to kick Rome in the balls and smack his smug face, make him eat his contract, and at the same time, she wanted to help him out of that bed, wrap her arms around him, fix his broken spirit, and bring him back here to his family. He needed them. All wolves needed someone. Everyone needed family. Everyone needed love.

It wasn't her job to give it to him.

But she wanted it for him all the same.

Clearly, she needed to get a referral to a brain doctor because her head was not in the right place. Her heart was definitely not the right place. The rest of her body? Yeah, that was so wrong it bordered on hilarious.

"Seren?"

Briar May said her name again, bringing her back to the densely forested woods. The night was silent, no wolf calls yet. No bird calls or even many insects croaking. It was like the whole area stopped and stared in wonder, or fear, at what was happening around them.

"Sorry. I'm okay."

"He'll be alright. You both will." Briar May's hopeful, radiant smile broke her clean in half.

"Yeah. I'm ready now. I think."

She stripped off the rest of her clothes as Briar May did hers and then she got down on all fours. She focused on the wave of energy that washed over her. It always felt to her like a tidal wave that was all bright energy. It prickled and burned, but when it passed, she was another being entirely.

New body. New eyes, ears, heart, lungs, brain, new feelings and instincts entirely.

She was wolf.

The night was alive in brand new ways too, transformed. She saw, heard, smelled, and felt as a wolf would. Her wolf senses were much sharper.

A white blur streaked by her, the long, thick fur brushing against her shaggier soft brown pelt. Briar May leapt ahead, turning with soft yellow eyes glowing in the night for her to catch up. Her scent was strong, animal and musky.

Seren raced after her, running until her breath was steaming in great hot puffs, even warmer than the humid summer night. She'd never known such clean, fresh air. Scented like trees and earth, like the bodies of so many other wolves. She caught sight of them flashing beside her, behind her, up ahead. And then, the first long, mournful, soulful cry.

It tore at her insides, tore at her heart. Tore at the emptiness that was always going to be a part of her, human or wolf, at never carrying a child. That long, wounded sounding cry wrenched the wounded parts of her own interior. She didn't think about Rome as a person when she was the wolf. It was different. She felt a sense of loss and emptiness in the space around her. In the night. In the black fur that would never materialize. She ached at her own cruelty to him. She wanted to take it all back, including the way he'd turned her body into a liquid inferno. She felt the heat as the wolf, but she felt emptiness too. A wolf without a wolf. A female without a mate.

She needed to go back to the city. Her wolf knew that better than the human parts of herself. She wasn't disoriented, but she was on the highest alert. She'd be gone by morning. She needed to be, in order to keep herself safe. She wouldn't run. Wolves didn't run. Distance wasn't running. Sometimes, it was vital, or the only thing that could ensure survival.

Another cry joined in that mournful sound.

She was somewhere in the middle of a vast forest, on lands that would never be hers, running with a pack she'd never know past today. This wasn't her home. This wasn't her land. This wasn't hers. Rome was never going to belong to anyone but himself. She was forever destined to be that half of an uncompleted whole.

She needed to separate herself before she broke herself.

Seren sat back on her haunches and raised her head to the bright full moon, feeling the pull of its wild, primitive, powerful energy deep inside her. She opened her throat and, for the first time in years, she let her own howl join in the mournfully sweet poetic cries around her.