Chapter 17 - Rowan

Chapter 17

Rowan

Freya was a witch. It explained so much… It was the reason she couldn't shift. It was how she'd managed to captivate Gage, despite his distrust of women, and gain the mark of our pack. It was the reason she could meet an alpha's gaze and resist my alpha command. It was the explanation for how her heat had affected me from afar, even though I'd never met her, and how she'd come to me in my dreams.

And it was the reason my wolf thought she was my mate, despite my pack alpha having already claimed her.

Because she wasn't a wolf. She was a witch. And she'd captured us all in her spell.

Freya's sweet apple pie scent still filled my nostrils as I galloped through the forest and tried to clear my head.

My wolf whimpered. He wanted his mate, and I wouldn't let him have her. But my reasons for holding back were better than ever now that I knew the truth about our newest packmate.

It had been sheer torture for me to watch the three of them moving together like they belonged together. I could tell it wasn't the first time they'd done this together, and from the way they'd talked, it wouldn't be the last. They'd been with her during her first heat and had a level of comfort with her — and with their own two-legged forms — that I could never hope to attain.

Standing there like a fool, I drank in every sight, every sound, every second of it. My wolf went still inside of me, leaving me suffering with a hard-on in human form as I watched my packmates drive Freya to greater and greater heights.

My desire for her had felt like a physical ache, like my chest might tear in two if I didn't act. Her eyes begged me to touch her as she laid back on Heath, spread out for the taking.

And that's when I noticed it. The rune. The type of glowing symbol that only appeared on witches who had bonded with others.

Witches usually bonded with more than one, and their potential mates often felt their pull as strongly as any wolf shifter mates did. I'd heard their bonds were even harder to dissolve than a wolf's claiming bite, which only had to be rejected under the light of a full moon.

It explained everything. Gage never would have taken on a female wolf if she hadn't enthralled him. As I watched Freya writhing in ecstasy, Gage's longing had filled the pack bond.

He must have sensed exactly what was happening from the mate bond. Yet, by the end of it — after Freya had come again and let out a contented, wordless sigh — I'd never once sensed Gage's anger through the pack bond. Instead, I'd felt something like reassurance bleeding over from Gage to us. More proof that he was bewitched.

The thought of reuniting only for our pack to disintegrate around us filled me with absolute dread.

Without intention, I abruptly halted in my tracks, skidding to a stop through the layers of pine needles under paw. My wolf had enough control over our shared form to kick me out, and my bones cracked as I was forced into a form I didn't want to be in. My wolf had apparently tired of my all-too human concerns and decided to put me back into the form responsible for handling human matters.

When I rose to two legs, I growled in annoyance. Somehow, despite the run, I'd shifted back with a hard-on. I blamed Freya's oncoming heat.

As bad as it had been last time, when I'd spent five full days masturbating without satisfaction, I could only imagine what would happen this time. When Freya went into heat, if she called to me… would I be able to resist?

My dick ached for release, and I assumed an all-too-familiar position with one forearm on a tree and the other hand on my cock. As I stroked myself, I imagined Freya calling to me as Heath penetrated her, begging me to lick her the way Flint had.

I should've fallen to my knees between their legs while Heath had her spread for me. In my mind, my lips kissed along her skin, and my tongue licked long strokes against her sensitive nub. Fantasy Freya screamed my name as she came, and only Flint's hands kept her pinned to Heath's chest.

I imagined Heath slipping out of her, spent, and me taking his place… while she still laid on top of him. The fact that he'd been on bottom at all still blew my mind.

In my fantasy, I fucked her on top of our more dominant packmate. And in my imagination, Heath goaded me on, grabbing Freya's wrists and spreading her legs even wider for me.

I came hard, my release splattering the tree trunk, my legs trembling. Bracing myself, I waited for what I knew would come next. But this time I felt satiated. Freya wasn't in heat yet, so my dick didn't rise immediately. I wasn't driven by her relentless need… yet.

I growled in frustration, angry at myself for having been so turned on by a witch. It felt like a betrayal to my wolf family.

She claimed her magic was locked away, and I couldn't deny that seemed to be the case. A witch with magic could have lit her own fire and defended herself against rogue alphas. Conjured up her own clothes, for all I knew. She'd been as helpless as a regular human without me.

I'd sensed no duplicity from her when she said she knew nothing of magic. No quickening in her pulse nor changes in her pupils. No sign at all that she was lying.

Perhaps she simply believed the words leaving her lips. Because she had used magic before, hadn't she? How else had she found me in my dreams?

In the post-orgasm calm, I felt more in control. I also sensed that my wolf would take over again if I let him, so I slipped gratefully into my wolf form. The beast took over, unsurprisingly loping back toward the campsite in search of his mate.

The human side of me decided not to fight it. After all, if my packmates were bewitched, I owed it to them to help them.

With the way Flint and Heath had talked, as though what they were doing with Freya was perfectly normal, I felt even more on the outs with my pack than ever. As a true lone wolf, I barely knew how to be part of a shifter pack. I made stupid mistakes in my human form because I had minimal experience interacting with others that way after living so long among wolves. Being in my human form made me feel weak and irritable.

I needed to talk to Heath and Flint alone. In wolf form, where Freya couldn't spy on us or influence them. The earnest way she'd faced my accusations, the hope and despair in her eyes… it had made me long to comfort her. Which only annoyed me further.

I huffed out a frustrated breath — even now, alone, I couldn't get her out of my mind. I still craved her the way a fish craved water. If anything, it had gotten worse since we kissed, like her spell had tightened around me. She was clearly more witch than wolf, magic or no magic, and the thought of a witch's mark on my body filled me with revulsion.

By the time I returned to the campsite, my packmates had found the simple sled I'd cobbled together to drag supplies back to the campsite in my wolf form. What few items were worth taking were piled atop it, along with our sling bags.

Heath was bustling around in his human form, kicking dirt over the remains of the fire as quietly as possible to avoid disturbing Freya, who was asleep again on the blanket beside it. The flying dust clung to her face in places, which I uncomfortably realized might be tear tracks. My wolf snarled at the sight, knowing I was the cause. But I refused to feel guilty about it.

Flint was in his wolf form, the moonmark prominent on his forehead. He was the first to notice my presence.

"I was about to come looking for you," he said inside my mind.

"Ready to leave?"

"Good, you're back just in time," Heath said, turning toward me. His expression revealed no doubt or distress, though his eyebrows were drawn down a little. Heath had always been able to hide his emotions.

He gestured Flint toward the sled, where he shouldered into the crude harness. Flint's wolf was only slightly smaller than mine, and it fit him well enough.

Then Heath turned back toward me. "You're on guard duty til we make it back to the truck. Understood?"

I dipped my head in acknowledgment, even though I hated everything about this plan, watching as he stooped to pick up Freya while making sure the blanket was wrapped around her. How had they grown so attached to a witch while I was away on that mission?

Flint took off, pulling the sled behind him. Meanwhile, Heath carried a sleeping Freya in his arms through the forest. The fact that she was still so sleep-deprived that she didn't awaken when Heath picked her up worried my wolf. He wanted his mate to be healthy.

Not my mate, I growled at him.

Despite my misgivings, I provided cover in my wolf form, my snout up to sniff out any rogue wolves that Freya's blossoming scent might draw in.

"You okay?" Flint asked through our pack bond.

With Freya asleep and Heath in human form, my conversation with Flint would be completely private.

"Everything's confusing," I admitted.

"That's understandable," Flint chuffed out a laugh, as though there were nothing really to be concerned about.

"She's half witch," I snarled across the pack bond.

"She is, but her magic has been locked away. She knows even less about being a witch than she knows about being a wolf."

With Heath carrying Freya and Flint carrying some weight on the sled, and both forced to carefully pick their way around boulders and briars alike, the going was slow. I tried not to get impatient.

"How am I supposed to believe she doesn't have you under a spell?" I asked before I thought better of it. I wouldn't be able to believe his answer, no matter how much I wanted to.

"What does your wolf spirit say?" Flint countered my question with one of his own.

"How do I know she hasn't bewitched my wolf as well?" I grumbled. "Perhaps through the pack bond, by corrupting Gage."

Flint snarled, surprising me with his sudden change of mood. "Does she seem anything at all like the witches who killed your wolf pack?"

"I hardly know her well enough to say."

The small wolf pack had taken me in after shifters cast me out. I'd given my fellow forest dwellers my full loyalty, knowing they would never betray me like shifters could. Things had been so much simpler among the wolves.

I'd hunted down the coven who'd killed them all and left me scarred for life. I'd learned they thought the wolves were actual shifters on witch territory. Knowing they believed themselves justified didn't satisfy my sense of vengeance. Only their blood had done that. I'd killed them all, but retribution hadn't brought back my family.

I didn't trust witches, and Gage knew that.

"Why didn't Gage warn me about Freya?"

Flint gave the wolfish equivalent of a shrug inside my mind, as if to say, "Don't ask me to predict Gage's behavior."

"But how can Gage accept it?" I asked. "If he's not bewitched… then…"

"I believe all our wolf spirits already know that Freya will choose all of us. They sense it, even if it takes time for our human sides to catch up."

He let that sink in for a moment. When I didn't respond, he continued on.

"Gage is happy we're with her when he can't be. He wants her to be happy, and he knows we make her happy. Doesn't your wolf feel the same?"

He had a point. My wolf hadn't been upset in the slightest at what they'd been doing with his mate. In fact, he felt… content.

"He does." The acknowledgment bubbled up before I'd even consciously come to that conclusion. "He thinks it's good to have one of us with her at all times to protect her."

"Exactly. Freya has plenty of enemies, and now, so do the rest of us."

"The pack shares everything," I echoed what Heath had jokingly said about sharing Freya's heat as a pack.

With Heath, I'd learned that his way of dealing with things he found absurd was to joke around until he came to terms with it. It had taken me years to understand this about him.

It made sense that he found this situation absurd. Four alphas sharing one mate? I'd never heard of such a thing — not that I was any expert on shifter packs. I'd spent most of my adult life among actual wolves, not shifters.

"She's chosen all of us," Flint affirmed.

"She doesn't even know me."

"But she's dreamed of you."

"And I of her," I admitted.

"Dreams are powerful, Rowan."

I knew Flint thought that. He'd told me about his dreams often enough that I knew he gave them more weight than most. My blood carried some small traces of native ancestry, too, but unlike Flint, I knew little about the old ways. To me, dreams seemed too fickle and ephemeral to mean much.

Yet, I couldn't deny that Freya had reached me in my dreams during her heat somehow.

"Maybe those dreams all came from her, though."

"You know she'd need some sort of magic talisman for that."

Now that he'd reminded me, I knew he was right. I'd learned more than I needed to about their kind after what happened.

From what I understood, casting their magic required active control. They used objects of some kind to continue channeling their power while they were asleep or otherwise occupied. Freya barely had clothes when I rescued her, let alone magical tools. So, even if she could bewitch us while she was awake, nothing explained the way I felt for her now, while she slept. Or any of the other times I'd curled up beside her at night to keep her warm.

The thought that maybe she didn't have us all bewitched was almost more terrifying to contemplate. What would Gage think of the way I'd treated his claimed mate?

"I scare her, Flint."

"She's not afraid of you, trust me. Freya is one of the bravest wolves I know. Maybe your wolf startled her. Maybe she's not used to seeing that kind of ferocity, or watching her mates fight. But—"

"Fine," I growled, growing tired of Flint's assault of assurances. He was unendingly optimistic and would surely wear me down even more if I let him. "I get it. I need to think."

"I'm sure of that." Flint's chuckle echoed inside my mind. "But trust me, it will all work out in the end if you let it."

Eventually, we reached an extended cab truck, and Flint shifted into his other form. He opened up the rear two doors, sliding in to help Heath position a sleeping Freya in the backseat. She groaned in her sleep, but then rested her head on Flint's lap and seemed to fall into a deeper slumber.

I headed for the back of the truck, intending to remain in wolf form and ride back there. Heath clearly had other ideas, though.

"Help me load up all this stuff," he said, already starting to transfer the useful items I'd pilfered from the rogues' campsite into the truck bed. Even though he hadn't used his alpha command — which I could resist, anyway — I still felt compelled to help.

"The two of you should take turns in wolf form in the truck bed," I said as soon as I shifted. "You need to heal."

"As soon as Freya wakes, we'll consider it," Heath said.

We worked in silence for a few moments. There wasn't much to load, and there was still plenty of room in the back for me.

"Come sit up front, Rowan," he called.

Since I didn't drive, riding up front meant in human form beside Heath. For some reason, it felt good to be invited to join them, even if it did mean sitting in my uncomfortable two-legged form for hours.

As Heath put the truck in gear and we started off, the junk in the back bounced and rattled over the rough terrain. The noise was grating, but bringing it all was a wise decision, in case we ended up stuck in the wildlands longer than we'd like.

For something so wild and expansive, the wildlands had a way of making you feel small and caged in on all sides, trapped and unable to escape its unpredictable whims. Much like how I felt, trapped in my human form in the cab, surrounded by my packmates, who might or might not be bewitched.