Chapter 9 - Rowan

Chapter 9

Rowan

Walking in my two-legged human form through the forest felt wrong when I could be in wolf form, which was much more suited to the environment. As a wolf, I could better protect Freya, and stay in touch in case our packmates reached out.

But I needed hands to build her a fire. It might give away our position, but I would handle any threats that arose because of it. She would need the warmth if she hoped to survive the cold Montana night.

Then I would gratefully shift back into the comfort of my wolf form. It was handy to avoid the awkward conversations like the one we'd just had. My reflexive snarl had scared her, and I'd instantly hated myself for it. It made me want to shift and run, just so that the thing that had scared her — me — was removed from her side.

Yet, she continued speaking to me, forging ahead in spite of her fear around a snarling alpha. "I saw a phone in your sling bag," Freya pointed out. "That rogue wolf made me forget all about it, but have you called Gage? Or the others?"

I grunted, realizing I'd forgotten about human technology, as usual. Shifting the bundle of kindling to one arm, I dug around in my sling bag with the other.

I found the small phone Gage had given me inside and turned it on. Having any technology at all felt foreign to me. Remembering to actually look at it was a challenge.

As usual, I'd neglected it — I often forgot it existed — and thus found several messages from my pack waiting for me. All the missed calls from the others made my stomach drop. Based on the timestamps, I could tell Heath's last message had been a few hours before I'd found them in that prison. They'd been waiting around for me, I realized. And when I hadn't answered…

"Fuck," I growled.

"What?" Freya asked.

"All the messages I missed," I mumbled, unwilling to admit that I was the reason for their capture. Perhaps if I'd answered them, the three of us could have come up with a better strategy beforehand. Instead, I'd remained in wolf form as I always did, oblivious to their messages. And by the time I'd been close enough to sense them through the pack bond, they'd already rushed in and gotten themselves captured.

Gage's messages took into account the fact that I almost never checked my phone.

Gage:

Message me the moment you remember and tell me Freya is safe

His command left no room for any other outcome. Fortunately, Freya was safe. But he needed a complete situation report, as far as I knew it.

Rowan:

Freya is safe with me in the wildlands. We'll spend the night at the old lean-to and standby for your instructions. Ironwood may have recaptured Flint and Heath. I will protect Freya.

Gage's response came through a few moments later, like he'd been holding the phone in his hand.

Gage:

About time. I sensed your fight, then none of you called. They still aren't answering. You keep Freya safe. I'll get them out. Then we'll meet up.

The thought of handing her back over to Gage and then leaving on my mission gave me a strange sinking sensation in my gut. I shoved the phone back into my sling bag and felt Freya's expectant gaze resting heavily upon me.

"Gage says the others must be re-captured, because they're not answering. He's going to get them out."

Freya let out a long sigh. Then she squatted down to pick up another branch, adding it to the pile in her arms. I wanted to snatch it all away from her and tell her not to overtax herself, but every interaction with her went awry, so I restrained the impulse.

Everything about this situation left me frustrated. When she'd bathed, I'd longed to run my hands over her to wash her, towel her off with a soft towel, and present her with pristine, fresh clothes. I'd never once felt such a strong urge to provide for anyone — not my packmates, nor even any of my past sexual partners. Freya was… confusing.

And seeing her in my shirt? It nearly undid me. My wolf loved knowing my scent would be all over her now.

She looked exactly the same as in my dreams, except for her current, malnourished state, which pissed me off. Seeing her like this made me want to hunt meat for her. But unlike me, she wouldn't be able to eat it raw. Yet another reason she needed a fire.

I grumbled low in my throat as I continued picking up dry sticks as fuel for the fire. Behind me, I heard Freya begin picking up branches, too. Somehow that only annoyed me further. I wanted to bundle her up, keep her warm, and feed her until she was full to bursting, but instead, she needed to help find fuel for the fire so I could build it faster. I wish I'd thought to bring a blanket with me.

Though I now walked ahead of her, I still occasionally caught whiffs of her scent… now a mixture of apple pie and my own scent, thanks to my soap and shirt. My wolf had known what he was doing when he nudged the sling bag toward her — caring for his mate, making her more comfortable… and marking her with my own scent. My wolf knew I wouldn't agree to bite and mark her like he wanted. So he'd marked her like a human. He was too clever.

Since the first time I'd shifted, my wolf and I had been in perfect harmony. Only Freya brought me the kind of torment that shifters experienced when their human and animal sides conflicted. But in this case, I knew better than my wolf, and I had to make sure he didn't cross a line that couldn't be uncrossed.

I'd seen the way her eyes lingered on my burns when I'd shifted in front of her for the first time. I hated seeing the sadness in her eyes as she imagined what must have befallen me. Something so bad even alpha shifter healing couldn't fix it. When she'd bathed, I'd seen Freya's scars, but, in my experience, that didn't make her any more likely to accept mine.

Heath had convinced me a few times to switch into human form after a Howling Echo job and accompany him to a bar. He was a good storyteller, and sometimes the hero-worship for Heath had spilled over to me.

But no woman intentionally pursued a damaged wolf like me. One look at me, and they knew a quiet loner with scars as bad as mine had to be trouble. Or if not, he was too damaged to risk taking a chance on, even for a night.

Left to my own solitary ways, I probably never would've tried overcoming those assumptions about me to convince someone to take a chance on me, but Heath insisted… repeatedly. I never remembered the word Heath used for it — something to do with birds? Or their wings? — but I knew Heath was responsible for the first few times I'd ended up in bed with female wolf shifters.

Since these women were shifters, too, they weren't afraid of my beast side, though I usually still sensed a healthy level of wariness from them. After all, I was a stranger to them, a traveler just passing through, and a dominant alpha who could force them into submission.

Sometimes their eyes would widen and they would leave the room the moment I got naked, as though my burns might somehow be contagious. But the ones who joined me in bed… I treated them well, and they loved my dominance and the rough and primal sex.

I did too. But somehow, I always came away feeling unfulfilled. Most of them had little to no interest in me the next day, as though they'd gotten what they came for, and were finished with me. In the light of the day, my burns were too obvious, perhaps. No woman really wanted someone as burned and hideous as me.

Even as an alpha — or maybe because I was an alpha — I sometimes felt more like a conquest to those female wolves than a fellow shifter, an equal. Because, as always, I remained the outsider.

It would be no different with my own packmate, Freya.

Why would she want me, when she could have Gage? The pack alpha had claimed her as his mate, which made her off limits. Except… I clearly remembered Flint saying our mate , along with the sight of him giving her a kiss, however brief.

Flint wouldn't go against Gage. It puzzled me, but it wasn't my business. If Flint needed straightened out, our pack alpha would see to it.

In the meantime, it was my duty to protect my pack alpha's mate.

"This is it," I told her when we reached the lean-to I'd once built out here in the wildlands.

I tested the wind, and began constructing the initial fire. To her credit, Freya contributed dry wood and didn't smother the flames once they started.

She looked malnourished, weak, and delicate, but she'd been brave enough to step in my line of sight when I'd been feral and facing off against Flint and Heath. I couldn't remember the last time anyone had challenged my wolf and gotten away with it. Especially when feral.

"What else can I do to help?" she asked as the first flames licked up our offerings.

She wanted to help despite how unsteady on her feet she looked. She was exhausted, and probably not just physically.

"Nothing," I snapped without thinking. "Sit down and warm yourself by the fire."

She didn't fall on her ass the way a subordinate wolf shifter would have at my alpha-bark. Instead, her eyebrows lowered and she stared me in the eyes a moment before she got moving. Then she took the time to roll a fallen log closer to the flames and seated herself on it, off the damp forest floor. It was strange, but it felt oddly reassuring to me.

I'd always liked the Howling Echo because Gage didn't abuse his dominance like so many other alpha shifters did. He'd promised his pack was different, and it was.

But as I watched the flames consume the smaller twigs I'd added to start the fire, I noticed how she'd gone completely silent, not saying a word to me despite the fact that she'd begged me before to shift so that we could communicate. Her shoulders were slumped, her chin tucked, and her long hair hid her face. She'd never seemed submissive before… this felt all wrong.

In my dreams, she'd been a strong, confident, capable wolf shifter. This weakened version of Freya made me want to tear off the heads of several more Ironwood wolves. Especially their pack alpha, Luka. He'd touched her… and if Gage didn't do the honors, I would enjoy killing him myself.

Gage swore we would never have a pack omega, but now Freya was acting like one. It bothered me.

Sudden awareness punched me in the gut. I'd done this. My gruff behavior and my hideous appearance had scared her into submission, something that even the Ironwood wolves hadn't managed. It made me feel… disgusted with myself.

Her quiet, sad words broke me free from my negative thoughts. "I hope Flint and Heath are okay."

My wolf whimpered inside of me, longing to go and comfort his mate, who was clearly distressed. Gazing absently into the fire, her open expression revealed her depressing thoughts, even though she said nothing else. He urged me to pull her into my embrace and promise her everything would be okay.

But right now, I couldn't do anything to fix this for her. Gage sent me to infiltrate Ironwood and made me promise to protect his mate. Heath and Flint caused a distraction to help follow through on our pack alpha's orders. I carried them out. Now it was up to Gage to do the rest.

"Gage will make sure of it," I promised.

I hovered near the fire, watching Freya warm herself. My wolf's desire to comfort her nearly overpowered me, but I could imagine what might happen if I gave in. I couldn't risk it.

During her first heat, I'd imagined her in all kinds of compromising positions thanks to the lust flowing from the pack bond. Gage had tried to shut me out, but he'd failed… miserably. I'd been trapped in my human form for five days of insatiable rut.

Now that she was finally within my reach, she had to remain just as off-limits as before. I turned away from her now to hide my all-too-obvious arousal. What was the matter with me? I went to gather more fuel to use for the fire overnight, a convenient excuse to put some distance between us.

She was Gage's mate, I reminded myself. No matter what confusion Flint had stirred in me. No matter how much I'd longed for her before I even met her.

I could barely keep myself from touching her in this form, so I put even more distance between us. Without turning back around, I began disrobing.

Fortunately, my wolf didn't resist the shift like he had back then. He'd kept me trapped in human form while Freya's lust had raged through the pack bond, torturing me for five whole days. Thanks to the rut, no matter how many times I'd brought myself to orgasm, it hadn't sated me.

Even now, I only felt slightly more in control in my wolf form. When I turned to face her, she didn't look surprised, but I caught the way her arms wrapped tighter around herself. I growled softly, imagining how she'd gotten all those scars on her body. Her shoulders hunched down as if expecting blows to land.

Of course I scared her. Why wouldn't she be scared of a packmate who was more wolf than man? And even as a man, I'd barely kept my anger in check when I spoke to her. Gage would be furious when he found out how I'd treated his mate.

I wasn't cut out for this. I'd promised to rescue her, but as for what came afterward, I hadn't thought this through. I'd expected her to shift alongside me. Dealing with her as a human felt dangerous, like I stood on the precipice of something completely foreign to me.

I'd never once felt this strange mix of heady desire and boyish nervousness around anyone, not even my past bedmates. Freya turned my world upside down.

As darkness fell, she eventually drifted off to sleep, curling up between the log and the fire instead of under the lean-to. Yet still I saw her shivering in her sleep. In her two-legged form, she was practically naked without fur of her own. Especially in my thin button-up shirt. I rarely wore the thing except when I went to town and had to be in human form to communicate with those not of my pack. Now I wished I'd brought along something heavier, but when it got cold, I simply shifted to deal with it.

My wolf stepped closer to her, distressed by his mate's discomfort. I nosed the log away from her, then settled in beside her. My massive, furry form dwarfed her tiny, slender body, and she nestled into my fur. With the fire on one side and me on the other, she quickly warmed up. And my wolf was content.

I couldn't convince him she wasn't my mate. And as the scent of her filled my nostrils, I knew why. The scent of her heat was definitely increasing, not decreasing. Her scent was already so tantalizing now, but soon enough, she'd be drawing in lone wolves and rogues from across the wildlands. Her scent shouldn't have been so strong since she was a mated wolf, but perhaps it was due to the fact that Gage wasn't here with her.

Kill them all, my wolf promised.

On this, at least, we agreed. No one would harm her.

Pack alpha's mate, I reminded him.

It was right to want to protect her and make her more comfortable. But not for the reasons my wolf insisted upon.

The scariest thing was knowing that if my wolf took over again, I wouldn't be able to resist him. We had been of one mind for so long, I normally had a hard time separating out where I ended and he began — it was jarring to be at odds now.

So if he decided to bite Freya… would I even be able to stop myself? The fact that she couldn't shift made my wolf even more wild to protect her.

To me, her inability to shift felt like the worst possible curse. I'd once feared that my old pack was right, that I might never shift, that I was a disgrace. So when my wolf had appeared, I'd been overjoyed, thankful, willing to stay in wolf form most of the month.

Most shifters spent the majority of the month in human form and only the full moon in wolf form. I was the opposite, spending the full moon and the rest of the month in wolf form. The empty sky of a new moon always reminded me to turn back into my human form for a brief time.

To be like Freya, a shifter who couldn't shift? She might never know the joy of the hunt. She would never experience the true belonging of the pack bond…

Though I tried to stay awake, I drifted off. And Freya came to me once more in my dreams.

"I knew you'd come," she said, her voice reaching my ears though her lips didn't move.

We stood in a forest without ground beneath us, only mist that came up nearly to my muzzle. I instantly shifted so that she could hear my words and believe my intentions.

"Nothing can stop me. I'll always find you," I promised.

But though my mind clung to the dream, my body startled awake when I rolled over and a stone gouged my soft human flesh. I fully came to and found my naked body pressed tight against Freya's. Her arms were wrapped around my neck, her head on the right side of my chest, her face resting on the smooth skin of my burn. And I was hard as a rock, my erection trapped against her thigh. I blamed it on the dream, but it made me want to shift back as soon as possible.

I smoothed her hair back from our faces, trying to figure out how to extricate myself without waking her up. In the end, I decided not to move and risk her awakening to my obvious arousal. Laying there with my naked body primed and pressed against her was the most difficult thing I'd ever done. But I didn't want to scare her any more than I already had. Waking up in the arms of an aroused alpha who wasn't her mate would surely scare her.

Finally, when Freya eventually rolled over, I ducked out from her embrace with a sigh of relief before gratefully shifting back into my wolf form.

If we were both in wolf form, or both in human form, I wouldn't be able to resist her tantalizing scent. Since she couldn't shift, me being in wolf form was safer.

My wolf wouldn't bite her unless she could bite him back, I felt sure. Well, almost sure. I'd never actually met anyone I wanted to claim before.

The promise I'd made to her in the dream echoed in my ears, mocking me. I might have found her in Ironwood, but she was the one who always found me, over and over again, in my dreams.

This time, I steadfastly refused to let myself drift off into sleep. I couldn't risk it, not when the scent of her heat and the light from the fire might attract unwanted attention.

When she seemed warm enough, I got up to care for her other needs. My packmate would need food to keep her strength up. No way would I allow her to remain malnourished. Not far from the campsite, I startled two rabbits out of their temporary burrow, crushing their skulls and killing them instantly. But as I was on my way back to the campsite, I scented other wolves.

I thought it might be a rogue alpha, but then I smelled another one — rogues almost never worked together. They were flanking me, and I didn't recognize their scents. And now, a third stepped out from behind a tree, upwind of me. His crooked grin widened as he pointed a gun at me.

"Give me your sling bag," he demanded in a low voice. "All your belongings."

My lips pulled back in a snarl. I would never comply, not when they might harm Freya.

My earlier desire to tear off the heads of those who hurt — or might hurt — Freya came roaring back. I felt almost grateful that these three had shown up so I could work out some of my confusing feelings the only way we alphas knew how — through violence.

With three versus one, this fight would be interesting. I sank into my wolf, let go of my humanity, and unleashed the feral beast.