I test her, see if she’s ready to give up our skin. I have the urge to be in human form again.
She gives me an equivalent of the “wait a minute” finger, and then she launches into a fierce diatribe that makes Killian’s wolf slink backward and lower his muzzle. He looks like a very sorry killer wolf.
And then she gives a sniff, and she lets me take over again. Now I’m sitting in the dirt, naked, covered in blood. None of it is my own.
Killian immediately shifts to male form.
“Shirt,” he barks at the field of moaning males. Some have managed to get themselves upright. Not a single one has dared try to leave.
The nearest male peels off a blood-stained polo shirt and holds it out.
Killian and I both stare at it in disgust.
“I won’t wear it,” I say at the same time Killian throws it back at the male.
He leaps to his feet and stands in front of me, shielding me from view.
He coughs. Every pair of eyes are glued on him. A fog of dread hangs in the air. They know the moment of judgement is here.
“All of you. Go back to camp. And decide. If you stay here, you’re Z-roster. You’re trash crew. You’re the asshole I call when we gotta drain the sewage tank. Got that?”
He waits for every male to grunt assent before he continues.
“You aren’t allowed within fifty feet of any female. I don’t give a shit if you’re mated. You lost the privilege. Or get the fuck out. Maybe Last Pack will take you. If I find you in our hills, though, I’ll kill you.”
He glances back at me. “Okay by you?”
I’m caught by surprise, so I nod.
“We clear, Z-roster?”
There’s a general muttering. The males who’ve made it to their feet help the others.
And that’s when Tye, Ivo, and Gael—magnificent in their wolf forms—race into the clearing. Tye goes straight to Kennedy. His wolf is at her eye level. His wolf blinks at her. She glares back. He nudges her shoulder with his snout. Kennedy’s wolf growls. Tye ducks his head, ever so slightly.
And then Annie and Mari are running to me, and I’m hugging them, and Kennedy is joining us, and there’s a great hullabaloo. Mari and Annie cry. I wipe their cheeks, but all I do is mix dirt in with the tears.
“W-we th-thought we were gonna be traded to Last Pack,” Annie says.
“I thought you were gonna die.” Mari clings to my neck.
“They blew up all our stuff,” Kennedy says. Mari and Annie crowd close to her, covering her nakedness as best they can. Kennedy puts up a good front, but she’s not comfortable around other packmates in her bare human skin.
“W-where are we going to live?” Annie breaks down in fresh sobs.
“Whichever of those asshole’s cabins that you want. How about Alfie’s? His is catty-corner from mine and Una’s.” The girls fall silent and look up at Killian.
He attempts a smile.
Annie sniffles.
“Is that okay?” he asks.
One by one, the girls nod.
“Can Ivo and Tye take you back? Help you get it set up?” Killian is trying to speak gently, and it makes my insides warm.
“Ivo, yes. Tye, no,” Mari answers.
Killian raises an eyebrow, but Mari doesn’t elaborate. Kennedy stares at the ground. Mari is an excellent friend.
“Okay, then. I’ll bring Una over later. All right?”
They look to me. So does Killian.
I could say no, I want to go with them now. He’d listen. He’d walk us back to camp. He’d let me go with them to a new cabin, and he’d sit on the porch, but he wouldn’t say another word. I know this in my heart. It streams through our bond. I outrank him. I am his alpha.
This must be what it feels like to fly a fighter jet. Or a space shuttle. The pure power.
Killian opens his hand and holds it out. “Come with me?” he asks.
I don’t know where he wants to go, but yes.
I’ll go with him.
I take his hand.
He leads me away, and I follow.
16
UNA
Killian takes me further up the hill, past the other dens, to the very last one to be occupied. When I was a little girl and my parents were alive, my mother would bring food up to the elders who lived here. I was fascinated by them. They split their time almost evenly between fur and skin. They hunted their own food, and bed down with the rest of the pack in piles. I always got the sense when I talked to one, I talked to all of them.
We don’t live like this anymore. We have our own cabins, keep to our own little groups. There’s a thread that still runs through us all, though. No matter how we change. We’re swept along by time together. We share a past and a future.