I get up from my hands and feet, only for her to jump on my back, arms locking around my neck and squeezing. I grab her by the arm and flip her over in a somersault onto her back. She hits the dirt hard enough to make the air leave her lungs with an oomph. Her canines slip from her gums and her black eyes glare at me from the ground.
I smirk, which only serves to make her rage go up a notch, when she kicks me in the face. My lip starts bleeding. “Yeah, kick his ass, babe.” Mateo links us both, and I shoot him a glare.
“Whose fucking side are you on?” I snarl at him.
“Oh, crap right. Yours, kick her ass softly.” I shake my head, only just managing to move before her other leg kicks back over her head to get me. I back away and let her get to her feet, wiping my hand across my bleeding lip
“Come on, you have to do better than that to be my Luna,” I taunt. It’s a low blow, but I am running out of ideas and need her to shift. I can’t very well have her kicking my ass all night.
Her eyes flash, and her claws slip out from beneath her fingertips. She shudders at my words, a deep low growl tears from her. She hates being judged and compared to others, but I will do whatever it takes.
“Are you really asking my pack to accept a Luna who can’t even a shift? A wolf-less Alpha?” I taunt, and her trembling gets worse.
The rage comes off her in waves, threatening to take me down with it. Ares has his nose on the ground, ready to whimper and submit to make it stop.
“You know what? Maybe I should give you back to Jackson. Your mom was right on one thing in her life. You’ll never be good enough for an Alpha.”
Ares whimpers, feeling Kat falter at my cruel words. Her eyes flicker before she screams and charges at me. Her Alpha aura rushes out, pouring out of her like a storm that can’t be contained. She crashes into me, and my head slams into the ground with a thud. She growls down at me, teeth bared and at my throat as she snaps them next to my face.
I don’t think she’s even aware she’s shifted.
“There’s my Luna,” I greet her as she glares down at me. Her paws are on either side of my head. I lift my hands, running them through her fur along her sides before she looks down at my hands, she looks up with recognition in her eyes before lifting her paw and looking at it before she smacks me in the face with it before huffing out a breath.
She steps back, her Alpha aura dropping, and I sit up to see her completely shifted. However, she isn’t white like Kora, not white as snow but white with golden tones on the ends of her fur. She shakes her fur out, and Ares sidles over to her, he licks her face before nipping at her.
“I shifted!” she gasps, shocked when I notice she can talk like Kora could without the mindlink. The sound of her voice makes her jump when she realizes that like Kora she can speak in wolf form.
Katya
“I shifted,” I repeat, shocked at the words leaving my mouth not the mindlink I jump, looking down at myself. I sniff the air, only for Ares to come to lick my nose, making me shake my head before he nips at me again.
I feel stronger and buzzed in this form. Everything felt new, even when Kora was with me, it never was like this. I could see the dust motes dancing in the air, smell the river that was pretty far from the packhouse, hear the patrol wolves’ paws on the earth as they ran the border, every little sound had my head snapping in every direction and my ears twitching.
I could also hear Maddox even locked away within Ezra like a direct link to him that not even Ezra could block me from me. He wanted out, but Ezra wouldn’t let him come close to the surface. I could feel both of them like a tether, a live wire directly to both my mates that was much stronger and more overwhelming than before.
“Maddox?” I whisper, hearing him whine in my head. Ezra stares at me, and I cock my head to the side, listening to him trying to claw his way out, but Ezra didn’t acknowledge his presence.
“Let Maddox out,” I commanded, stepping forward. He ruffles my fur, grabbing handfuls of it and gently tugging on it.
“Not now,” Ezra replies.
“But you’re hurting him, I can hear him. Why are you hurting him?” I accuse Ezra, sniffing his neck.
“I’m not hurting him,” Ezra deflects, staring at me, but I shake my head, sitting on his legs. Ares comes closer, tugging on my ear and making me shiver.
“Yes, you are. You’re rejecting him, stop rejecting him,” I demand softly. Maddox’s whining was breaking my heart, he wasn’t just wanting to be forward with his mates, but with Ezra too. Almost as if Ezra locked him in a cage in his mind.
“I can’t let him out, Love. He may hurt one of you,” Ezra sighs.
“Maddox won’t hurt us, I can feel him just like I can feel you, Mateo and Ares, I can feel everything,” I whisper the last part because it was true, I could feel everything not only what Ezra and Mateo did, but their wolves.
Maddox is hurting, Ezra is hurting, but they are both hurting each other more with their own inability to trust the other.
I pull on Maddox’s tether. It is the weirdest sensation, but I could do it, pull on his energy. Ezra gasps, grabbing my head, and I know he could feel me pulling him from the confines of his mind, forcing him forward with him.
“Stop it,” Ezra says firmly, yet his hold is gentle.
“No, you don’t trust him to behave, but he doesn’t trust you to let him live. I know what he did, he won’t do that again. It wasn’t his fault.”
And I did know, his memories filtered into mine, and the more I focused on it, the more I could see every memory he ever had. Not only Ezra’s memories, but also Maddox’s when he would block Ezra out. I shouldn’t be able to see this, but I could, it was like filtering through my own memories, but they weren’t mine, like watching a movie, feeling what he felt in each moment.