CALLUM
We lay there attempting to catch our breath, and I could safely say, I had never felt better.
Where my skin was in contact with Ava’s, it felt like sparks were flying along my skin. Her voice was almost musical, her laugh hypnotic, her smell intoxicating. I could lose myself in her body, stay there forever, and die a very happy man.
It was at that point when a searing hot pain shot through my body, leaving me dripping in sweat and in unbelievable agony. It was like a first shift, but so much worse.
“Callum, we need to shift,” Ares said, his voice sounding strained too. “I don’t know what’s happening, but not shifting feels like it’s tearing me apart.”
I let go of my control, letting Ares take over and shift.
Ava gasped when I completed the shift, and ran her hand along my wolf’s face. “Ares, Callum,” she whispered. “I think our marking unlocked some kind of magic.”
Huh?
I shifted back, confused. “What do you mean?”
“It was like something tingling and shimmering around your body,” she reached down to take my hand, tilting it to see the skin in a different light. “It is like you almost have a visible aura.”
“Are you sure you can’t now just see auras?”
“I’ve always been able to feel and read auras, Callum, being able to see them wouldn’t change much. I’m not sure why I know this, but I know it’s not your aura that I’m seeing. I think it’s connected to your emotions, but it isn’t an aura in the traditional sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were worried, yeah?”
I nodded.
“It was like it was protecting you. We’d have to get you to spar with someone to be sure, but it looked and felt protective.”
I watched her pause and tilt her head, deep in thought. “The prophecy said you were my protector. ‘First Ares, fierce with battle cry, would fight for her and never die’. Maybe this is part of that? Defensive magic, perhaps?”
“Maybe?” I shrugged. “How do you feel?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think I feel any different.”
AVA
It was true, I felt exactly the same as I did before. The only difference was that now the connection I had to Callum was all encompassing.
“Maybe I can mark Oscar tonight too then?” I asked, more thinking out loud than anything else.
And then everything went black.
CALLUM
She fainted. She had just told me that she felt absolutely fine, and then she fainted.
I caught her before she could hit the floor, and it was then that I saw it. She definitely had some kind of magic too; I could see it in her veins, flooding every part of her body until her skin glowed. Once it reached her heart, the glow paled, and she woke up with a start.
“Fuck, Ava!” I cried out. “What happened?”
She shrugged, trying to calm her breathing. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Just one minute I was awake, and the next I wasn’t.”
Her eyes fell closed for a moment as she spoke to Artemis. When they snapped back open, they were the brightest gold I’ve ever seen. “I need to shift,” she mumbled, pulling herself up to stand and running out of the room.
She wasn’t quiet, or subtle. She stumbled around, banging into things, knocking them over. She even growled at anyone who happened to be in the hallway as she ran past.
The commotion attracted attention; both Oscar and Alpha Jacob ended up following us, as did just about everyone else in the pack house. Which was made even more awkward by the fact that the two of us had very clearly just mated and marked each other.
I’d at least put pants on, but Ava wasn’t wearing anything, she just sprinted outside in a strange, glowing ethereal blur.
“Ava, wait!” I shouted, sprinting after her. Somehow she was considerably faster than me, despite the difference in our height.
I stopped when I reached the bottom of the stairs outside the pack house. She’d already shifted, and she was turning around to face me as I got there. Somehow, Artemis looked even more stunning than before.
Her midnight black fur was now speckled like the night sky, her eyes the brightest gold I’ve ever seen. The patch of fur on her head that looked like a crown seemed even more ethereal; it now had a strange silvery glow to it.
Underneath the full moon on her chest now sat a delicate gold constellation. My constellation. Aries.
“Mate! Mate! Mate!” Ares was going mad in my head, jumping around and trying to steal control so he could run to Artemis. I let him take over, at which point he basically strutted to our mate. They rubbed their faces together, each purring at the attention from their mate.
Artemis jumped over me, yipping in excitement at spending time with her mate. Ares and I were too distracted enjoying our mate’s joy to notice the shocked faces of everyone around us. Right up until I realised why they were shocked.
Artemis looked like she was floating. Sparks danced around her paws as jumped, and her body was glowing with a silver light. She was beautiful.
“Mate, mate, mate, mate,” Ares was chanting in my head.
“Yes she is,” I whispered back.
She suddenly stopped dancing, staring off into the distance.
“Callum,” Ava suddenly hissed through the link. “I smell rogues.”
“Fuck,” I replied. “Want me to get dad?”
“No, I’ve got this.”
She turned and ran into the woods, but I was hot on her heels.
“Ava, Ares and I are literally destined to be your protector, you can not run off towards danger like this without me!”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
I growled. “Where are we going?”
“Lake. Can Ares hide his scent?”
“Yes, Artemis, I can,” Ares’ low voice came through the link.
“Okay, hide it now, please.”
Once we reached the edge of the woods near the lake, we both crouched down, crawling towards the water. Having spotted the rogues, Artemis growled, and the sparks and glow around her body that were silver suddenly became red. Angry, red sparks that crackled in the air.
She snarled at the rogues as she stalked towards them; her snarl becoming a growl when one of the rogues pulled a gun and pointed it at me.
She growled again, but this time, the red sparks surrounding her hit the rogues, knocking them off their feet. Ava attempted to order me to stay back, but it didn’t take. Apparently being able to resist her command was a power of mine now, too!
We took them out between us before turning to head back to the pack house, Ava’s beautiful starry fur covered in blood.