Luna
The glowing moon on my arm burns as I race through Axel’s house, and my core throbs with raw pain and unfilled need, like he put an empty spot inside me that only he can fill, and it will always be empty now, always crave him returning to fill it. Blood trickles down my legs along with my own wetness, but I ignore it and the call of my mate as I run for the door. It seems I’ve been branded, something mama once told me people called “cowboys” do to their cattle. When they’re branded, the cowboy always knows which cows are his. I didn’t know they had to mate them first.
Does that make me Axel’s? Now that he’s mated me and branded me, do I belong to him instead of myself and Mama and the swamp?
I hear his footsteps behind me, like he’s coming to claim his property the way Mama and me claimed our little hillock in panther territory and chased off anyone who tried to crowd in. The house was big enough for only two, and the hillock only big enough for one house. But my body is not Axel’s house, even if he was inside me. My body is my house, and there’s only room for one.
I run outside, scent the air real quick and then take to my wolfskin. It’s easy, since I’m not wearing a stitch of clothes. I run fast, racing back toward the woods and the swamps where I belong. This whole crazy day feels like a bad dream, the kind I had when I was a kid where I’d wake up shrieking like a panther because I was sure I was drowning, that the swamp had come alive and was sucking me under the mud and muck, where I couldn’t breathe the way an ogre could.
This day is going to drown me. There’s too much of it, too many things that happened too fast, without giving me a chance to breathe or think them over. There was the attack on Mama, and the Ama wolf, and the pack, and Axel.
Axel.
A little ripple goes through me, making my fur stand on end as I run. He scares me, and he’s so big, big as an ogre, but not as harmless. But my wolf craves him again already, craves his touch and his nearness, his scent, his wolf, his wildness, his possessiveness. My wolf wants all the things my human mind doesn’t. I have to force her to keep running away from him, to not circle back and run to his house and slip onto his sheets and let him fill me with so much pleasure I think I’ll break apart at the seams, the way the part he called a cock broke me apart between my legs, in the place I call my heat.
That’s the part that ached and throbbed and felt so good and so bad at the same time when I went into heat the one time before Mama stopped the torture by giving me potion every time it started to come back. Only when Axel sank his cock deep, deep into the core of that heat did it wake up again. That’s when I knew what I’d wanted and needed that time, when I was in heat. I’m not now, but I still want to feel it again, even though it hurt like a knife inside me and made me bleed. I crave him filling the aching need, the emptiness he filled me with even as my soul cleaved to his.
I’m almost through the woods and back to the swamp when a man slides from the trees like a midnight shadow.
His skin matches the dark sky overhead, and there’s a faint red glow emanating from his onyx eyes. He must be one of Axel’s packmates, though I don’t remember him. I should have smelled him, but maybe I was too busy warring with the thoughts in my brain that are swarming like swamp rats in a flood.
I take a few sniffs, but he has no scent except for the faint whiff of ash. How is this possible?
Facing him, I bare my teeth and snarl.
He puts out his palms. “Easy,” he says, his voice deep and smooth and accented with a strange tint of something different than anyone I met
today. “I mean you no harm. I was just out hunting in the woods. Same as you, little wolfie.”
I’ve never been outside the swamp, but I know this is no werewolf. At least, not one I’ve met. He doesn’t smell familiar at all, and I wonder how I’d know if he was a friend or not. I decide to shift back to human and ask. When I emerge into my human form, I shy back, baring my teeth still. “What are you?” I hiss. “How come you have no scent?”
“I have no idea. How is it you have a scent?” He smiles broadly, revealing two of the longest, pointiest canine teether I’ve ever seen. They’re longer and sharper and thinner than wolves’ or even panthers’ teeth.
I ignore his question and cant my head to the side, studying him. “You’re not a wolf?” I ask, making a guess.
“Far from it,” he says easily.
“Well, I’m hiding from the wolves. So don’t tell them you saw me.” “Good plan,” he says. “The wolves can’t be trusted.”
Instantly, I relax. This man speaks my language-the language Mama spoke. Hearing her words from him assures me that he can be trusted. He’s on my side, just like she was.
“They captured me,” I say. “But I escaped.”
“Is that so?” he asks. “And how long were you with them?”
“Only a day,” I answer. “But they want me back. They’re chasing me right now, so I’d better go.”
“Don’t go so soon,” he says. “And you can’t possibly escape a wolf pack on your own. Maybe I can help.”
“Their Alpha thinks I’m his True Mate,” I say, showing him the mark on my arm. “But I can’t be. I have to find my mama and go home. She’s at a healer’s at the edge of the swamp where we live, in panther territory.”
“You must mean Bogbeast Waters,” he says, arching one midnight- black eyebrow.
My eyes narrow as I regard him. He doesn’t seem hostile, though, and Mama only told me to watch out for wolves, not other things. Most other creatures don’t bother us-the panthers always left us alone until today, even though we claimed a tiny spot in their territory; ogres don’t bother with wolves; and catfish only sting because they want to live, same as any other creature.
“You know the place?” I ask. Just then, a howl sounds someway off, and a shiver clutches at my backbone like a cold hand rising from the swamp. My wolf threatens to erupt and drag me back, answering the call. It must be Axel and whatever spell he cast over me that gave me the mark on my arm. I almost choke with the need to go to him.
The tall man snaps his fingers, jerking me back. “Tell you what,” he says. “It’s late, and it seems you truly are being hunted, so why don’t we go somewhere safe? I’ll guard you against the wolves tonight and in the morning, I shall take you to the healer’s place so you can check on your mother. Did the healer live in a dome-shaped, canvas yurt, painted with red symbols?”
“Yes,” I say, relief washing through me. “That’s the place.”
“I know her well. Her name is Artuna. What do you say? Come and rest a while. In the morning, we’ll be off. A young thing such as you shouldn’t be out at night with all the predators around. And surely you’re too small to be a danger to me, even if you are a wolf.”
“Do you think I could go home instead?” I ask, my voice small. I’m tired and I just want to rest my head in the familiar, comfortable little house I’ve always known.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he says. “Not tonight. If the wolves kidnapped you, they’ll know where to find your house. They’ll never think to check my place.”
“Okay,” I say reluctantly, glancing at the shroud of the swamp’s darkness with longing. He’s right. Ama was at my house, and she can tell Axel where to find it again.
“Good,” the man says. “I’m Evan, by the way.”