Luna
The tragic events of the last few days hit me like a sledgehammer. The disaster of the pack gathering, bonding with Axel, fleeing into the woods, meeting a vampire, and telling him “pack secrets,” and the subsequent dissolution of the True Mate bond all collide in my head. I sway in my seat across from the three ravenous males who sit noisily inhaling their meals.
Even though I’m starving, I suddenly can’t eat. Instead, I stare at the inked pictures of wolves that adorn the men’s bodies. “Are y’all wolves?”
I spit out the sentence like a poison seed.
Warrick looks up from his food. “You can smell as well as we can.”
Ethan smirks, picks up his bowl, and tips it to his lips, sucking the liquid into his mouth. When he’s done, he sits the bowl on the table with a thunk and gestures to Callan. “Fill ‘er up, brother.”
Callan frowns but says nothing as he ladles more rabbit stew into Ethan’s and Warrick’s bowls. “Not hungry?” he asks me, raising a brow and glancing at my bowl.
“Wolves are dangerous,” I say, reciting my own mantra, the one I’ve been told all my life, because it’s what Mama believed. “They lie, steal, and
murder.”
“Some do,” Callan says. “Some are outlaws who have no pack.” “Those are the best kind,” Ethan says.
I’m sitting with three of the most dangerous looking wolves I’ve ever seen. They make the pack look like puppies. Eyeing the open window, I push my chair away from the table and start to rise, intending to bolt.
“Going somewhere?” Warrick says.
I want to run out, but I feel his eyes boring into me, and more than that, his will. The wolf inside me cowers at his dominating attention. I feel her shrink inside me, and I lower my head.
Warrick extends his hand, points at my chair, and snaps his fingers.
“Sit.”
Meekly, I sit. My heart is racing like a scared swamp rabbit in my
chest, and my limbs are shaking. What just happened?
“He meant to say ‘please,'” Ethan says with a grin. He’s missing a tooth behind his canine, and one of his front teeth has a little chip at the corner. His face-fur is thicker than Callan’s, and his hair hangs past his shoulders. He’s obviously never heard of a comb, either. But looking at his smile calms me and makes my heart beat in a different, erratic way that I don’t understand.
“No, I didn’t,” Warrick says. “I said what I intended.”
My gaze drifts toward the open window. It’s big enough for me to leap through and run.
“You ain’t making her feel safe, brother,” Callan says to Warrick, delivering his bowl.
“Not trying to,” Warrick says, crunching down on some bones before snatching up the metal tool and scooping up more liquid.
“Come on, Warrick,” Callan said, sounding both pleading and exasperated, like when I was a kid and Mama had to coax me to get up and go hunting early in the morning, before it got too hot outside.
Warrick just grunts and goes back to slurping down his food.
Callan gives me a smile that says he doesn’t perform that act much, like he’s trying on a smile for the first time. “What do you smell when you sniff us?” he asks.
My belly’s bound so tight I’m not sure I can scent anything, but I tip back my head and take a few tentative sniffs. “You smell musky and sweaty,” I say. “But not bad.”
Ethan barks out a laugh and pounds the table with his fist, making the dishes and metal tools rattle. “Did you hear that, Warrick? She says we don’t smell bad.”
My face heats up like I’m sitting in the sun.
“That smell, darlin’, is one-hundred-percent purebred werewolf,” Ethan says, lifting his arm and sniffing his armpit. “Divine musk to a she- wolf such as yourself.”
“Quit it, you man-whore,” Callan says, smacking the back of Ethan’s head with his palm.
“You’re just jealous,” Ethan says, punching his shoulder.
I study them, wondering why they’re laughing if they’re mad enough to hit each other and fight. When Mama got mad and hit me, I never laughed.
Warrick slices his palm in front of his neck, adding a grunt, and Callan and Warrick grow still. Then the scary one turns his eyes to me. “Where are you from? What brought you to the swamp?”
“Until a couple days ago, I lived in the swamp. Now, without my mother, I’m not sure where I live.” I fight back the tears threatening to push free.
Ethan whistles. “No one lives in Bogbeast Waters except the panthers.”
Unable to speak through the emotion clogging my throat, I nod. “Have you lived there all your life?” Warrick demands.
Cowering, I nod again. He has the same forceful presence as Axel, but Axel never made me cower before him and answer questions like this.
He acted like I was valuable. Inside, my wolf whines piteously at the mention of our mate. I remind her that Axel didn’t value us. He didn’t want us. He cast us out. And these wolves… They haven’t yet.
“Did you have a community out there?” Warrick says. “Are there more wolves in the swamp?”
“No, only Mama,” I whisper.
I glance at Callan, who picks a chunk of meat from his bowl. He pops it in his mouth and chews, giving me an encouraging smile with his cheeks full of food.
“Dang,” Ethan says. “So, you’ve never met anyone like us? No wolves? Only humans?”
I shake my head. “No humans or wolves. Just me and Mama, though sometimes I’d see panther shifters fishing or hunting. We saw ogres sometimes, and there’s a swamp monster that’s pretty scary. And bog hags, but they run if you try to talk to them.”
“You talk to the others?” Warrick asks.
I shake my head. “I’d never talked to anyone but Mama and myself until a couple of days ago, when I was summoned.”
My stomach lets out another growl.
“Look, she hasn’t eaten a thing,” Callen says. “Please eat. We’ll stop assaulting you with questions.”
I look at each man and the tools they’re using to consume the stew. I pick up mine, clutching it in my fist, and dip it into my bowl. I lift it to my mouth like they are, but the slippery food slides right off and splatters back into my bowl.
“Never used a spoon, either?” Ethan asks, laughing. I shake my head.
“Don’t worry, you’ll fit right in here,” Callan says. “Spoons are entirely optional.” With a smile, he drops his spoon and picks up his bowl, lifting it to his mouth to slurp from the edge.
That’s what I did with Mama on the occasion we ate from bowls. I’m instantly relieved that they know the logical way to eat, and I’m so hungry I don’t want to pick up one tiny bite at a time with the spoon instrument. I pick up my bowl and let the food pour into my mouth. I chew, slurp and devour the meat and bones and broth.
Ethan laughs again, only this time it’s a wheezing belly laugh. “Would you look at that? She’s completely uncivilized.”
I pause, setting my bowl down and wiping my mouth on the back of my hand. I’m ready to bolt, but one look from Warrick has me sinking back to the seat, pinned by some force I can’t explain. My wolf whines inside me, but it’s not exactly fear she’s feeling. It’s as if I’m being silently forced to obey.
“Don’t worry, Luna,” Callan says. “We’re all uncivilized, too.”
“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” Ethan says to his brother. “It’s cute. I like her.”
“Of course you do,” Callan grumbles.
Ethan turns to me, setting his huge hand on mine. It covers my whole hand like a wolf paw would. “If we have a problem, we take care of it with fists, not words. Don’t take anything we say the wrong way, pup, and you’ll fit right in.”