Right on queue there’s a howl, and tonight is extra special when the entire town square howls in support. I bite my lip, glad that I’m at the back like Maud said. If I was up front and not howling…yeah, it wouldn’t be good. Without a wolf, the most I could manage is a strangled yodel, and right now with the way I feel probably not even that. My legs feel like overcooked spaghetti and I sway where I’m standing. The world flickers around me, like someone’s turning the lights on and off but it’s gone so fast that I think I imagined it. I rub my eyes and shake my head. It must have been the bonfire light. Maybe I’m imagining things or is this what happens when you shift?
“Through hostile lands and the harsh elements did we fight our way to find this paradise! Join me, Frostclaw. Raise your voices now. Call down the moon to our home! This place is ours!” Alpha Ashford’s shout makes me jump. I forgot about him for a split second. A feat considering I’ve spent my entire life afraid of him and now here I am, oblivious to his presence during the moon run rites.
I sway and stagger back a step. Something isn’t right.
This can’t be my shift but if it’s not, thenwhat is it?
Chapter
Four
CORDELIA
I’m too hot. My clothes too tight. My muscles ache like I’ve just got done working a double shift in the laundry room. Sweat rolls down my back and I pull at my cardigan. When I finally manage to get it off my shoulders the cool night air rushes to kiss my skin. It’s a welcome reprieve but it's momentary. Just a blip in the inferno that’s consuming me. The pack howls and cheers around me while Alpha Ashford speaks but it’s white noise. Their voices are nothing compared to the roar that fills my ears. It’s like my heartbeat is on a speaker, amplified and pumped through at a volume so loud that I feel off kilter. I see stars when I shut my eyes.
A cramp hits my stomach so fierce that I gasp and double over in pain. I try to straighten up but I can’t. My body won’t do it no matter how hard I try, and I drop to my knees a second later. If it weren’t for the pack calling down the moon I’d definitely be getting more stink looks from the way I’m on the ground. More howls pierce the night air. The sounds rise up around me to pierce the night sky. The pack’s howls echo in the village square. Off the buildings and the quaint cobblestone until it somehow becomes a lifeline that I latch on to. The rise and fall of the pack’s collective howl is enough of a tether to bringme back into myself. It’s with greedy hands that I grab onto the lifeline and ground myself.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I lie to myself as I kneel in a sweaty pile. I take in a breath and then another. I just need a second and then I’ll get up. I’ll fight through whatever this is and I’ll…I’ll be okay. I’ll make it through this just like I’ve made it through everything else life has thrown at me.
“I’m okay,” I lie again because I know what this is. I can’t believe that I didn’t understand what it was sooner. How did I not see it? Maybe because I was too scared about what it meant for a shifter like me, especially in a pack like this.
“And here, on this land blessed by the moon goddess herself, did we stop!” I don’t need to look to know that Alpha Ashford has his arms thrown wide as he speaks. That he’ll stamp his foot when he goes on with the next part of his speech. “This very ground called to us,” he says, the sure sound of his boot striking the cobblestone punctuates his words, “thisis ours. We have defended it from those that thought to take our homes time and time again. It is in that blood spilled that gives the land its power and with each generation we grow stronger. There are none that can stand against us. The Crimson War proved that true enough!”
It’s then that I’m finally noticed. Any mention of the war is the pack’s cue to remember me, the reminder of those bloody days and lives lost. I almost have it in me to panic about being on the ground but seeing as I’m being burned alive from the inside I manage it just fine. The pack members in front of me turn to look at me. Celebratory howls give way to vicious whispers.
“There she is. The little bitch.”
I keep my gaze on the stones in front of me. A drop of sweat rolls off my nose and onto the stones. I swipe at my face even if the gesture is futile.Please let my wolf come. Please, Luna. Moon goddess hear me, please.I silently beg the universe andthe powers that be even as I feel my body sink deeper into the consuming fire that could signal one and only one thing.
My heat.
I’m going into heat.
I want to throw up just thinking about what will happen. I’m unmated with no wolf. This never happens to pack members before they’ve shifted. Never. My hands shake. Unmated she-wolves have their pick of the available males. There’s never a shortage when it comes to a heat partner but me?
I swallow past the lump in my throat. I’m no one. I’ll be lucky if any in the pack volunteer, let alone are allowed to help me. I struggle to stand, crouching slowly, my body aches from where I fell. My joints pop and groan when I rise to my feet. I see Maud looking back at me. She has wide eyes.
She knows.
A sob rises up in my throat and gets stuck. Thank Luna for Maud. I want to call out to her but I can’t, not with the moon rites underway but after. After, Maud will help me even if no one else does. She’ll know what to do.
I’ve started to attract attention now. A few of the pack members closest to me are murmuring, a few point as they stumble back from me. They know something is wrong. My heart aches when I scent the slightest hint of Keiran. Somehow, the Alpha’s musk is still there, his scent clinging warm to my skin and making me wish…I jerk my wrist from my nose and shove it back down to my side. It doesn’t matter what I wish.
This isn’t a fairytale.
Alpha Ashford keeps going. He hasn’t noticed the commotion at the back of the village square. “Bloodstone thought they could stand against us but we took the fight to them and proved their pack was no match for us, and they never will be. From their number we took our plunder as a reminder of ourplace in the natural order. Their dirty offspring will never be one of us. Death to the unclean!”
It’s not just my heat that makes my cheeks burn hot. It’s the particular mix of rage and embarrassment that marks me like a fresh coat of paint. I’m that stolen fucking plunder. I’m the unclean. The one they want dead.
The pack turns my way but it’s not just me they look at, not just me they whisper about now because I’m not the only orphan brought back to Frostclaw. Wolf or not, Alpha Ashford is bringing all the Bloodstone orphans into the moon rites. We’re all here in the square for the pack to take their anger out on. The other orphans shift uneasily, moving like they want to hide and it’s in this moment that I know they understand me. Right now, they’re just like me. No better, no worse, just the same.
How sad it is that I don’t feel so alone because of it?
“And it is on this night, this blessed night, that we honor the sacrifices and victories of Frostclaw Pack! Tonight we give in to our beast! Tonight we will run, feast and fuck!”
I don’t know who starts it but some jackass starts a chant of ‘Death to the Orphans’ and all it takes is for another moon-touched jackass to pick it up before the entire pack runs with it. The chant rings through the square and echoes off the flagstone pavement and stone buildings. I see Maud look around, her brow is pinched and I know she disapproves of the chant. From the looks of it she’s not the only Elder out of the nine standing behind Alpha Ashford that object. I pull my sweaty cardigan closer to my shaking body and try to catch Maud’s eye. I’m going to make a break for it, head right back to her hut and try to ride my heat out. I’ll catch a beating for missing my work for the day but I’d rather that happen than I sink any deeper into my heat out here with the rest of the pack.
Disgust washes over me. Oh Luna what if I…what if I lose control and beg for an Alpha? No.I refuse.I won’t beg for aFrostclaw Alpha. My stomach clenches and I almost throw up just thinking about one of the Alphas that’s tormented me for years touching me. Even if I’m to go through my first heat without my mate and wolf-less, I refuse to shred what little pride I have to my name by begging for one of these Alpha’s knots.
