“From your lips to fate’s ears,” Solan murmured, looking out into the trees but not really seeing anything but the morning light playing shadows on the ground.
Cinder called Adam’s name from inside the house.
“On my way, baby,” he said.He dumped out the rest of his coffee.“Keep your wits about you, but don’t shut out the possibilities.The equinox is about new beginnings, right?Embrace it.”
“Sure.”
Solan stepped off the porch and walked toward the security building to check in with Linus and let him know he’d be heading to the bluffs Friday night.
He wasn’t thinking about finding his truemate or the weird nip in the air that felt electric and not at all related to the weather.He had security to think about, sensors and cameras to check, and schedules to create.Today, like tomorrow, would be another day on duty.And yet—he could feel some sort of promise in his bones, a whisper of good things to come.
By dinnertime, he’d checked in with Linus, made one last trek around the town, and ensured the next shift headed out on time.He’d seen nothing at all on his shift.No suspicious persons.No sign of H.A.S.No reason for his wolf to keep poking at him from the inside all day, ever since he’d met with Adam that morning.
His friend’s talk about finding his truemate had awakened thoughts he’d kept quiet for a long time.
He headed home when the sun dipped low, the porch creaking as he walked up to the front door of his modest two-bedroom ranch.Most of the time, he didn’t mind coming home to an empty house, but for whatever reason, it bothered him tonight.
After heating up a meal that one of the she-wolf caretakers in the pack had left for him in the fridge, he sat at the counter and ate while he scrolled social media and pondered the night ahead.He could grab some single males and head to Lykos, the shifter-friendly bar, for a few drinks and find a willing female to snuggle up to.But something about that scenario didn’t appeal to him, so he didn’t reach out to anyone.
After dinner, he changed into sweatpants and dropped onto the couch, exhausted to the core from being on his feet all day.He closed his eyes for a moment with a yawn, and then he was out like a light, his past rising up like a dream.
He always thought of his parents on the night that the attack happened.The way the moonlight made everything glow, and the way the desert air always smelled like heat, even when it had cooled down.He was young, just a kid, the son of alphas, part of a small, mostly family pack.
He didn’t have many memories of them because they’d been killed by usurpers when he was four.Mostly, he had feelings.Warmth.Security.Love.
It had all been taken from him in a heartbeat, and he’d never even gotten a chance to say goodbye.
Solan gasped awake and found himself still on the couch.His living room came into focus as the moonlight streamed in through the open windows, painting everything with pale light.His chest was pounding, and his wolf was humming under his skin.
He hadn’t dreamed about his parents in ages, and those times he never woke up feeling happy.He always seemed to focus on the loss and the terror of the nights that had followed their deaths.
He’d come to Ohio from the southwest, orphaned and scared.A she-wolf named Nila had taken him in.She eventually mated with Lit, the alpha, and they treated him like family, training him to protect the pack.
Maybe the equinox was going to bring something new into his life, and maybe that new thing would be his mate.Perhaps the loneliest nights he’d had were in the past now, and he could finally move forward with his life instead of spinning his proverbial wheels.
Was something awakening in the world or just in him?
Was tomorrow the start of something or just otherworldly shenanigans that had nothing to do with him?
Whatever the case, he’d be ready.
Hopefully.
ChapterThree
Kaeli’s mind had been aching in a dull sort of way during the last hour of the trip as the bus pulled into the station in downtown Cleveland.The brakes squealed loudly as it shuddered to a stop, as if it were protesting the fact that it had to be there.
She stood and shouldered her purse, checking to make sure she’d left nothing behind in the seat, and then followed the few passengers out.
The sun was going down, and coolness swept through the lot.She tucked her hands inside her hoodie sleeves and waited for the driver to pull the bags from the cargo hold.When she saw her dark pink suitcase, she grabbed it by the handle and pulled it behind her as she made her way into the station to use the bathroom.
On the GPS app on her phone, she saw that the Cleveland Mother Earth Store was a mere fifteen minutes away by car.It was the coven’s supply shop and headquarters, and where the Corners were most likely to be the day before the Equinox.
Since it wasn’t that far away, she walked out of the station and waved at a taxi instead of calling a rideshare vehicle, and told the man behind the wheel where she was going.
“Don’t hex me,” he said with a bold laugh as he pulled from the curb.
“I promise I won’t,” she said.
