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Vorn kept struggling to free himself until he finally passed out. I placed his head on the ground, and he shifted back to his human form. I turned to face the Beta and the Alpha, bowing my head; they each bowed theirs to me—my chest heaving from the exertion of the match. I grabbed my forearm to apply pressure to it to stop the bleeding, the high of the adrenaline fading and the wounds hurting more than before.
“Victory goes to Nolen!” The Alpha shouted, a beaming smile on his face. Beta Adam was pleased as well; I mean, he should’ve been—he had been my instructor since I got here.
The crowd erupted into a roar as they rose to their feet, jumping and stomping. I glanced around and noticed Amora gazing down at me. Sarge’s emotions raged with mine after our battle with Vorn. I felt my eyes flicker, and I knew she saw it because her face turned to shock. I turned from her, picked up my shirt, and walked off the sparring field.
Sawyer caught up with me after almost making it back to the packhouse. I had my shirt over my arm, keeping the blood from trailing behind me. The minor cuts on my back tingled as they healed; the one on my arm was extremely painful after all the adrenaline subsided. Sarge lay curled up in the back of my mind. Sawyer clapped me on the shoulder, bringing my attention to him. “Hey, man, are you not going to go to the doc?”
“No, it’s clotting now,” I told him as I walked up to my room. He continued to follow me, and I realized he wanted to ask me something. I walked into my bathroom, threw my shirt in the dirty laundry basket, and turned on the faucet at the sink to run warm water over the wound. It wasn’t deep enough for stitches, but I needed to use some steri-strips to hold it together until it healed, or should I say Sarge healed the gaping wound. Sawyer continued to lean up against the doorway, waiting for me to elaborate on what I had said.
“I think you need to let me in on your little secret, man. There is no way that you could’ve done what you did without a wolf.” He didn’t sound pissed, but he could very well be. Sawyer had a knack for controlling his emotions.
I glanced up at him through the mirror and sighed; I pulled a rag from the rack and put pressure on the wound again, leaning up against the sink counter as I inspected him, trying to gauge his emotions. “It’s because I already have him. I just can’t shift till I turn eighteen.”
“You mean you could have beat my ass this entire time but you chose not to?” Sawyer’s mouth opened wide in shock as he eyed me. He didn’t look pissed, but like I said, he was good at holding in his emotions.
“No, Sarge only helps if I need him to.”
“So, can you find your mate now?”
“No, unless she is not in this pack. But no, I don’t know who she is yet.”
Sawyer pondered something as we both stood there in my bathroom. The tingling on my back faded and started again on my arm. It was so weird that I could heal like this now, but it would still scar since I didn’t fully have my wolf. “What is it like to have him in your head?”
“I don’t know; I mean, at first it was weird because I could only hear him. But as time went on, I could start to see some of him.” Shrugging my shoulders, I glanced over at him, wondering if he remembered when I outwardly rolled my eyes.
“How long have you had him?” I could tell the wheels in his mind were running over the last few years we had been friends, if I had changed and if there were clues that he had missed.
“Since the rogue attack.”
“Why did you not tell me? I thought we were friends?”
“We are, Sawyer, but at that time, I didn’t really understand what was happening. I was kind of nervous about the whole thing. Plus, I had only been here for a couple of months and didn’t know how much I could tell anyone.” I felt shitty at that moment for not telling him, but how do you start that conversation?
“It’s cool, man. I mean, I will be shifting in a year. What’s cool is you will still be here when I do, and you can give me pointers.” He chuckled as he pushed off the doorframe.
“Yeah. That will be cool. But then after that I have to leave. It’ll be kind of weird when I go back to my pack.” There was no doubt that it would be weird. They all hated me and didn’t want me to be their alpha. We stood there for a moment, letting the silence take over. I took the rag off my arm, and a small scar where the wound had been had developed.
Sawyer’s eyes went to the scar on my chest before coming back to meet mine. He had that mischievous grin on his face like he was fixing to suggest some crazy off-the-wall adventure. “Why don’t we go get some tats.”
“We can’t, we aren’t old enough yet.” I had always wanted to get a tattoo, but I didn’t know of anyone that would do tats since for most human shops, you had to be eighteen and provide proof you were. Otherwise, they would turn you away.
Sawyer shrugged as he crossed his arms, the grin still plastered on his face. “I know one of the artists, plus he’s a werewolf. So he’ll be willing to tat us up.”
I thought about it and then nodded. What was it going to hurt? I mean, now was the perfect opportunity. “Okay, when?”
“How about this weekend?”
“Beta Adam is gonna have our heads.” I laughed and Sawyer laughed with me. I followed him to the doorway of my room. It was late, and we both had to be up to run early in the morning. Just as Sawyer left to go to his room, Amora emerged at the top of the stairs, talking and laughing with her friends.
I couldn’t believe how gorgeous she’d gotten in the three years I’d lived here. She spotted me staring at her, and I glimpsed a blush forming on her cheeks. Amora’s eyes shifted to the scar on my chest before she brought them back up to mine. There had been times when her hand had brushed across it, and I wondered if it disgusted her.
Her friends continued to talk around her as we stared at each other. If I were destined to have my mate reject me, like I realized I would be, I could only dream to convince Amora to be my chosen mate. But then, I didn’t want her to miss out on the love she was fated for. She deserved all the nice things the Moon Goddess gave her. If she were fated to an alpha, she would make an excellent Luna, and if she weren’t, she would be amazing at whatever she was destined to be.
I winked at her, and she gave me a little grin as she passed by my room. I couldn’t believe the confidence I had to make me do that. I closed my door, took the rest of my clothes off, and jumped in the shower. Afterward, I crashed on my bed, falling asleep instantly.
That was the first night I dreamed of Amora; her beautiful eyes tortured me in my sleep. I wanted to be able to stay in that dream with her and never leave.
Chapter Seven: Tattoos
