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Luna fuckingyes.
CHAPTER16
TAKE THE LEAD
Gem and Ryker keep me company all the way back home.
Home… I still have a hard time believing that I have one. Not just a place I return to to go to sleep, or a place where I keep my stuff before I hit the road again, but a spot where I’m wanted. Where I’m loved.
Where I belong.
I’m so eager to get back that I actually spur the two alphas to go faster. Like me, they ran the distance from Accalia to the Northern Winds Pack. They could’ve driven—there were some roads accessible to the forested pack land—but Ryker isn’t the biggest fan of being in a car. To shifters, closed-in vehicles are like elevators. They remind our beastly halves of cages and most of us avoid them if we can. Gem gets around it by driving a Jeep, but with the Northern Winds Pack only about three hours away by paw, they didn’t bother.
Sometimes even an alpha wolf wants to shake off their responsibility and just run wild in the woods. And I wouldn’t have minded if their running turned in foreplay like Ryker was obviously attempting, but I had a mate of my own to get back to. I kept running ahead, Gem catching up if only because she’s just as protective of me as Aleks is.
Poor Ryker. I didn’t mean to cockblock him, but it’s been days since I touched my mate. He had Gem last night. He could make it a couple of hours.
Then again, maybe not.
The second the three of us reached the neutral zone between Muncie and Accalia, the big wolf snapped his jaws playfully at Gem’s tail, guiding her up the mountain. She yipped, whirling on her, forcing him to stumble at her speed, but she didn’t mind. Taking advantage of his stumble, she broke for the trees, knowing that her mate will always chase her.
Just like mine.
As Ryker disappeared into the woods behind Gem, I gave them a full-throated howl. It was both a ‘thank you’ and a ‘goodbye’. My tongue lolled, my wolf doing a chuffing sort of laugh as Ryker’s return howl sounds impatient, Gem’s teasing. It’s amazing how a shifter’s howl can be so many things, mean so many things, and I’m grateful to have them near.
I might always be a lone wolf. I might never join another shifter pack. At least I know that, when I need them, I always have two strong alphas close by to remind me that I’m still a she-wolf. I’m part of an amazing supe community. Most importantly, I don’t have to be lonely.
And I’m not. How can I be? Because, standing just a foot or two past the border of the Fang City, his pale eyes gleaming in the afternoon sunlight, his arms crossed over his delicious chest… his aura reaching out toward me, wrapping me up in his essence though he hasn’t moved… is my mate.
Luna, he’s fuckinggorgeous. I should be used to it by now, but after the time away, I’m struck all over again by him. This beautiful male is mine.
It’s not just his outer beauty that has me slowly padding toward him, stunned to see him waiting for me. Sure, the caramel-colored curls and sculpted features don’t hurt, but it’s who he is that makes him irresistible. Thoughtful. Caring. Protective. Wildly jealous and a brutal killer; both things that are a plus to a shifter. Devoted. And maybe he’s also secretive and haughty, and he always thinks he knows what’s best, but no one’s perfect. Aleks isn’t.
But he’s perfect for me.
Once I start toward him, he uncrosses his arms. Dropping his knee to the dirt, he throws them wide open. Pure joy fills my chest like an overinflated balloon. My padding because I sprint as my wolf races to get within his arms.
He closes them around me, running his chilled fingers through my fur, nuzzled the top of my head with his chin. He rubs his cheek with the side of my muzzle. As if he’d been holding his breath the entire time I was gone, he exhales roughly, fluttering the fur near my neck as he holds my wolf tightly.
“Ah, ksiezyca.” He presses a kiss to the space between my ears. “Welcome home, my beloved.”
My wolf preens under his loving attention.
Look at that. I guess I’m perfect for him, too.
* * *
It takesa little convincing for my wolf to let me give control back to my human side. Both of us recognize that Aleks is our mate, but because he’s a vampire who doesn’t have a four-legged form, I definitely spend more time with him with two legs. Now that she’s getting all of his attention, she’s hesitant to give it up. She has too, though. Aleks might be the head vamp in Muncie, but I don’t want to cause him any trouble when locals start to wonder why a white wolf is strolling around the city.
Promising her that she’ll get another chance to snuggle with our vampire soon, my wolf steps back. Once I’m sure no one is around except my mate, I shift, then grab a dress from my duffel bag. From the charge in the aura when Aleks gets a look at my naked body, I almost expect him to forget that we’re just outside of the safety of his territory.
He has better control than I do. I was about to offer to take him in the woods for a quick and frantic mating when Aleks snags my hand, pulling me into him, and whispering in a ragged voice, “My God, ksiezyca. I can’t fucking wait to get you back home.”
Me, neither.
Aleks grabs my duffel, still holding tightly to my hand. On the walk back to the apartment, he grills me on every detail about the meeting with the Alphas. Relief flashes across his face as soon as he hears that they won’t be bothering me again. I know then that Aleks’s boast—that he would tear out a thousand throats to keep me safe—was no idle one. My fierce protector really would’ve gone up against the Alpha collective for me.
Luna, that’s so fucking sexy.
