AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The sheet slipped over my breasts as I sat up and I let go of a sigh that seemed to release the weight of the world in one sound. An echo of everything failed in my previous life.
The life before my mate.
“Well, I guess we get up and face the world?”
No one answered, but it felt a little less crazy knowing my wolf was there to listen. She answered in her own way. She only wanted her mate.
I, on the other hand, was certain that as much as this was a dream, I needed to follow up on the others. I couldn’t save everyone. I couldn’t stop an entire barbaric practice. But I really, really wanted to save someone from the pain I’d once felt. I still needed to get back to my old pack.I shivered and the fear of the idea hit me.
The beat of my heart seemed to know just how bad of an idea that was.
Mate, stop.
I shivered at the sound of his voice.
Stop what?
The door opened.
“Stop the worry running through your body and come here.”
There was something about him that wouldn’t allow the sadness and worry to linger.
“What had you so worried?”
I pressed into his warm, bare chest.
I didn’t know where he’d been, but the sheen of sweat of his skin and the stronger scent of musky woods told me he might have been working out.
“The girls.” I should have said which girls, but the fact was I was worried about everyone.
“The girls from the compound are taken care of. Some perhaps have even found their mates.”
I pulled away.
“What? No. That’s not okay.”
He smiled down at me and held me still.
“Fated mates, my princess. Fated.”
That word took all the fight in me away.
“Oh, fated. That’s a good thing then. Not forced. And what of my old pack?”
The way he looked at me, seeing more than just the skin and flesh of my body, but rather what felt like my soul, sent a shiver through me.
“They will be here soon enough. I sent my strongest and best to retrieve them. As it turns out, there aren’t many of them left down there.”
My hands ached. The white of my knuckles made me realize I’d been squeezing his poor forearms to near blood. “But they, the Cripple Creek pack, was huge when I was there.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps under a hundred shifters seems large to the smaller packs, but we are several hundred and always growing with new pups. That pack also had deserters. But I promised you. I would keep whoever you needed safe.”
Breathe. I needed to breathe. This was all real.
“I want to say something sarcastic or funny or just anything to deflect. But I can’t. I—Well, thank you.”
He pulled me back into him regardless if I’d wanted to or not.
