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“You are absolutely perfect,”I say again. I keep saying it, keep thinking about it.
She completes me, fills places in my life I didn’t know was lacking, and as she comes up to my left side, a step back so she lines up with my shoulder, we step forward to hunt without another thought. She moves with me, our minds connected, traveling as one unit as I search for any sign of prey.
“Cole would lose his mind if he saw me hunting, never mind who I’m with. ‘We have to protect our females,’ he would say. ‘There's no use in taking unnecessary risks. ‘Learn from the elder females, they will teach you everything you need to know as a mother.’”
Ruby as a mother? She could already be one as we speak… My mind races at the thought, imagining her as a mother. The mother of my children. Mine and no one else's. I growl under my breath, possessively hovering closer to her, and she looks at me from the corner of her eye.
“Is that what it’s like in your pack?”she asks and I almost laugh. Imagining Ryder telling Rachel what she can and cannot do is like watching the wind tell the mountain to get out of its way. Eventually the mountain will erode, but not before it comes crashing down on everything around it in a path of destruction unlike anything the wind, or Ryder, could imagine.
“In my pack it’s more equal, the females have important jobs just like the men. Then there are some females who don’t. Everyone has something they are best at. Grace, the mother of the missing kid, is a kind and welcoming person. She works at the gas station and cheers everyone up when they see her. She is also an amazing mother, raising her children with a gentle and loving hand.
“Rachel, on the other hand…”I snort a little, almost like a laugh,“The only one more powerful than her would be her brother, Ryder, our Alpha. She runs the show when he’s not around, and everyone looks to her in situations that aren't so serious as to distract the Alpha.”
I can sense a growing irritation in Ruby, almost jealousy, but she pads along beside me and listens keenly to what I say.
“They truly sound amazing, your pack,”she says simply, sniffing the air and scanning the horizon of pine trees and sparkling white snow.“They make the Silver Dawn sound almost like a convent of nuns. Prattling away inside our houses praying and cleaning and learning. I can speak three different languages but I’ve never been looked to for advice. I can tell you everything on the periodic table but I’ve never caught my own meal.”
“I don’t think there's a single female in Dark Moon who can do either of those things. Every woman, whether in Silver Dawn or Dark Moon, has their strengths. Yours have just been developed differently. Now I know that if I ever need a translator my mate has my back, and if I ever need to know the chemical composition of salt—”
A cloud of fluffy white snow hits me in the face and I stop and sputter, crouching to the ground and using my paws to push the frozen fluff away from my eyes.
When I can see again Ruby is watching me over her shoulder with mischief in her eyes.“Don’t patronize me, enemy.”She smirks, and as soon as I try to stand she flicks her tail in the snow and hits me with another wave of fresh powder.
“Oh, you wanna play, do you?”I growl playfully, laying on my front legs with my tail in the air, and watch her expression go from mischievous to downright devious. She jumps at me, sliding in the snow and covering me with so much thick powder that for a minute the shock of the cold has me frozen in place.“Why you little…”
I shake the layer of white off my fur and pounce, but she’s too quick. Her smaller body gives her the advantage even though mine is almost fully healed. She darts out of my path and runs up a nearby hill and sits.
Ruby laughs into my mind while her tongue hangs out the side of her mouth and she pants excitedly.“Catch me if you can, my mate!”she dares, and darts away, disappearing into the trees.
A hunt is it? Like my dream? My excitement turns to dark determination. I’ll catch her, and unlike my dream, I won't have to wake up when I’m about to mate her.
I sink low to the ground, crawling on my belly up the hill. She’s never been hunting, definitely never been hunted. She won’t know what hit her. I track her relentlessly through the trees, moving with the shadows to hide my dark coat. The sun is high above us and blanketing the forest floor with mottled darkness, perfect for me to hide in.
Several moments go by, the whole time she’s in my line of sight, but I stay downwind. I sense her excitement turn to concern as she thinks she lost me. She didn’t want to truly lose me. She starts walking back, sniffing the air, her beautiful white coat so thick and lush that the freezing wind that stirs her fur only adds to her serene beauty.
I send an image of herself into her mind, and then the image of what I plan to do when I catch her. I watch her body shudder with excitement, her tail wagging openly. She sniffs the air again, raising a paw to step forward when I leap out of the shadows and tackle her. We roll one over the other, snarling and snapping playfully. I nip her leg and she yips and tries to kick me, but I roll her on her belly and mount her.
Playfulness turns to burning desire as strong as the ocean tide. Before I can even line up she’s raised herself to me, whimpering in excitement. She wants this, wants me, surely this is what she had planned all along. I lean forward and bite gently onto her scruff as she tucks her tail to the side for me. When I slip inside her it’s an entirely different kind of wonderful. Mating in our wolf forms is primal, desperate, and carnal. Gone is the tender caresses and the slow penetration, the way I’m fucking her is wild and intense.
Her whimpers and growls of excitement send me over the edge, making me tumble dangerously closer to my own release, when a shift in the wind has us both frozen in place.
The smell of old death and a thick musk of danger floods my senses.
The moment is gone. The coming release is so far away now that it seems as if it never existed. I shift off of Ruby, coming to stand in front of her while I scent the air and growl low in my throat. A threat for anything that dares come near us.
“I smell death! An animal! Easy food!”Ruby squeals in delight, her moment of need passing as the greater need takes over her senses. She’s starving, desperate for food, and before I can stop her she darts by me and runs blindly towards the smell of her next meal.
“Ruby, no! Stop!”I leap after her, begging her to listen.
I know what that predatorial smell is, but she’s probably never been within miles of such terrible danger. She doesn’t recognize what she’s running towards. Her mind is full of the thought of a fallen animal, dead in the snow, and how hungry she is. She darts blindly through a thicket and I lose sight of her, panicking. I rush forward, hindered by my injured leg and burst through the thicket just in time to watch her dart into a cave nestled under a fallen tree.
“Get out of there!”I roar, but it comes out as a guttural terrified howl.
I know what’s in that cave, and Ruby just ran right into the jaws of death. I hear her yelp, feel her fear spike, and my mind goes dark with rage. I race forward, not worried about my leg anymore, and watch her back out with her tail tucked, whimpering.
I dart between her and the cave as the largest grizzly bear I’ve ever encountered roars from inside and steps out. The beast lumbers towards us, massive shoulders shaking with fury. It roars again, standing on its hind legs and dwarfing us beneath its massive size. This creature is unlike any bear I’ve ever seen, its thick fur is covered in scars. I see wolf marks, cougar marks, dog bites and even gunshots. This is not an everyday grizzly, this is an ancient beast, a behemoth, a survivor.
“When I attack, you run. Keep running. Don’t turn around. I’ll find you,” I order, crouching down, prepared to lunge.
