Chapter Two
Once in the faint sunlight within the Temple, Sorin rose on his hind legs and loomed over the cowering female in his feral form. Running as a beast was the fastest and safest way to travel through the forest.
Ever since the Dark Moon Goddess disappeared over one hundred years ago, the Temple resembled a tomb. The solitude appealed to him. It usually helped him think; however something strange disturbed the place today.
Shaking his mane, he tried to settle his crazed fur. He’d been awake all night tending the sick, and he stank of it.
The strange blue light no longer burned in the sky but he’d tracked an odd, delicate smell to this spot. Something different, something he couldn’t place. It smelled female, and she now crouched behind the altar. Screaming.
His ears folded back against his furred head as he continued to bare his canines at the female. Slim and tall, she remained in her civil form. Odd—she should have shifted at his challenge. She wore a well-tailored jacket that fell to her knees. He’d never seen cloth so clean and white. Her doe-brown hair was pinned in a strange manner, twisted behind her head. Inhaling her scent through his mouth, he tried to taste her pack, but couldn’t find anything.
Leaves rustled behind him as Peder, one of his pack’s omegas, crept through the bush and entered the Temple. Sorin shouldn’t have favorites, but if he did, Peder would be one.
The thin, wiry shifter glanced at him and ducked his head when their eyes met. Sorin’s father had been hard on the weaker members of the pack. Five years since the bastard’s death, and still none of them would meet his gaze, even after all the effort to place his omegas at ease.
He normally wouldn’t have dragged an omega from the pack on this type of journey, but he had to leave what healthy hunters remained to guard the den. Peder had to wolf up and take a more dominant role today.
For a little thing, the female sure could make a lot of noise. “Shush, you’ll attract every creature within earshot.” He had to shout so she could hear him as he stepped around the altar.
Her eyes widened to the size of the giant pink blooms adorning the Temple. All the color drained from her face. Flailing her arms around, she tangled them in the thorny vines growing on the walls. “You can speak?”
He winced. Those thorns could poke through the toughest hides but she didn’t seem to notice them piercing her delicate skin. Thin streams of blood trailed over her pale flesh. “By my hairy arse, female, what are you so afraid of?” He reached to untangle her, but she shrank away, deeper into the vines.
Her limbs trembled, and the scent of her fear almost choked him.
His ears shot up. “You’re afraid of me?” He sniffed her again and sneezed at her strange odor. She didn’t carry a shifter’s scent marks and definitely wasn’t a bloodsucker. What kind of female traveled alone?
Shifters stuck together. It was instinct. He couldn’t imagine any of his females leaving pack lands by themselves.
Maybe she was an outcast from her race? Eorthe held many species. The female could have wandered into their forest by accident. Being unmarked meant anyone could claim her, and that always meant trouble: challenges between males, jealousy among the females, dominance ranking shit. His pack had enough problems.
His heavy heart sank. He’d come to the Temple with Peder to gather the blue flowers that grew on these lands to help the Apisi, his small pack. An illness had set its deadly sights on them. Something invisible, something he couldn’t fight with tooth and claw. The fever was burning through his people, who now had no healer as Sorin had buried their pregnant healer just this morning. Before she passed she’d told him to gather more of these flowers to fight the fever since she’d used the last of her stores, and others still fell ill.
Then this stranger had fallen from the blue light in the sky above his head.
“What are you?” the female asked.
He glanced over his shoulder to make sure she was speaking to him. “I—I’m a wolf shifter, alpha of the Apisi.” Taking a slow step forward, he sniffed close to her body. “What in creation are you?” Now that he stood only a few inches from her, he could see her un-callused hands, as if she’d never seen a single day’s hard work. No scars on the exposed skin of her neck and face. Apparently, she’d never fought for dominance either. Even her fine, tailored clothes appeared too rich for the area.
She struggled to free her arms but only made things worse. “What?” Cocking her head to the side, she stared at him. “I’m human.”
“Stay still.” He snapped the order. Sorin released his retractable claws on one hand, sliced the vines, and freed her arms. “I’ve never heard of hu-man. You must live farther south from the vampires.” So he’d been following the scent of a human.
She clutched her neck with shaky hands. “Vampires?” Her gaze never left his claws as he slowly sliced her legs free.
Once done, he gave her space. Her fear scent excited his beast since fright usually accompanied prey. He tapped his foot, his claws clicking against the stone floor. “What are you doing on Temple lands?”
“I’m lost.” The human spoke so softly he had to strain to hear. She kept glancing between him and golden-furred Peder as if waiting for one of them to pounce.
He tried not to stare so hard. Soft creatures didn’t survive in the wild long, and this female was filled with all different kinds of softness. He sighed. “Did you see the blue light?” All he had wanted was a few moments of peace. Instead, he found…her.
“No, where was it?” She sidestepped toward the Temple exit.
“Right above our heads, not long ago.” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know how you missed it.” Since she fell out of it. He’d seen her limp form tumbling in the air from the light just before it winked out.
She trembled, and her scent changed. “I—I—oh yeah, the blue light. Weird phenomenon. Scared the shit out of me.” She quickened her steps to the exit. “I should be heading home.”
“How?” The scent of her untruths grew stronger. Everyone knew you couldn’t lie to shifters. Why was she trying? “You just said you were lost. Will you wander unaccompanied through our forests until someone worse than me finds you?”
Peder quietly stepped behind her to block the exit. He might be submissive for a male, but he was smarter than most and could work without guidance. Sorin would make a hunter of him if it was the last thing he did.
The human blinked her large brown eyes, such an unusual color. Everyone he knew had amber, blue or green eyes, never the rich darkness of mother earth. Life came from the earth, which was why they returned their dead to it. Did this human bring life with her?
“Maybe the Goddess sent her?” Peder’s softly spoken question quieted Sorin’s doubts.
Fanning his ears, Sorin stepped closer to her. “Did she send you?” What little hope he’d sheltered for his people had vanished this morning when he’d spoken the burial rites over the graves. This stranger shed some light through his despair.
She shook her head. “N-no.”
“You will return with me.” Sent from the Goddess or not, he couldn’t afford to take any chances by letting her go. So much for not dragging an unmarked female to his den. It would make hunting and defense that much harder since his healthy hunters would strut through their canyon home and beat each other senseless over a stray.
Her gaze darted to the doorway just before she slipped under his arm and past Peder’s reach. Swift as a jackrabbit, she scrambled down the stairs and squeezed into the thick brush surrounding the Temple.
As he watched her escape, Sorin shook his head. He really was tired. Too many sleepless nights in a row were affecting his reflexes. The odd blue light, her sudden appearance and his need for a miracle were too coincidental.
He pointed at Peder. “Go get the flowers and bring them to Lailanie. I’ll take care of the female.”
“Chasing will only frighten her more, Alpha.” Peder still stared at the floor, but at least he offered his advice without being coerced.
“What would you have me do? Let some other pack have her?”
“No, just don’t be so…intimidating.” He pointed to his exposed teeth with his claws. “Try not thinking she’s prey.”
“Go get the fucking flowers, Peder. I promise not to eat her.” He leapt from the stone steps and skirted brush too dense for him to enter. The sly female wedged easily into the smaller spaces where he couldn’t pursue with his bulk, but the brush didn’t lead anywhere. It only surrounded the Temple foundation. She was trapped.
Crouching low to the ground, he moved along the thick wall of plants. His little prey made enough noise that even the youngest of pups could track her. With ears fanned open, he followed her progress. The birds started their songs again as he got to the far end of the area.
By the Dark Moon, she moved slowly. He could have taken a nap while waiting. He watched Peder head toward their home with a small sack of flowers. The rustling in the bushes drew closer, and Sorin gathered his energy to pounce.
From out of the brush snapped a young sapling, which whipped the sensitive tip of his nose. With a yelp, Sorin fell back, clamping his hands over his muzzle. Through pain-filled eyes, he watched the female tear across the open ground.
Sorin blinked to clear his vision and bounded after his suddenly fast quarry. Her white coat fluttered behind her like a treaty flag, but this female didn’t show any signs of surrender.
She ran full-tilt up the hill toward its summit.
Trailing closer, he could smell the trace of border markings on the wind. If he didn’t hurry, she’d run off the neutral ground of Temple lands and onto some other pack’s territory. He couldn’t follow if she did. “Stop! There’s danger that way.”
She twisted and glanced at him, not watching her step. Something caught her foot at the top of the hill and she fell.
Sorin leaped, reaching with clawed fingers. They pierced the hem of her white jacket.The delicate material tore along the sharp edges of his claws, and the shreds slipped through his fingers. Relief mixed with triumph, pumping through his veins, gave way to dread. He scrambled to grab the tatters and not lose the female, but the momentum of her flight downhill sent her tumbling head-over-heels out of his grasp.
A cry echoed over the quiet forest of Payami lands. Kele spun toward the sound. It came from the direction of the hills, off their path.
Her guards, in feral form, tightened the circle around her. They perked their ears forward as low growls rumbled in their chests.
The thick forest blocked her view. She couldn’t see who cried out. Shoving past the males, she headed toward the noise.
Ahote, her primary guard, blocked her way. “We’re to take you to the Temple and the Temple only.” He gestured at the overgrown path that connected their den and their place of worship.
Well, her place of worship. Not many of the pack prayed anymore.
“I’ll send someone to investigate.” He gestured to another of the males.
She glanced at each of her four guards. It wasn’t their fault she needed protection. Her defective body made her weak. Not being able to shift to feral form, stuck as a civilian, left her defenseless in the wilds. Traveling in the forest was safer as a beast, with sharp teeth and claws to fight. Until she figured out her trigger to change shape, she’d need guards whenever leaving the pack’s den.
But she rapped her knuckles on the tip of Ahote’s nose anyway. If she let him boss her around, the others would eventually start. Her place in pack hierarchy was a constant battle. Even her own mother didn’t know how to treat her. “I’m not ignoring a cry for help. They might be hurt.” As daughter of the Payami alpha couple, Kele was due more respect, but the fact she couldn’t shift confused everyone’s instincts.
Ahote’s ears folded back and he moved aside, not breaking eye contact. A quiet growl stirred in his chest as she passed him. It was difficult to ignore the huge, black beast, but if she showed even the slightest scent of fear he’d attack her.
With practiced ease, she slowed her heart rate and kept breathing in a steady rhythm. Any of her guards could tear her to pieces, but she needed to believe they wouldn’t. The only thing stopping them was her overprotective father.
Pushing past the bushes, Kele inhaled. A strange odor blew in the wind, mild and floral.
Not far from the path, a female in civil form lay on the ground at the bottom of the hill. She rested just over the Payami territory line, marked every four days by her father’s scent.
The female sat and gaped at them. Leaves and twigs clung to her brown hair. What used to be a white coat was twisted around her torso.
Kele halted in her tracks.
A massive, silver-furred male raced down the hill toward them.
For a second, Kele lost control of her fear as her heart took flight. He was big—bigger than her father. This boded ill. Packs were not allowed on each other’s territories without an invitation from the alpha.
Her guards charged forward, blocking the strange shifter’s path across their border.
The male slid to a stop but his feet remained on Temple ground. Barely. “She belongs to me.” He leaned forward and confronted Ahote nose-to-nose.
Kele knelt next to the female. “Are you injured?” The female had a traumatized expression. “Did he hurt you?”
She stared at the feral males and grabbed Kele’s hand, her eyes never wavering from the beasts.
Sniffing, Kele tried to detect any scent of abuse. Small amount of blood from minor scrapes. Nothing major. No smell of sex either. Actually, the female smelled very clean, of soap and flowers and more importantly, no scent markers declared her attachments. Not even a pack’s.
“She clearly isn’t yours.” Rising, she stepped between the female and all the males. Unmarked females were a rare commodity. Females were always in demand. Between childbirth and illness, their numbers were less.
Ahote turned, his nostrils flaring as his ears came forward and fanned in surprise. “She doesn’t carry anyone’s scent.”
Kele sighed as all her guards twisted toward the runaway female. Nice. An unmarked female surrounded by a bunch of unmated males. Even though her father kept assigning unmated guards to protect her in hopes one might claim her, no male ever had. Her natural gift to ward off mating interest was an unwanted talent.
She growled her own warning to back off. Not very impressive coming from her in civil form; however something had to be done before their intelligence dropped and they began to think with their cocks. Mating challenges could be bloody.
The silver-furred male crossed his arms over his chest. “She’s not a shifter, which is why she’s free of marks. She calls herself a hu-man.” He snarled at her guards. “I found her first. The Goddess sent her to me.”
If she could be in feral form, Kele’s ears would have perked. “You still worship the Goddess?” She’d thought most shifters either prayed to the vampires’ God or didn’t pray at all.
The strange shifter eyed her from head to foot and kept silent.
“Do you have proof?” Kele raised an eyebrow.
“She fell from a blue light in the sky. Ask her.” He pointed to the unmarked female, who rose to her feet and stood close to Kele’s back.
“Did the Goddess send you?” Kele asked. The blue light was the reason for the trek. Guards watching the entrance to their den reported seeing it burn in the sky above Temple lands. Her parents had sent her to investigate.
The female blinked, her gaze traveling from Kele to the strange male. “I—I don’t know. All gods work in mysterious ways, don’t they?”
Kele didn’t smell any lies. “Did you fall from a blue light?”
Wringing her hands, the female backed away. “Yes,” she whispered.
Kele’s breath caught in her chest. “Truly?” She looked at the strange male once more for confirmation and approached him. He easily towered two feet above her short frame, but she was practiced in how to hold her ground. “She’s on Payami ground now, so I lay claim to her.”
Surprised grunts came from her guards.
“You can’t claim her. You’re—you’re female.” The strange male lifted his foot as if to step over the territorial line.
Her guards growled and closed in on him.
Ears folded back, he bared his teeth and stayed on his side of the border.
“Enough of this.” She clapped her hands as if disrupting a puppy squabble. “She’s not a shifter so she’s not part of pack hierarchy. None of you have rights to her. But she’ll be my guest.” She glared at the foreign shifter who acted like an alpha. “Be off.”
The female leaned close. “Thank you.”
“You’ve grown bold, Kele, for someone who can’t shift.” The stranger shook his mane and relaxed his stance. “You don’t possess the power to order me.”
A small muscle ticked along her jaw. This mutt didn’t need to remind her of her impotence. She was quite aware of it. “And who exactly are you?” Especially since he knew so much about her.
Fur melted to tanned skin. The male kept his muscular shape as his animal nature faded and he changed to his civil form. His muzzle and ears reshaped, leaving a rugged, angry face. A pale scar ran across his face to the corner of his lower lip, giving him a perpetual frown.
He didn’t cover his nudity. “Sorin, alpha of the Apisi.” His untidy silver hair hung down his back to his hips.
The female who tumbled down the hill gasped, her tight grip on Kele’s hand weakening as her eyes rolled back. She crumpled to the forest floor.
Kele blinked at the prone body at her feet. What had happened? Did she just die? She knelt, pressed her fingertips to the female’s throat and found a steady, strong pulse.
The ground vibrated with the rising sound of growls.
The alpha had crossed the line and squatted across from her. “Is she hurt?” Sorin brushed a loose strand of hair from the female’s cheek. Concern flashed across his face—so quick Kele wasn’t sure if she’d truly seen it. Dark circles and worry lines made Sorin appear older. Her gut said the female wasn’t the cause of his premature aging.
Ahote went down on all fours behind Sorin. The fur along his spine stood on end, and his bared fangs dripped saliva. He crept closer.
“Wait!” She raised her hands to stop the attack but a second too late.
Sorin twisted in time to meet the assault but her guards were in feral form, and the alpha was outnumbered.
She heard the crack of flesh hitting flesh, and the scent of fresh blood masked all other smells in the area. The fight didn’t last long. Her guards stood over Sorin’s prone, unmoving body and panted.
“You better not have killed him!” The idiots. Her father had no tolerance when it came to trespassers. They were usually beaten and returned to Temple land as a warning. Repeat offenders became omegas of her pack.
But Sorin was an alpha. She shook her head. This was different. Kele had heard the stories about the Apisi, a small pack to the North—too small to be a threat and too crazy to absorb into her pack Her father barely tolerated their existence. She didn’t want them to retaliate over something so insignificant as young males fighting over a female. “Toss him back to neutral ground.”
Ahote returned her stare with his sharp blue eyes. “You sure? Your father may want to speak with him first.”
“About what? It’s not like his pack has anything we want.” Trading for the return of a trespasser was a common practice. Someone had to pay the price of breaking pack law. As an alpha, Sorin should have brought a nice bounty, but she knew his pack was poorer than dirt. She ground her teeth. She wouldn’t risk displeasing her father either. He might protect her from others but he didn’t have a problem tanning her ass. “Fine, bring him.”
She regarded the prone female.
Ahote knelt on the other side of her.
“She fainted. Sorin frightened her, I think.” Kele kept her laughter in check. “I don’t care if the Goddess sent her or not. That’s not a good way to leave an impression on an unmated female.”
Her first guard ran a gentle fingertip over the female’s unmarred cheek. “She acts like she’s never seen a shifter before. Have you ever heard of a hu-man?”
“No.” Kele bent closer to examine the inside of the female’s mouth. “No fangs. Her canines are too small and dull for a shifter.” She rolled her onto her side. “No wings, tail or fins.”
He leaned closer. “The light?”
“That’s why my father sent us.”
“Do you truly think she came from the Goddess?”
“She doesn’t work so openly, Ahote.” She rose to her feet. If the female came from the light, she’d need to question her before anyone else questioned her. Maybe she held the key to freeing Kele from the curse of remaining in civil form.
She assessed the female’s slim shape, a shape that contained a nice touch of extra curves that Kele lacked. “You’ll care for her? Not let these dogs abuse her?”
A snarl escaped Ahote. “But I’m not interested in a permanent mate.”
Kele fought to control a grin at his expression. Ahote could use a little humility. “I know. That’s why it has to be you until I find out more about her.”
He grimaced. “Fine, but you can’t hold it against me if I play with her. This is your idea, not mine.”
“Fair enough.”