Chapter Fifteen
Dara fidgeted as Seth waited patiently for him to explain his idea.
“Have you decided to take up knife-throwing to compliment your paint-throwing abilities?” the alpha mused.
He shook his head. “You’re going to fight Zane, right?”
“Right,” Seth said. “It’s an important part of the plan. Unless you think you’d do a better job? The power of the ocelot is not to be underestimated, I hear.”
“An ocelot wouldn’t win against a wolf, probably not even a human one like Zane. Maybe, if I was stronger, if I hadn’t just given birth…”
“Hey.” Seth pressed a warm hand to his arm. “No one is expecting you to take on Zane. That’s not your job.”
“But you’ve decided it’s yours, and I want to help.”
“You are helping. You’re still here. You’re coming with us to the arena. If I was in your position, I’d have run a mile already and be hunkering down somewhere until it all blows over.”
Dara knelt up, face to face with Seth. “I want to help you be who you truly are. I want to give you the one thing I couldn’t give Zane, the one thing that will help you defeat him.”
He saw the moment Seth caught on, the surprise, the flash of longing, before the alpha dampened it down, giving Dara a sad smile.
“Oh, Dara. I feel like I rubbed a lamp and found a genie.”
Then Seth was shaking his head. “I know how Cade gave Hunter back the ability to shift. I understand what it means, what it costs. You can only mate once, can only give that part of yourself to one person. It has to be the right person, at the right time, and for the right reason.”
Dara leaned in, capturing Seth’s lips in a kiss, feeling the heat rising between them.
“You are the right person, this is the right time, and there is no better reason than ensuring you’ll return home safely with our brothers.”
“You’re still healing. We’re leaving for the arena in the morning. We-”
Dara pressed a finger to Seth’s lips, silencing the alpha.
“All I know is that I feel something for you that I’ve never felt for anyone else. I can’t leave here tomorrow knowing that you’re not as strong as you could be because I held back.”
His words seemed to get through to Seth but the alpha stayed silent, his hands wrapped around Dara’s arms.
“You just had a baby, we barely know each other…” Dara could see Seth wanted to say yes but was hesitating.
“Did Hunter tell you exactly how things went between him and Cade?”
“Sort of.”
“So you know the sex can come later.”
“Dara-”
“Please, Seth. Don’t speak, don’t think, just feel.”
He stretched out a hand, laying it across the alpha’s heart.
Seth closed his eyes at the touch, his hand covering Dara’s.
“You’re sure this is what you want,” he whispered, opening his eyes to meet Dara’s gaze.
“I want you,” Dara replied, his voice equally as soft. “I love you. It’s… it’s new, and pure, and a quiet love but there’s no denying it.” He felt it like the embers of a fire glowing inside his heart.
“I never put much thought into falling in love,” Seth said. “I hoped it would happen one day but I never thought about who or why or how. And then, when I started to feel it, I didn’t want to acknowledge it. There’s so much happening right now. Love needs time and space to grow. At least, I thought it did. But then I met you and love just kind of squeezed its way in.”
“You can feel it?” Dara murmured, his hand pressed tight to Seth’s chest. A wave of heat washed over him and a shudder ran through Seth.
“I feel it,” Seth assured him. “And I can feel my wolf.”
Dara knelt up, holding his hand in place and kissing the wolf harder as if trying to meld them together. Seth wrapped an arm around him, bringing them closer.
“How does this work?” he asked as they clung to each other. “Hunter wasn’t that specific.”
Cade hadn’t been that clear when relating it to Dara either. “Um, I think we keep doing what we’re doing. It’s an instinct thing.”
“Well then, I hope we’ve got good instincts,” Seth rumbled with a laugh. “Because mine are telling me to kiss you and never let go.”
“I love you,” Dara said again, nuzzling his nose against Seth’s.
“Love you, too,” Seth said with a sigh, his lips finding Dara’s again.
“Ready?” Dara asked.
“Ready when you are.”
Seth hadn’t known what to expect from the creation of their bond. Dara’s hand on his chest was searing with heat, a heat that pushed into him. It drew something inside him to the surface. Something long lost, long dormant. Something with teeth.
At first, he tried to resist, tried to push it back down. No. He wasn’t ready. But then he thought about Dara, about the omega who’d arrived into his life with a bang, whose scent and touch were driving him to distraction. Dara was his and Seth needed to keep him safe. And protect his brother, and his pack, from danger. From Zane.
He stopped fighting, stopped resisting, and let the change wash over him, his heart beating in time with Dara’s.
It was the strangest sensation, starting with a tingling in his arms and legs, spreading through his body, before becoming something much more. His whole self changed, mind and body, leaving him standing on four paws, Dara kneeling in front of him, his eyes wet with tears but shining with happiness and awe.
“You… you’re magnificent.”
Seth had thought he’d feel strange, feel weird, but he didn’t. He felt right, at home. This was who he was, who he’d always been. He just hadn’t been able to show it.
He felt a surge of energy and longed to run, to bound across the grass, through the river, on and on until he could run no more. But he didn’t want to run alone.
Turning back to Dara, he nudged the omega insistently. Dara grinned and stroked a hand along his flank. “It worked, I can’t believe it.”
Seth nudged him again, grabbing his sleeve between his teeth and tugging sharply before letting go and pacing a few feet away, waiting.
“I get it,” Dara said. “You want some company.”
He glanced down at himself. “I’m not so impressive as all that. Ocelots aren’t exactly the king of the jungle.”
Seth walked back, whining and nudging at him again. Dara was his. To him, he’d always be the most impressive shifter in the room.
Dara flushed and nodded. “Okay, give me a second.”
And then there was a beautiful, striped cat in front of him. He was smaller than Seth’s shifter form but he could not have been mistaken for a domestic cat. They nuzzled noses again, Seth taking in Dara’s changed scent and his form. He let Dara scent him too. And then they ran.
It was like nothing Seth had ever felt. The wind whipping through his fur, the ground racing past as his four feet thumped against the ground, over and over. Dara kept pace with him, his movements different; sleeker but no less powerful.
When Seth crashed into the river, wading right in, Dara paused on the bank. Seth almost laughed. Typical cat, not wanting to get wet. Dara did follow him in eventually, bounding closer as the water swirled around them.
Seth tried to take everything in, catching his reflection in the water on and off as he scented the air, the night seeming more alive than it ever had. And Dara… Dara was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen, more alive than anyone Seth had ever met. There was magic in the air around them. Magic and wonder and things Seth had thought were long gone.
They changed back on the bank of the river, the water washing away any trace of their animal scents. Seth caught sight of the bonding mark in the shape of a wolf’s paw on Dara’s back, falling to his knees and framing the mark with his hands before kissing it reverently.
“We’re part of each other now.”
He stood and Dara turned around to face him.
“How do you feel?” Dara asked, rocking back and forth on his feet, seeming anxious.
“Better than I’ve ever felt. Whole. Whole for the first time ever. Is this what being a shifter feels like? I feel strong. I feel like I know who I am.” He paused, taking in Dara dripping wet next to him. “And you. I feel like I know you, inside and out.”
Dara smiled, dropping his gaze. “Do you like what you see?”
Seth took two steps toward him, cupping his cheek. “You are beautiful, every part of you. But we should get you inside before you freeze.”
He put his arm around Dara’s shoulders and they walked back to the clinic.
“How do you feel about going up against Zane now?” Dara asked, his teeth chattering.
“He’s going to rue the day he stepped foot in the Cove, and the day he laid a hand on you,” Seth declared.