Chapter Two
Fighting went against Peder’s nature, otherwise he’d have been a hunter of the Apisi instead of an omega. Or at least, that was what he’d thought until he met Kele. Maybe he just hadn’t had anything worth fighting for.
He watched a very pregnant Susan as she waddled in civil form, away from him and the Temple. She held one end of a rope in her hand. The other end was in his grip. He called out to her, “You should be the one standing here. I can walk to wherever you like.”
“You don’t know where I landed when I fell from the sky. I do.” She gazed up at the trees. Seven months ago, she’d fallen from a blue light and saved his pack.
He glanced at the forest.
Sorin, his alpha, paced around them. The expecting father’s protective nature was driving everyone crazy. The last two days had been constant arguments between the alpha couple about traveling to Temple lands. Somehow Susan had won and here they were, with five hunters prowling neutral territory while Peder helped measure things with a rope.
Susan stood under a rather large tree. “This is it.” She then marked the rope with a piece of coal she’d carried from their den’s fire pit. “Sorin?”
Not even a second later, he was at her side as if ready to carry her in his arms. “Are the pups coming?”
Her silence spoke volumes.
“Not the pups?”
“You need to get your shit together. I can’t handle your nerves.” She tapped his sensitive nose with her fingertips. “Show me where we saw the other gates. Th-the blue lights.” She twisted around. “Peder, come stand here with that end.” She pointed.
Sorin rubbed his muzzle, leading her farther away as he changed position. “I wish you’d stop doing that to my nose. It’s sensitive.”
Vendu, one of their hunters, rose from a nearby bush. “Sorin would be more relaxed if she’d stay in feral form while outside the den.”
“She’s more comfortable as civil. Maybe once she has her pups, she’ll be more, uh, more graceful in feral.” Peder leaned against the tree and took a deep breath of fresh green scents. Spring shoots spotted the forest floor and thickened the air with their fragrances. He’d first spotted Kele on such a day about a year ago from the cliff overlooking these lands, long before Susan changed their lives.
“Peder, come stand here now,” Susan shouted.
“Yeah, Peder, go stand over there now.” Vendu gave him a lopsided wolf grin.
Peder playfully slapped him across the muzzle. “You’re just jealous that you’re not her favorite.”
Vendu rubbed the spot where Peder had hit him. “Hey, you’re getting strong.” He pinched Peder’s upper arm and trailed him as Peder followed the rope to where Susan and Sorin stood. “Have you checked out Peder’s new muscles?” Vendu poked his stomach. “Not bad.”
“Stop, that tickles.” Peder elbowed the bigger hunter in the side.
Vendu dropped to the ground, clutching the spot where he’d taken the shot. “That hurt, Peder. I think all that building and digging Susan makes you do is starting to pay off.” Climbing to his feet, Vendu eyed him more carefully.
Peder stood where Susan had gestured. She walked away, shaking her head again as if confused by their conversation. She’d been born human and still was learning pack dynamics. Peder was so low in Apisi hierarchy, he shouldn’t have been able to draw the hunter’s attention. Because he’d dropped Vendu accidently with one shot, suddenly the big hunter was watching him more closely.
Peder had no desire to fight challenges. Not just so he could beat his chest and declare he was stronger than Vendu. What was the purpose? To get a better mate? The mate he wanted lived with another pack. To get better clothes and food? Their pack was so poor that better wasn’t possible. He’d keep his fur intact and duck his head.
Sorin followed Susan, but shouted back to Vendu, “Peder’s been training with me every morning.”
“Training?” The young hunter’s ears came forward. “As in fighting?”
Peder stared at his feet and nodded.
“Hunter Peder has a nice sound to it.”
He jerked his head up, half expecting to see a teasing grin on Vendu’s face, but found him quite serious instead.
“About time too.” Vendu slapped him on the back. “I look forward to when you work up the courage to challenge me.”
A few months ago, such a strike would have landed Peder on his knees, but his stronger body absorbed the impact. “I’m not ready for challenges. I just want to be able to hold my ground if I need to defend the den.” Or claim Kele, if he ever found the courage to cross onto Payami lands, but she had stopped writing him. He didn’t want to shed blood only to discover she had no interest in him anymore. When she had released him from his imprisonment with the Payami, he’d thought she felt something for him.
A hunter ahead of them called out to Sorin. “We shouldn’t stay much longer. I heard there will be a mating here tomorrow. They’ll be sending scouts soon.”
Peder handed his end of the rope to Vendu and approached the other hunter. “A mating?” Most shifters didn’t bother with a mating ceremony. Marking each other with scents was enough claim, but it was good for packs to mingle blood, so occasionally a mating agreement was formed. “What packs?”
“The Yaundeeshaw and the Payami. I hear the alpha is giving away his daughter to bring strong hunter blood back in the pack.”
Peder couldn’t breathe. The Payami alpha had only one child. “How do you know this?”
“Are you all right?” The hunter, Awe, grabbed Peder by the elbow to steady him.
He shook him off. “Answer me.”
The fur on Awe’s neck rose and his ears went flat. “You best watch your tone, omega.”
Peder dropped his gaze and bowed his head. “Sorry.”
“Oh, answer him, you ass,” said Vendu.
“Every six days, some of the omegas from the Ohneka pack do their wash by the river that borders our lands. One of them fancies me. She’s the one who told me.”
The truth grabbed Peder by the balls. Kele was mating some Yaundeeshaw dog. Was that why she’d stopped writing? “Do you think they know each other?”
“With a mating? I doubt it. Those are all arranged by alphas. Speaking of which…” The hunter ambled toward Sorin. “Alpha, have you ever considered arranging a mating?”
The rest of their conversation faded as the pounding of Peder’s heart filled his ears. She’d mate a stranger before allowing him a chance to win her? He knew being an omega was not an attractive trait in a male, but he’d been really trying to change. He had the bruises to prove it.
Susan called Vendu to bring his end of the rope to her. She scratched symbols called math into the dirt all the while muttering under her breath.
The hunters continued to watch the forest.
Peder crouched close to Sorin. For some reason, being around his alpha helped him calm. The roar in his chest faded to a dull hollow ache and he stared at the empty Temple. What had he done to the Goddess to deserve such a fate?
“Peder?” Sorin knelt to face him and spoke quietly.
“Yes, Alpha?”
He grimaced. “How many times must I tell you to call me Sorin in private?”
He dragged his gaze from the Temple. “Yes, Sorin?”
“You smell anxious. Are you sensing danger?” Sorin’s eyes darted to the forest.
“No, I’d tell you if I did.” He plucked at his fur. Many found his golden color attractive, but to him it seemed a curse. No matter how he tried, he always drew someone’s unwanted attention. “The news about Kele surprised me.” His alpha knew of his pleasant stay within the Payami den, but didn’t know of his feelings toward Kele.
A few months ago, he’d spent a few days hidden in an abandoned room within the Payami den. To ensure that Sorin didn’t hurt Susan, Kele had taken Peder hostage. She had been attracted to him—Peder could tell, after years of being a sexually active omega, when someone wanted him. Yet Kele never once tried to seduce him even though he wouldn’t have denied her. Instead, she had appeared shy and sweet, something very rare in a hunter female. Her letters always hinted at wanting to see him again but she never made any commitments.
Then the letters had stopped.
Sorin made an annoyed noise. “Kele probably thinks it’s her duty.” The alpha stared intently at Peder. “There’s more to this than you’ve told me, isn’t there?”
The omega nodded. Shifters could scent lies.
“After their first pup is born, she doesn’t have to stay with him. She’d be free to mate another.” Sorin shrugged. “It’s not an ideal situation. Not unless you’re willing to fight for her.”
That Yaundeeshaw hunter was going to touch her. The fur on Peder’s back rose. The dog would take her to his bed tomorrow night. He should have crossed onto Payami land already, but no, he had stayed hidden in his den like a coward.
The rumble of growling in his chest drew him out of his thoughts. Everyone stared at him.
Sorin stood at alert. “What is it?”
Shit, he was making things worse. Quieting, he shook his fur flat. “Sorry, got lost in my thoughts.”
Susan pointed to the marks in the dirt. “It’s difficult to calculate this by hand, but I roughly estimate that the doorway will open again in five days. Unless the door has already done so unwitnessed, then my math is all wrong.” She scratched her head. “We should watch the area and make sure no one stumbles in. I can’t imagine what would happen to my world if this virus went through the portal.”
Here he was worried about a female who obviously cared nothing for him, and Susan—carrying two pups in her belly—was trying to protect a whole world. “I thought you had destroyed your machine.”
“I thought so too.” She continued to scribble a few more things in the dirt. “Something is keeping the portal from closing. At one end, in my world, the portal is anchored.” She drew a box to represent this. “At this end, the portal is whipping around like a cat’s tail and jumping positions. If I’m correct, the radius of this tail can grow, which is bad.” She rubbed her belly.
Sorin immediately joined her in touching the bump of her belly protecting their unborn offspring. “It’s time to go home. I’ll send hunters in four days to camp and watch for the blue light.”
“No, no, I’m coming back.”
Sorin snarled, sharp and commanding. “For ten generations, my family has been born in that den. I will not have my pups dropped on common forest ground like strays. Once they are born and you are well, then you can return.” He leaned down and met her glare. “Don’t you dare try to sneak off on your own. You remember what happened last time.”
Susan’s expression grew somber. “Yes.” She set her hands upon his. “Babies first.”
“Pups.”
She laughed. “Fine, pups.”
Peder stared at her scribbles, understanding a few of the symbols. She’d been teaching the pack simple math. Things like adding and multiplying. He could comprehend it better than anyone in the pack, but the stuff in the dirt didn’t even contain numbers. “If the portal’s exit whips around like a tail on Eorthe, that means it can open anywhere on our world?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know it hasn’t already opened somewhere outside this forest?”
“I can only pray it hasn’t. So far, from the measurements I’ve taken, it seems to be getting more distant from the original point of entry by that tree.”
“Each time it opens, it gets farther from here like a pendulum swinging.”
“Exactly. You truly grasp things quickly, Peder.” Odd how a few simple words could soothe his deep wounds.
He had rarely received such praise while growing. Sorin’s father made sure they’d all been miserable, but he’d had a special place in his heart for torturing pretty omega males.
“That means I might only get two more chances at the doorway before it leaves this forest for good.” She rubbed her chin.
Sorin’s ears folded even farther back over his head until it appeared he had none. “Why do you want access? I thought you had chosen to stay with me.”
“I’m staying. I’ve been infected. Even if I wanted to leave, I couldn’t. But I have to send my world a message. Whoever is on the other side needs to be warned. They have to guard the portal from letting anything go through. They also have to know the risk of walking into it as well.” She rubbed her temples. “I have to figure out how to send a message. It’s not like I have a cell phone or a two-way radio.”
Sometimes Susan was too smart. She said things no one understood and could bypass a simple solution in pursuit of something bigger. “Write them a letter. Tie it to a rock to give it weight and throw it through the portal.”
“Jesus, that’s so easy. They’d also be able to verify it’s truly from me by the handwriting.” She clapped Peder on the back almost as hard as Vendu had.
“Very well, the decision’s been made. I’ll send hunters to watch for the blue light to return with a message for them to toss inside.” Sorin scooped Susan into his arms and started toward their home.
Peder glanced at the Temple one last time.
What should he do about Kele? If he knew she held even a raindrop of affection for him, he’d stay for the mating and challenge this Yaundeeshaw. He’d lose, but at least she would know he was willing to die for her.