VICTOR

It was a quiet night on Rizer Mountain. Most of the pack slept back at Rizer fortress while Victor, Ian, Nora, and Kaden patrolled the Rizer pack territory that was over two hundred acres of land and located in what used to be the border between Arizona and Utah. After the shifters came out making themselves known to the humans, war broke out destroying cities, governments, in less than a year.

The years following took the human population to a new low where they were now the minority on the earth with shifters numbering nearly twice as numerous. Law was enforced only if a person took it upon them self to try and enforce a law.

Freebasin was different.

It was a town at the base of the mountain and forest below Rizer Mountain and the humans there made an alliance with the Rizer pack. It still was amazing to Victor to watch his new pack family walk among humans freely without animosity or the need to be on guard.

This was the town that stood as the sole example of how humans and shifters could coexist. Watching over the town that was continuing to grow was one of the only things that Victor found he could still enjoy doing.

The Rizer pack, while a great family to be a part of, wasn’t always fun to be around. Not for Victor, anyway. Even now he could hear his two of the pack Ian and Nora a newly mated pair, breathing heavily as they made love.

Have the decency to go further up the mountain and spare me. Victor thought. They were predestined mates which made their union especially passionate. Half the pack was predestined mated which meant being around them and the strong levels of lust they were sharing with the pack through their connection were miserable to all who did not have a predestined mate.

Victor felt his case was especially painful considering he had a predestined mate and lost her. He was already heartsick for Nicole Monet, his predestined mate, he didn’t need to be surrounded by sex driven, happy pairs every second to show him what he lost.

Growling his spirit wolf that shared his human body made known his agreement with Victor’s bad mood and annoyance with his pack. He did his very best to push the image of Nicole from his mind but it was impossible.

He ran through the forest at the base of the mountain, his wolf spirit guiding him while his human spirit admired the image his mind pushed forward. Nicole had aqua blue eyes that were green around the outer edges and light blue near her pupils. When she was angry, as he often made her, Nicole’s eyes would lock on him like the predator spirit she shared her body with, the tigress.

Damn that tigress spirit had a way of stirring up Nicole’s temper. She was so full of passion that when she felt anything at all for a person it was strong, there is no halfway with Nicole. He knew that about her and both loved and hated it.

There were many terrible things that Victor did when he was forced to run with the Herod pack, but if there was one thing in his life that he could change, he would change the way he left things with Nicole.

What use is there for thinking like this? There is no undoing the past.

Victor shoved the image of Nicole’s lovely face, long brown hair and tan skin to the back of his thoughts. Instead, he concentrated on the sound of wolves running down the mountain from Rizer Fortress.

He tilted his head to the side listening to the rhythm of the paws hitting the earth.

Killian and Angeline are joining the patrol. Great another mated pair to endure.

Victor leaped over the slow-flowing river seeing the stretch of his silver wolf form in the reflection of the water. He was twice the size he’d been when he met Nicole. Would that make a difference to her now, if somehow, he was able to find her again?

The hurried pace grew faster sounding more urgent to his wolf ears. Victor turned, starting back up the mountain to check that all was well with the pack.

He didn’t have to travel far because Killian and Angeline were traveling at their highest speed. Angeline began to shift the moment she saw Victor.

This can’t be good. The werewolf shifter with the visions is rushing to find me out here? If I was smart, I’d turn around and run the other way.

Killian too began to shift from his wolf form to that of his human form. The female with the visions looked expectantly at Victor waiting for him to shift from his silver wolf form to that of his human form.

“Victor, you need to shift. This is important,” Killian the doctor insisted with his hands on his hips.

Very well.

Victor rolled his shoulders pushing back the wolf spirit and allowing his own spirit to surge to the front. The silver fur sucked back into the pores of his skin as his muscles and joints began to move and shift under his skin. The cracking and ripping sounds that came with the shift still sounded sickening to Victor even after ten years of being a shifter.

“Let me tell him,” Killian says to Angeline. He pushes back his black hair and fixes a serious doctor to patient expression on his face as he looks at Victor who is one of the biggest men and wolves in the Rizer pack. Victor is taller than Killian so he’s forced to look up to speak to him since he’s a full foot taller than Killian.

Victor blinks at him waiting for him to speak.

Killian squints at him and leans to his left side. “You know Angeline has visions. Right?”

Victor looks over at Angeline with her round light blue eyes pinned on him and then back to Killian who shifts his weight again. He doesn’t say anything because it should be obvious that he knows of Angeline’s visions.

“He knows,” Angeline says giving her husband Killian a pat on the back. “Keep going.”

“Right. Well, she had one about you. No not about you. It was about the pack. We’re all going to be slaughtered unless you fix things. You can’t fail the pack, Victor. I mean, I just got Angeline all situated and safe so she can have our baby-”

Angeline put her hand over Killian’s mouth. “Sorry, he’s one track minded ever since I got pregnant. You know who your predestined mate is,” she says pointing at Victor. He’s looking at them both with a slight scowl. They aren’t making much sense.

“Nicole, right?”

Victor’s jaw tightens locking tightly.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Angeline says tossing her long white blond hair over her shoulder. “We need to find her and get her back. You need to get her back.”

“No.” Victor turns and begins to walk toward Freebasin.

“The pack will be executed if we don’t get Nicole away from her new pack. Besides, Victor, this is your only chance to see her again. Are you really going to pass that up?” Angeline says in the form of a question but her tone sounds knowing to Victor’s ears.

He turns back toward her. “Nicole will go nowhere with me. In fact, I know she will kill me the moment she sees me. Whatever you saw, Angeline. It must have been a dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream. She’s with Rafi’s pack. He’s using her, Victor,” Angeline says nodding when Victor fixes her with his disbelief clear on his square face.

“You’re wrong. Nicole would never allow herself to be anyone’s tool.” Victor flexed his hands open and closed. In truth, he didn’t know what she would do these days. It had been so long since last, he saw Nicole. “She won’t leave a pack that she views as family.”

Angeline nods. “That’s true but it doesn’t change anything. You have to get Nicole, willing or not.”