For the first time in years, I feel right. Lighter, a sense of balance within my grasp.
21AVERY
My name is no longer on the kitchen duty roster. I went yesterday and Alma shooed me right back out the door. Taryn tried to sneak out with me until Alma grabbed her by the collar and put her back to work. When I crossed the commons to find out what was up, I couldn’t find my name on any of the assignments, granting me the ability to do as I usually please once more.
It’s Caden’s doing. Gratitude and something pleasant plucked at my heartstrings until I tamped down on it.
I’m still not sure what to think when it comes to him, or if I can trust that my feelings towards him are truly my own. What if it’s only the bond influencing our emotions? Is it the only reason we became friends in the first place, because it was the root of why I liked being around him so much? Without being fated mates, would we have found our way to each other?
I should still hate him, shouldn’t I? The feeling of his arms cradling me to his chest and his comforting scent enveloping me like a blanket on a foggy morning makes me think otherwise.
I drape an arm over my eyes in bed, unable to make my mind quiet. I strain my ears, my throbbing pulse calming when I register the steady breaths of Caden’s wolf outside. Biting my lip, I roll towards the wall, laying a hand over the crevices where his scent seeps through. I tuck my nose against it, heart skipping a beat when he stirs to sniff where my scent must be bleeding through the tiny cracks to him.
He rumbles inquisitively before flopping down again. I trace the barrier between us, examining the flickers of yearning in the bond to sleep in the arms of my mate. Is it from me or him? I can’t tell the source from the way it overlaps on itself, ingrained in the enchanted tethers. There are a few more strands than there were before he followed me in the woods and we almost kissed.
More still after…whatever that was the other night when I was bathing and felt his pleasure along the magic threads connecting us.
A shiver races down my spine at the memory of him exploring the bond and using it to touch me. Caressing the curve of my breasts, teasing my neck, and skimming a fluttering path down my stomach to delve between my thighs until he had me shuddering without even being in the room with me. I had no idea fated mates could do such things with the magic…or that I’d come so hard from its stimulation.
A burst of heat spreads throughout my body all over again. My thighs squeeze at the coil of desire, vividly remembering how he made me writhe with his fingers. A soft noise catches in my throat as my core clenches with the need for the real thing, and so much more.
Caden’s wolf is still awake. He purrs outside, scratching at the wall.
I swallow, smothering those thoughts, my cheeks burning. Will he remember this when he shifts back in the morning?
My wolf chuffs, sprawling on her back. She thinks my reluctance is silly. This is the way of mates.
An old pang echoes in my heart. My parents were fated, too. It used to make me and the girls giggle when he’d be outside with us until he’d stumble out of nowhere. He’d wink at us and say she was yanking him in for dinnertime.
They were so happy. It destroyed our father when she went missing.
Eventually, I drift to sleep, my endless worries muted by the soothing presence of the wolf on the other side of the wall lulling everything that plagues me to the back of my mind.
In the morning, I get up early to shift with a renewed spark. I’m ready to let my wolf run free again.
Caden hasn’t left yet. He’s stretching outside my window, the taut muscles in his back and ass flexing in the glow of morning sun. I map the hard planes of his incredible broad physique from his shoulders to his sculpted ass and thighs, struggling to catch my breath.
He angles his head back slightly and I spot the hint of a smirk before I duck from the window. His deep laughter makes my stomach dip.
I wait him out, not leaving until the slack in the bond stretches with the distance between us. The girls are still asleep when I slip out the door. I skip shoes, then pluck at my clothes with a hum. Peeling them off, I tie the leggings and shirt dress together to make a loop my wolf can wear until I figure out a better way to transport my clothes if I don’t plan to return to get dressed.
Most people leave out spare clothing draped on a line by their houses or put out a box for sharing. It’s not uncommon to see things passed around a few families, often amongst those who have come of age and want to let their wolf out all the time. I don’t know if that extends to me yet.
This time it’s not as difficult to find the instinct to enact the change, the one I didn’t understand at first. It’s more natural than my first experience, less like my body is snapping and reforming anew in a state of panic and heartache, more seamlessly transitioning to my fur. My wolf feels more tangible to me now and she helps me through it as I give her control.
I stretch with a yawn, digging my claws into the earth. Caden’s scent is even more powerful to my nose now. It’s everywhere, all around my cottage, up in the meadow above it, down the road. I waver, my wolf wanting to follow the freshest trail of cedar and oakmoss to find him.
His chuckle when he caught me admiring his body makes the bond dance within me. I want to, but I’ll find him later. Right now I want to run and explore to my heart’s content.
The first time I shifted, I was too overwhelmed to notice everything. Lifting my nose, I find I’m right about tracking valuable plants to forage. There’s a patch of buckthorn fruit growing on bushes I never knew about north from the meadow, and the buttery sweet hints of chanterelle mushrooms calling to me on the breeze. It could expand my little hustle into something greater than I ever dreamed when Jade first gave me direction and helped me find my love of plants.
I paw at the loop I made with my clothes and with some maneuvering with my snout, I’m able to slip it over my head like an oversized collar. A basket, I’ll need a basket easy to carry when I go out for plants. And a way to carry my tools, my satchel will get slobbery if I carry it in my mouth.
Ideas spark one after the other, my thoughts coming more fluid and less burdened than they might be in my skin. I chuckle at my lowered inhibitions and it comes out as an energetic yip.
I trot through the woods, learning with my wolf how to do this. All around me nature is alive and it stokes my excitement.
Our lope through the forest takes us past skullcap and puffball mushrooms, a vibrant gooseberry bush, swaths of dandelions in the thick grass beneath evergreens, and beds of purslane. She sprawls on the succulent ground cover weed for a short nap without listening to my attempts to steer her away.
Green. Yuck, she decides after nibbling on the slightly salty leaves.
She catches a much more enjoyable scent—prey. We both perk up at the thought of meat for breakfast, our mouth salivating. We’re a big, beastly wolf. Surely it can’t be so hard to catch something. This should come naturally for us, we’re a predator born to hunt.
My wolf prowls behind overgrown ferns, fixated on the burrow nestled in a hollow at the base of a tree twenty paces away. She doesn’t wait long. A gopher with its cheeks stuffed with food comes down from another nearby tree, zigzagging through the underbrush. She’s perfectly still, nose barely twitching as the creature comes closer.
Energy vibrates through her limbs and she darts too soon, scaring it out of reach when she pounces. A bark works its way up her throat in her shock she didn’t catch it.