“Just hold me.”
“Do not go toward the sharp memories or away,” Enid cautioned, as she moved from her place beside the stone altar toward the refreshments. “Attempt neutrality.”
Lycan nodded against Seath’s neck.
Serepta called them back to task, and they once again assembled, Lycan still warm from his holding with Seath, but that warmth quickly seeped down into the stone.
By now the moon was past the opening of the rock chamber, so Lycan tried to watch the play of light as the flicker of images flashed again on his brain. There was fire in the cavern that made shadows, but it was too far from him for warmth.
A soft poke and Lycan felt his wolf start to stir. Prowling. His wolf felt less caged, it wanted to be out, and Lycan couldn’t blame him. They wanted to meet, to merge.
Lycan was so caught up in trying to get to know the other part of him in his chest, that he quit paying so much attention to the images in his mind’s eye.
But, they showed him dim pictures of being turned. The bite but not its giver. The transformation. But no wolf.
As long as he didn’t try and look deeper into the images, he was fine, and his mind didn’t ring in pain.
He was a turned shifter; Caine would be pleased to know he was right.
The exhaustion was there, though. The pure need for this to end crawling over him as pressure and time started to wear.
Seath’s hand stilled on his shoulder and moved to interlace their fingers when Lycan’s hand found Seath’s.
Something strummed deep in his chest and he felt electricity flow through his veins.
Mate.
The voice was clear as glass. From inside him. The same voice that had told him this Pack was home.
Seath’s lips did not move, but another voice was equally as clear.
Mate.Seath’s wolf responded.I want to see you.
Lycan took a deep breath. He had felt Seath at times, or felt his wolf respond to Seath. But this was different.
Lycan could feel the restlessness of his wolf, practically prancing to join Seath. It felt as if he was butting his nose against Lycan’s sternum. Ripples of fur came in waves across his skin.
“Let him see your wolf, Legate. Call to him in kind.” Serepta’s voice barely crawled into his consciousness.
In a blink, Seath shifted to his large wolf. He was massive, easily as tall as the altar, with a grey coat and those amber eyes Lycan loved. Keen ears were up and alert and Seath’s nose started poking at Lycan’s chest, as if he was looking for Lycan’s wolf buried there.
Come run with me. Shift for me.
Serepta moved to be closer as well. “Call to him, Seath. As mates. As his Alpha.”
Seath could feel the wolf in Lycan, and in his shifted form it was hard to contain himself. He wanted to meet the wolf.
Seath licked Lycan’s face first, telling him it would be okay.
Digging into his instincts, to the same place that got him through the Raising Day and the day he proved himself Legate, Seath spoke to the wolf under the surface of his mate’s human form.
Shift.
Lycan gasped, shaking, and in a moment, instead of Lycan on the table, there was a white wolf, pure as the Arctic, with luminous blue-green eyes.
Seath’s large grey wolf preened for his mate, unable to stop looking at the gorgeous wolf in front of him.
The white wolf rose, uncertain, and then leaped down from the table with a stumble. Next to Seath, the white wolf was small. Wrapping around his mate, Seath kept the Little Wolf as close as he could while the wolf found his legs. Seath scented him, and they chased each other around a bit, up and down from the table, each playful in these alter forms where some of the human concerns seemed less important for a while.
