His breath caught and he closed his eyes, imagining himself... home.
For a moment he almost had it. The warmth of the sun, the rich scent of flowers and fruits—his mate’s cooking filling the air. Ah, Sarai. He could feel the stone path under his feet, see the warm glow that leaked out of windows, knew that all he had to do was walk into the house and he would see her.
But part of him understood that the house that had been his home and the fields and groves surrounding it had been gone for centuries. Understood that his mate, his Sarai, was dead.
It seemed like he would be caught forever in that long-ago moment, stuck betwixt and between, unable to walk forward into the home he had shared with his mate or return fully to the present. It was a subjective eon, but only a few seconds in real time before the reliving passed as they all had so far, and he stood, once again, on a mountainside next to his car.
He missed his dead mate so much that his lungs refused to move and his heart forgot how to beat. If he could only turn back centuries and exist in a time where his Sarai lived. He stoodbeside the open door of his car, put his head down, and fought to breathe through the pain.
He had not been able to figure out if such moments signaled an attack by the wolf who shared his battered, worn-out soul, or if it was some trick of the half of his brain that was human. But he had not had such a strong remembrance since his stepdaughter had died, at last, a few short years ago.
He had hoped he was done with them.
The brisk mountain air cleared his head, but he wondered if he was fit to take a woman on a date today. He needed to go back to the Marrok’s pack where there was someone strong enough to stop him if he lost control of his wolf. Someone merciful enough to end him if he did not emerge from one of those relivings. He would call and cancel this foolishness.
In response to that thought—and he was certain that it was absolutely in response to that thought—a sudden cool shiver traveled through him from head to toe. For that single moment he felt as though something, someone, turned their attention to him. And then the moment was gone.
“Inshallah,” he said, momentarily shaken. Then, a fierce grin, his wolf’s grin, stretched the cold skin of his face. It appeared that he was going on a date.
The door to the big house opened and a man walked out. Unlike Asil, he did not bother with a coat—werewolves don’t feel the cold the way humans do and this wolf had no need to blend in. But he wore boots designed to handle the treacherous ground of winter.
He was bigger than Asil—not an unusual thing as Asil was not a tall man. The stranger’s face was scarred—it looked like the marks of a knife. He carried authority on his shoulders with theunconscious grace of someone who was used to being in charge and getting things done, a mantle worn by people who know what it was to kill in order to protect their own.
What he was not was the Alpha of the Emerald City pack.
The world brightened and the shadows lost their power as Asil’s beast, restless from the last few minutes, rose in affront at the insult. The Moor was not a lesser foe, someone to be handed off to lackeys. Maybe, a small part of him observed, it wasn’t only the wolf who was unsettled.
The big man stopped where he was and his irises glinted with secret gold. He closed his eyes and fought to hold his beast in check when Asil’s wolf’s call had stirred it to violence.
“My Alpha’s apologies,” said the man, keeping his eyes closed. He bit out those first three words as though every syllable caused his tongue to bleed. But he regained control of his voice and muted it to more courteous tones. “He had intended to be here, but one of our pack had a run-in with the police and he had to go negotiate that wolf’s release.”
And he had been deemed the lesser threat? Asil half lidded his eyes to better disguise his next course of action, deliberately keeping his muscles loose so the other wolf would not know when the attack would come.
“My Alpha said,” continued Not-the-Alpha, “if the Moor wishes us to die, we will die. He does not need me to give him leave to come to my city, it is a courtesy that he comes to us. Tell him that he is at all times a welcomed guest to me and mine, a thing freely given that we acknowledge the Moor could have taken if he chose.”
It was truth couched in terms of flattery. Asil relaxed and half smiled in appreciation of the clever wording that had been designed to hold him in chains of courtesy. That the word “guest”bound not only the Emerald City pack but also Asil to an ancient and unwritten set of laws that this pup was probably too young to understand, though his Alpha, a cunning and vicious chess player, well knew how Asil would hear them.
Asil’s wolf was touchy and inclined to violence at the best of times—and after a brush with old memories, the beast very much wanted to put this wolf before them on his knees, presenting his throat.
Asil reminded his wolf they were guests—and moreover that they had things to do. He had that date, one of a set that had somehow altered from challenges to missions. If he’d had any doubt about that at all, it had been banished by the moment where Allah had turned His attention to Asil.
This was not the first time in his long life that it had been given to him to be the hand of Allah. It was merely the first time it had been so clearly indicated. It was wiser, he had found, not to balk at tasks so set.
He contained his wolf after a struggle that was more difficult than he liked. Once that was done, for the moment at least, he considered the words he’d been given.
The Emerald City pack had just offered him a key to their territory, and such things could bite back. He did not intend to do anything this day that should reflect badly upon the pack. And by the nature of guesting laws, if that changed, all he would have to do would be to notify Angus, Alpha of the pack, directly before all hell broke loose. For this short time period, the hospitality offered should pose no trouble.
“I accept those terms,” Asil said.
The other wolf looked at him, his eyes still wolf and wild. Asil’s wolf told him that, though strong of will and power, this one had not yet seen half a century as moon called. He was thusvulnerable to the wild turbulence of Asil’s wolf, especially as unsettled as this other wolf was, a dominant having given a message of submissive to a strange wolf.
It was not Asil’s purpose today to abuse his just-accepted status as guest by forcing this perfectly fine and trusted member of Angus Hopper’s pack to attack him so Asil’s wolf could taste his blood. He had assumed that the brief moment of epiphany, of purpose, had brought his wolf back from instability. But his eagerness to taste this young strong wolf’s blood was proof that Asil’s self-assessment of how well he was controlling his wolf was demonstratively wrong.
If not for his understanding that this mission was important, he would have driven back to Montana. The Marrok was too far away to help him. The Omega wolf Anna was too far away to help him. It was such moments that reminded Asil just why he had given up his Alpha status in Spain to travel all of the way to the backwoods of Montana.
He had only himself here. He pulled that old wolf back and tucked him deeper into his mind, trapping him in the steel of his will. And that will, the will of the Moor, was enough—as it had always proved to be enough. But Allah knew, as did Asil, some time, not too far from this, even Asil would be overmatched against the great old beast who owned his soul.
As soon as Asil battened down his wolf, the other man turned, putting his back to Asil. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. Give me a minute.” And quietly he muttered, “I didn’t expect... well.” He shut up.
