Dax
I barely slept that night,which surprised me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so giddy with excitement. My thoughts buzzed like a bee in a flower field.
The next morning, I told the rest of the pack about our plan to meet Dr. Pine. Hugo and Len—and the twins, obviously—decided to stay behind. I was worried to leave them, since the journey would take about a week, and I’d never been gone for so long. But Hugo was an alpha, too, and he’d matured since the birth of his children. Even if he was my younger brother, he was capable of taking care of his family.
Sage also decided to stay back, which was fine by me. But Remington sheepishly asked to come along because he wanted to see Dr. Pine again. She had taken care of him for a while back when he was a lone wolf, so we brought him along.
We set off with Morgan and I in the front while Remington trailed behind to give us space. We travelled in our shifted forms as a wolf and a buck, with another wolf in the back. Remington mostly kept to himself as we made our way towards the canyon.
“You said this doctor was a human, right?” Morgan asked.
“Yes. But she’s a good one. She said she left the human city a long time ago to live her life in the wilderness, like we do.”
He smiled. “That’s interesting. I always thought humans preferred to stay among their own kind. And you said she knew Len was pregnant before anyone else did?”
I nodded. “I don’t know how she did it, but she knew. Not only that, but she knew he was carrying more than one baby.”
Morgan laughed. “I hope she doesn’t tell us the same thing. I think one is enough for now.”
“For now?” I teased.
He shot me a playful glance. “We’ll see how haggard and exhausted we are after the first one, wolf.”
“Fair enough.”
After a while, we reached a familiar shining silver mesh up ahead. It stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. Morgan paused.
“What is that?” he asked cautiously.
I recognized it as the fence that surrounded the wildlife reserve and marked it as Remington’s legal property. But I realized that Morgan had lived his whole life deep within the reserve and had never run into it before.
“It’s just a fence,” I told him. “We’re going to have to go through it to pass by.”
He hesitated. “How? I don’t see an opening.”
I checked for the gap and approached it. It was smaller than I remembered it being—or maybe it just seemed that way because of present company. My heart sank as I glanced at Morgan. His buck form was way too big to fit through the hole and his human form wouldn’t make it either.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Morgan shifted to become a man and crossed his arms thoughtfully. “I’m assuming that’s the opening.”
“Yeah, there’s no way Morgan’s fitting through that,” Remington said bluntly.
“Can’t we make the hole bigger?” I demanded.
Remington fidgeted with his paws. “I don’t want to. In fact, I was thinking of getting the hole patched altogether. I don’t want Klimt to use it to slink back in.”
I growled in frustration. “Can you climb it, Morgan?”
Morgan frowned. “Even in this form, I don’t think I can make it pastthat.”
He pointed to the top of the fence, where there was an angled barrier that kept animals inside and outsiders out.
Morgan put his hand on my furry shoulder and smiled. “Don’t worry so much, Dax. I’ve got this under control.”
“Huh?”
In the blink of an eye, Morgan slipped from human to buck form. He shook out his antlers and loosened up his muscles, then backed up a fair distance.
