Sage?
I didn’t have time to think it. The buck bellowed and rammed me with his antlers again, and this time he caught me off guard. The tines dug into my flank as he threw me across the field. I landed with a pained grunt.
I was a mountain lion. I was an apex predator, the cream of the predatory crop. And here I was, getting my ass kicked by a deer because my brain couldn’t think about anything butSage.
Though in fairness, this buck shifter was not playing around. He had the scariest rack of antlers I’d seen on a deer, and he was strong and fit. Underneath the muscles, though, I smelled a hint of… omega?
The pieces clicked together. A furious omega deer and a fawn. He was the child’s father, and he thought I was a mute animal trying to attack him. No wonder he was trying to murder me.
“Wait,” I called out.
The sound of my clearly understandable voice made the buck stop. He ground in his hooves. “You’re a shifter?”
“Yes.”
“Shift. Right now.”
Though I wasn’t used to taking orders, I didn’t complain. I’d gladly change to human form so I wouldn’t get skewered by his sharp tines. The ancient magic flowed through me, replacing my powerful big cat form with the six-foot-two frame of a man.
This relaxed the buck considerably. He ground his teeth, then shifted as well. Just as I expected, he was a fit omega around the same age as me.
“Don’t shift back,” he warned, but his tone was a bit gentler now.
“I don’t plan on it,” I promised.
At the same moment, I was surrounded by wolves. Two were larger—one with a rich brown pelt, the other with gray.
The third has a golden pelt, as bright and vivid as the sun.
It was unmistakably Sage—the naïve, stupid, adorable, infuriating omega wolf I’d met last night.
“Who are you, and why are you here?” the gray wolf demanded.
I jerked back to attention and suddenly became aware of my situation. I was completely surrounded. A mountain lion is a force of nature, but when confronted with three wolves and one pissed-off buck deer shifter, the odds were definitely out of my favor. I needed to shake off my Sage-related brain fog and explain myself, fast.
I raised a hand in a peace gesture. “Sorry. This is a misunderstanding. I know it looks that way, but I wasn’t hunting your fawn. I was passing through when I caught the scent of prey and predator mixed together, and I was curious. I would never hunt a fellow shifter.”
That calmed the crowd considerably.
As I spoke, a realization dawned on Sage. He must have recognized my voice.
“Could you say,” Sage began with a grin, “that curiosityalmostkilled the cat?”
I chose not to humor him with a response, on account of the fact that I was actually trying not to get killed.
“Not now, Sage,” the brown wolf growled. He and the gray one were alphas, no doubt about it. Their size difference compared to Sage was stark. “What’s your name?”
“Xander,” I replied.
“Aha! I knew it!” Sage cried.
“Hold on. Do you know this guy, Sage?” the gray wolf asked.
“Yeah! Me and Remmy met him last night?” Sage grinned at me. “Right, Xander?”
I recalled the black-furred omega wolf accompanying him. “Yes, I remember Remington. Does he live among you, too?”
“Duh! We left him to babysit, ‘cause—well, obviously the pack didn’t know I knew you, they just thought you were a big ol’ predator trying to eat Ashe. Oh, Ashe is the fawn by the way. He’s Morgan’s son. That’s why he was so angry at you. But now everything’s cool, right?”
