“Understood, Alpha.”
I turned back to the ridge.Right, Luna, I think we need to talk.
At the base of the ridge, I took off my clothes. My shift to my wolf was effortless. It always had been. I knew some shifters took a while to adjust, but with time, it came easier. I’d never had that problem. My first shift, I was in my human form and then my wolf. It had been as easy as breathing.
My wolf ran up the mountain just as easily. Long strides ate the distance up fast, happy to be stretching stiff legs. I knew why—the noise was less when I was in this form.
Was Rowen an enemy? My wolf yipped in denial. I felt it too. The verywrongnessof that statement. But five children had duped us all for a long time. Rowen was the obvious choice to be an adversary. She had more to lose than anyone. No. I trusted my mate. I trusted my betas.Everyone else, I was still waiting for the next blow to come.
The recent landslide slowed me down. My paws were less certain, the ground less stable. Eventually, I was on the ridge. I turned and looked at the Hollow spread out below me. This high and at this time in the late afternoon, the morning mist that somehow managed to hang around most of the day was gone. The trees stretched out far and wide, covering far more than the territory of Blueridge Hollow itself.
I looked west. Stonefang was at the wrong angle from here. I turned to look at the gap, remembering Diesel’s taunt that he wouldn’t put it past me to jump across.
I considered it.
I almost stepped back to give myself a good run at it.
A force that was not my own stilled my paws. My body feltheld.
I smiled in satisfaction.
The Goddess was with me.
“I don’t expect an answer,”I told her, my wolf pacing the ridge. “I just want to know that I’m not crazy.”If I were in my human form, I would have laughed. I was talking to the Goddess on a mountain top. Pretty sure that wasn’t the action of a sane man.
“If I use my Will on them, mytrueWill…will I be sorry?”I looked back down at my territory. “I can never be that alpha, my Luna. I promised myself I would never be like the one who caught me. The power of my Will is?—"
I felt her love through the cool breeze as it whispered around me. My eyes closed, and my head hung low, my snout almost touching the stone. The cool wind ruffled myfur gently, and I felt an overwhelming urge to lean into it. Her power washed over me, through me. The alpha power within me rose and met hers. Two strands of power within me, intertwining and becoming one.
I felt the pull, and then a third strand.
Rowen.
The mate bond rose, delicate but not fragile. I felt them weave and plait, and when she was done, they coiled tightly within me. Binding my life, my soul, and my heart to the Goddess.
I shifted to my human form. I was crouched at the top of the mountain, on the balls of my feet, one hand on the stones keeping me upright, the other hand raised, palm up, holding it aloft in supplication.
I felt a tickle of air across my upturned palm and almost dared to look up.
“I will honor the gift, my Goddess,” I promised. “I will be worthy.”
The shift back to my wolf form was not mine to make. I didn’t fight it, though. I sat down and looked up. The moon was rising. Just a sliver, but Luna’s power was still strong.
I watched the moon rise. I let the fears and doubts wash away from me as the night wrapped around me.
The bonds to my pack, to my mate, faded into the background as I sat and watched the night sky.
The power of my Goddess surrounded me. I bathed in her power as I bathed in the cool night air.
When the moon was at its peak, I took four steps back, and then my paws dug into the mountain. With all my weight, I pushed back, strength coiling in my back legs, and I let it loose as I leapt across the chasm of the mountain.
I was flying.
Nothing was around me but air and the belief my Goddess wouldn’t let me fall.
I landed with a thud. Heart pounding, a wolfish grin on my face. I edged to the top of the ridge and looked down. Down to where the Stonefang packlands lay.
I felt the tug towards my packlands.
