Until he came to a heavily wooded area. The trees here provided a canopy that hid much of the moon’s bright, comforting light, and thick brambles scratched his legs and paws.
He would have stopped, but the scent? It was in the air now. Sweet but perfumed with fear.
And then he heard it. A sharp inhale. A quiet rustle. Movements. His wolf growled, and he tried to keep the sound inquisitive and non-threatening, but his sensitive hearing picked up a heartbeat. A racing heartbeat.
Dropping onto his belly, he prepared to shift back into his human form, but hesitated long enough to take one last, deep pull of the air so he had the scent memorized.
A slightly burnt undertone, yet hints of fresh rain, the ocean breezes, and the moss that covered everything in this area. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was scenting an elemental, but the smells were wrong. Off somehow.
Trap, remember?
He tried to convince his wolf he shouldn’t shift, but the animal was desperate to know what was in the bushes only thirty feet away, and the man would be much better equipped to understand—or to communicate—if it were actually a person.
He howled as the shift overtook him. The transition back to a man was always so much harder. Mostly because at the end of it, he wasn’t a powerful and indestructible beast, but a scarred, good-for-almost-nothing human.
Panting, he staggered to his feet, and the rustling stopped. But whoever—or whatever—had made the sounds was still hiding in the bushes.
“Who’s there?” he asked. “Show yourself.”
The tiny gasp confirmed what he’d thought all along. There was a person hiding behind all that underbrush.
“Unless you’re one of the Thirteen, you have nothing to fear from me.”
Another gasp, this one accompanied by the barest hint of a whimper.
“Don’t freak out on me, okay?” He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to reassure this person he didn’t know while his entire family was being hunted, but the scent he’d tracked here? It wasn’t evil. Or threatening. If anything, it called to him asking for comfort and protection.
As soon as he stepped around the bush, his jaw dropped.
The woman huddled on the ground was covered in dirt and bloody scratches. She held her shackled hands up in front of her, and a foot-long chain hung from between them. Drawing her knees up, hiding her naked body, she shuddered, and he swore under his breath. Heavy metal cuffs were locked around both ankles as well. Her eyes were clouded over, and she squinted like even the barest hint of moonlight was too much for her.
Despite being battered and bruised, she was beautiful. Long dark hair cascaded over her shoulders, falling all the way to the forest floor, and an intense need to calm and care for this woman reared up inside of him. Was this…? No. It couldn’t be. But even though he wanted to reject the very idea of it, he knew he couldn’t.
He’d just met his mate.
* * *
Sameen
“Don’t freak out on me, okay?”
His voice soothed her, even though she couldn’t see him. The idea of anyone finding her had kept her almost completely still for hours—that and her inability to see, to stand, to even get to her knees.
Another step closer, and she caught a hint of his scent. She...liked it. He smelled like freedom. Like the forest and fresh air.
“Who are you?” he asked.
If only she could tell him. Or see him. A twig snapped under his foot, and she tried to figure out how close he was. Twenty feet? Less?
“I’m Peter. Peter O’Shay. Are you injured?”
Was she? Sameen wasn’t sure. She was bleeding from dozens of cuts and scrapes from the rocks and the thorny vines she’d crawled over to get here. But the rest of her? What did you call being kept underground in the dark for so many years, forbidden from even blinking, that your eyes could no longer see? Or being spelled silent for so long, you didn’t know if you remembered how to speak.
She didn’t move, too scared to even try, but Peter was still coming closer.
“Do you have a name?”
This, she could answer. In a fashion. The slow nod made her head ache. Now that she was free from the spells that kept her bound and immobile, in some sort of stasis, she’d started to feel hunger again. Thirst.
