However, clear impatience carved his features as though I was having a tantrum for a toy. “I have more important things to worry about than your “dreams”. Like a superior Wolf Shifter race to lead, and the entire human race to oversee. It was easier to let you focus on your delusions.”
Vines with thorns seemed to wrap around my eyes as I looked up at him, increasing my pain—though, perhaps it was just the force of the dominance exuding from his irises and demanding my submission. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to look away. What they saw as “nonsense” or “delusion”, had been the one hope that kept me going all these years. The dream that oneday I would get to meet the humans I was created to protect, and I’d finally get justice for my parents’ murder.
“Please, I can’t spend my entire life confined to this village,” I begged, somehow holding back the true agony I wouldn’t dare show. Against every ounce of self-preservation that told me to just look down and submit, against the anxious wolf stirring inside me, I begged. “I know in my soul that I was born to keep humans safe. Not just from the shadows, but by being among them, by being part of their world.”
With each word our Alpha’s wrath increased, the shift partially taking hold of him. His jaw enlarged, fur burst along his arms, and thick, bowed claws elongated to their full length. His form trembled with the restraint it took to keep himself a man, but I kept going because this was my truth, and I couldn’t hold it back anymore.
I was tired of holding back.
“It’s a need that tightens its grip on me every second of every hour, becoming stronger each day until it suffocates me. I am meant to be out there, with all of you. I know it in every fiber of my being, I?—”
“Silence!” His roar sent a wave of power trembling over the village, slamming into us and sending everyone to their knees yet again. The cubs whined around us, and I could hear their little feet scurrying so they could hide behind their mothers from its might. “You willneverspeak to me that way again, Natasha. Or I swear I will make you pay.”
“I will make you pay…”
Sharp stabbing engulfed my eyes, forcing me to rapidly blink the sting away as I continued to hold his gaze, not because I was challenging his power, but because I was trying to excuse the simmering hate filtering through his irises. It was so reminiscent of the hatred he showed when he spoke of those blood-sucking monsters that it froze me in place.
The sweltering tension became thicker among the pack with every second my gaze remained locked on our Alpha’s, more from disbelief than anything else. He stepped closer, eyes growing wild with my disrespect while the unexpected revulsion became stronger, making my wolf slam against my skin over and over in her frantic need to submit and save us.
Unfortunately for her, she was tied to me for life.
Deep inside, I’d feared that my uncle—the only family I had left—secretly hated me for what happened to my parents—tohisbrother. I was only a cub then, a baby, but we were on a nightly walk when we got attacked, and I was the only one who survived.
I guessed now I had my answer.
I mean, he won’t even let me call him uncle.
“Tasha!” Ryker growled under his breath next to me, in a desperate attempt to remind me of my place and get me to submit.
Not needed.
Now I knew that I was no one, and I would never get the chance to be anything else.
Briefly closing my eyes, I slowly lowered my head, feeling the heavy tension that surrounded us finally dissipate. A unified breath of relief extended through the entire village.
Stepping back, our Alpha’s stance relaxed too, though his wolf remained close to the surface. “Perhaps you need to be reminded of who you are… Shift!”
There it was. His favorite punishment for me.
His command swept over me, and my wolf stood at attention. Her eagerness to finally come out was only overshadowed by the hesitance we both felt at the agony we were certainly about to experience. Especially, after our Alpha had already put us through this the day before they left hunting, just to make sure I hadn’t “hurt my wolf,” or “pushed it away,” with myinabilityandlack of strength.
“I’m so sorry I’m putting you through this again,”I apologized to my wolf because she had nothing to do with the treatment we were getting, it was all my fault. “You are not alone; I have your back.”
A current of strength traveled through my being in response, and I knew it was her way of saying she had my back. I wasn’t alone either.
Closing my eyes once more, I took a settling breath and rose on my hands and knees, pushing my wolf forward. Instantly, it felt like frigid ice had captured my cells one by one, fighting against us and preventing the shift. I pushed through it, though, focusing only on my true nature.
The she-wolf.
The cracking sound of my bones alerted the others that my transformation had begun, reverberating along the clearing until a few whimpers escaped my fiercely clamped mouth—no matter how hard I tried to remain silent.
“It’s okay, we can do this…”
My reassurance gave my wolf more resilience and she thrust against my skin, making her light grey claws rip through my nail beds. A scream attempted to escape me, but I turned it into a fierce growl and pressed harder, feeling my ribs fracture and begin to transform.
When my eyes snapped open, I noticed the breeders shifting into their beautiful she-wolves and forming a wide circle around me. Their thick raven-black coats shone brightly under the morning sun as they stood tall in solidarity. Tears came to my eyes, but it wasn’t from the pain capturing my being. It was the love I felt emanating from them.
It was a shame that communicating mentally wasn’t a gift Wolf Shifters had. I would have loved to hear their words of encouragement. Even then, their display gave me power, and I forced my wolf forward again and again, another growl rippingits way through my throat just as the first locks of fur burst from me.
