“This village or whatever you want to call it, is over ninety percent women. If you want to keep it together and not have it scatter to the wind, you need a female mate to help you lead it. Normal packs work that way, andthoseare close to a fifty-fifty split. The fact this place has lasted as long as it has without it is a fucking miracle.”
I nodded slowly, thinking I had an idea what had initiated this little visit.
“Is Eugenia causing trouble?” I asked, giving Rainier a sidelong glance.
He smiled bitterly. “Sweet, lovely,Eugenia? You must be joking,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm.
Eugenia Compton was a rejected woman from the Black Creek pack. A little over five years ago, I’d discovered her wandering in the woods, alone and emotionally devastated. I’dbrought her to Hidden Grove to give her a place to call home, and a pack to belong to. Within six months, she’d attempted to latch on to me in a romantic way. I’d rebuffed her advances, but she’d always had an eye on making me hers.
As much as I didn’t want to admit it about one of my pack members, Eugenia was a mean girl. She used her force of a personality to bully the other women into line and surrounded herself with sycophants who followed her every word. Nothing was ever bad enough that Rainier and I had to step in, and Eugenia wasjustsmart enough to do exactly enough to maintain her control but stay low enough on the radar not to get kicked out. If I did that without sufficient cause, it would create some major blowback and splinter the pack. I couldn’t allow that. No matter the cost.
“So, that’s a yes?” I said, shooting him a loaded glance.
“You know it’s a yes,” he said, chuckling ruefully. “Levi, if you don’t choose a mate to help you lead, I’m pretty sure Eugenia is gonna force the issue. She’s always wanted to be your…queen, for want of a better word, and with everyone starting to talk about how you’re acting, it’s only a matter of time before she pushes for it.”
Anger swelled within me, and I turned on my friend and beta. “I am the alpha. This pack is undermyprotection and control. No oneforcesme to do anything.”
Rainier looked back at me, eyes level with mine, not at all cowed by my outburst. “And if saying no means the pack shatters and blows to the wind? What then?”
His statement hung heavily between us. If that happened, everyone I’d brought here would be without a pack. They’d have no structure, no place to call home. They’d all end up feral or dead. Every person here was an outcast, a rejected mate turned out from their packs with nowhere else to go.
The same would happen to me too. Part of why I’d created this place was to help people in need, but I’d also done it to helpme. Without a pack, I’d have turned into some savage animal a long time ago.
“Look, Levi,” Rainier said, lowering his voice, a look of concern on his face. “We’re friends, so I think I can say this. I know you’re waiting for Naphele. I freaking get it. I seriously do. But the thing about reincarnation is that it doesn’t always work the way we want it to. You’ve got to live now. Some shit just isn’t within our control—not even the great Leviathan Cross’s.”
Hearing him say her name almost made me lash out, but I managed to control myself. My wolf reallywasmaking me more irritable, and it took all my force of will not to respond. Naphele, the love of my life. I fully believed she would return to me. Shifters were raised to believe in reincarnation. Throughout the ages, we were told stories of alphas who’d returned in new bodies with vague memories of past lives, of women who recalled dying in childbirth, and young children who recited facts they could have no knowledge or memory of.
When Naphele died, I dedicated my life to awaiting her return in a new body. Her soul clad in a fresh host. It was why I spent so much time as my wolf. It slowed my age as I waited and searched for her. If I did as Rainier suggested and lived in my human form, allowed myself to age like normal, I might be seventy or eighty before she graced the earth again, or I might die first, then our souls would end up in some awful opposing cycle of life and death, never to be reunited.
Of all the spiritual beliefs of shifters, it was the one I clung to the most. For social and political reasons, I needed to take a mate. But my emotional imperative to keep searching for Naphele caused a war in my mind and my soul. How did I choose? HowcouldI choose?
“I need to go,” I said.
“We aren’t done talking about this, Levi,” Rainier said, but there was a hint of defeat in his voice. He could argue all he wanted, but I was still the alpha.
“We are for now.” I pointed at the sky through the window. Heavy dark clouds swirled, threatening snow. “There’s a storm coming, and the Idlewild pack’s arrangement ceremony was last night. I need to head into the woods. See if there are any desperate wolves running from their fate, or any who have been rejected and are terrified. Unless,” I added bitterly, “you think that isn’t important work.”
“I never said that,” Rainier said, sounding hurt.
Hot, acrid shame surged through me. I’d lashed out on purpose to hurt him and make him feel like an ass, all because he brought up important questions I needed to answer before it was too late.
As I opened the door, my shoulders sagged. “I’ll think about it, all right? Can you give me a few weeks? Giving up on finding the person you love is not an easy thing, you know. Can you see what I’m saying?”
He nodded, a sad smile on his face. “Yeah. I get it. Take some time, but youdoneed to make a decision soon. Some things are bigger than you, friend.”
Without another word, I turned and sprinted off my porch, sucking in a great lungful of icy cold air as I leaped into the air. Before I landed, I’d shifted into my wolf form, the change akin to coming home and slipping into a comfortable pair of shoes. My thick fur dulled the cold. Like this, I could let my wolf take charge while I thought about what Rainier said.
Could I forsake finding Naphele again for the health of my pack?
5
JUNIPER
Istared out the window, where the night sky was giving way to morning. Black turned to blue, the first precursor to the sunlight that would cut through and bring the day. My plan was to be gone long before the first rays of sunlight hit the streets of Idlewild. The forecast called for snow, but I couldn’t remember the last time a weatherman had been right. Still, I slipped on my snow boots just in case. There would probably be a few flurries, but nothing more. In fact, that would help. The snowfall would cover my scent and tracks in case someone decided to come looking for me. I had no intention of being found.
After my conversation with Beatrice the night before, I’d come home to finalize my plan and gather my courage. My grandparents had tried to comfort me, to talk to me about what had happened, but I’d politely, and lovingly, asked to be left alone. There was no way I could tell them what I planned. At best they’d do all they could to talk me out of it, and at worst one of them might have a heart attack. The rumors and legends of the Demon Wolf of Shadow Forest had become so prevalent and terrifying, shifters didn’t want their kids running in certain parts of it at night. So, we kept to the Carter Woods and other publiclands. The five thousand acres Leviathan Cross supposedly lorded over were considered forbidden territory unless the sun was high and you had friends with you. It was one of the reasons I’d panicked all those years ago when I’d been left alone in them. I’d been terrified the big, bad Demon Wolf would swoop in and steal me away.
But the man who’d come to my aid that night had been nothing like the nightmarish creature we were told about. Over the years, I’d come to believe he was Leviathan Cross. There was no other explanation as to why he’d been in that part of the forest. He’d been kind, gentle, and wise, but there had been an animalistic ferocity to him. Ifanyonecould teach me how to access my inner wolf, it was him. I had to try. If I wanted to continue living in Idlewild and take care of my grandparents, I had no other choice.
