Competing for the Luna’s Heart

Chapter 3

Mitch

I left Alina to get cleaned up and wash away the restless night she spent in her mother’s study. I’ve been finding her there more often, the closer it gets to her eighteenth birthday. I know she’s worried about the challenge, but she should know that I’d never let anything happen to her.

I always let my parents tell the story, but I remember the day she was born. I was barely a year old, but when my parents took me to meet our future Luna, it was then that I had officially become her gamma. Even if I didn’t know or understand it then.

My mother still to this day talks about how my first word was “Luna”, right when I saw her.

I didn’t know it then but the thread, that links us as Luna and gamma, solidified. I looked down at her, she was so quiet. And when her eyes opened, they had shined brighter than any star. It was something that the alpha noticed as well. Things always seemed to be a little brighter with her around.

She hated when I called her Luna, so I had started calling her little star. When the alpha asked me about it, I was only six years old. And I told him the truth, I couldn’t lie to my alpha, even as a pup. He noticed that she smiled a little bigger when I did, and one day I heard him call her that too.

When I entered the kitchen I found Lucy bouncing around, finishing the last round of breakfast for the late comers. She was so devoted to making sure every wolf in our pack had a hot meal available. Since she never found a mate, it seemed as though she had mated herself to the pack.

I grabbed a water and headed out to the training ground to go over the new schedule with the lead trainers. They had just finished the first week of the new training program we were implementing and I wanted to see how everyone had responded.

Lance had noted some of the female warriors had struggled with a new defensive move they showed during sparring, but that they all adapted quickly, tweaking things for their slightly shorter height. She wolves might be taller than the average human female, but the males still had on average five inches on them.

It made me proud that everyone had taken the changes positively. We’d been working on this program for four months and I was excited to finally start using it.

We were heading back to the pack house from the training grounds when I felt it. The rough yank to go to the forest. It was as if I could actually see the silver thread that linked me and Alina, showing me a direct path to her. We had started practicing her ability to feel it and pull on it.

She couldn’t use the mindlink until she got her wolf, and if something ever happened to block her wolf, I wanted to make sure that she still had a way to get help. But it’s never been that intense before. I immediately linked the alpha.

‘Alpha, something is wrong with Alina. She’s in the forest. I’m heading there now, follow my scent.’ I cut the link off so I could focus on the thread that would lead me to my Luna.

It didn’t take long before I found her. She was on the ground, on all fours. I knew what was happening, her first shift. But it shouldn’t have been possible. I told her I linked her father but I had no idea if she heard me. I tried to get to her as quickly as possible but quietly so I wouldn’t startle her.

I had nearly reached her when she let out a piercing scream, and I wasn’t prepared for the pain that raced through me. I knew it would happen when her wolf came to her, the physical part of our connection. It was only an echo of what she experienced, but what the elders liked to call a fail safe. A way to ensure that she could be healed if she or her mate could not tell anyone themselves.

I knew, as soon as I felt it, that her wolf was coming. I heard her father, my alpha, approaching. If i had been more observant, I would’ve been able to pick out the six distinct set of foot steps that followed him before I could see them. But my Luna needed me.

‘Alpha, she’s shifting.’ I linked him. I didn’t know if he would want others to know that her wolf was coming early.

I could feel the resistance she had to it. She didn’t understand what was happening, I could feel the pressure pushing out from inside of her, If this was only a fraction of what she was experiencing, I couldn’t understand how she hadn’t screamed sooner.

Kneeling down beside her, I wrapped my body around hers, “Little star, it’s going to be ok. I’m right here. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.”

I didn’t know if she could hear me, but I had to keep talking. She needed to know that she wasn’t alone and that I wouldn’t leave her.

It felt like hours as her body pushed against mine. The way her back arced and her spine vibrated, I knew it wouldn’t be long now. But then suddenly her body froze, she went limp.

“Alina. Alina!”

Before I could unwrap myself her, I found that I suddenly felt fur instead of skin. The softest fur I think I’d ever felt on a wolf. I couldn’t help but run my fingers through it. When I did, I heard a soft purring sound in my mind.

‘Hello, gamma. Or should I call you Mitch?’

‘You’re Alina’s wolf. Why-? How-?’

‘She needed me. I tried to tell her that I was coming, not to fight me, but I couldn’t reach her. Mother told me that I needed to come now though. She would not let the change happen, she fought me. I had no choice but to take her mind over completely and put her to sleep to complete the change myself.’

I had managed to untangle myself from around the wolf whose name I had not learned yet. When I stood to get a good look at my Luna’s wolf, to say I was stunned would be an understatement.

She had just finished bringing herself to stand completely, and her head reached my chest. I knew she would be a larger wolf, being the heir, but I think she might actually be larger than Zion. Her fur though, that was the biggest surprise.

Her fur was exquisite, and I’d never seen another wolf with such a unique color. It was like this pearly, iridescent white that seemed to almost reflect a touch of mint green or purple. My eyes had to be playing tricks on me.

‘What is it gamma?’

Without thinking, I said out loud, “Your fur, it’s beautiful. It looks like.. well, I’m not sure what it looks like.”

The sound she let out could only be described as a wolf’s version of a chuckle.

‘Yes gamma, I am unique.’

Not only was she unique, she was confident. She knew how special she was and she was determined to make sure I knew it too. I just hadn’t realized quite how special she was at this point.

Before I could ask her anything else, she turned up her snout and let out a piercing howl, signaling the pack that their future Luna had shifted. So much for letting Alina decide if she wanted others to know she shifted early.

‘What is your name?’ I asked through our link.

She gave me a wolfy grin and lowered her head to my hand, ‘Jade’.

I ran my fingers through her fur once more, she seemed to like that. But then she took off, the excitement of her first run could no longer be held back. I turned around and saw the alpha standing there, he still had a slightly stunned look on his face.

“Alpha, are you coming?” My question seemed to pull him from the haze of wild thoughts and we both shifted and took off after Jade.

She was fast for a newly shifted wolf. We caught her scent and followed her further into the forest. It was fortunate that this part of our territory went on for several miles and there were no human towns nearby. After a few more minutes, I recognized where she was heading.

We crept through the thinning trees, and walked into the clearing that Alina, Callie and I used to come to over the summers.