Wayfarer

Chapter 6

Max

As I entered the Forest Atlas clearing in wolf form I took a big breath inward. The smell of pine and the cool evening air filled my lungs but it was distinctly missing the scent of her. Marrok whimpered.

‘Really? Were you hoping she was just going to be sat out in the open?’

Weren’t you?

I sighed. He was right, as much as my head told me she would not be so easy to find, my heart had hoped she would be waiting for me, having gone through the same agony of separation I had been dealing with all day. I put my nose to the ground and swept the clearing trying to find even the faintest trail for me to follow.

‘Find anything?’ Ned mind linked me.

I rolled my eyes, ‘not yet’ I replied.

***

Ned had been torn when I pulled him into the Alpha office that afternoon. ‘This is really dangerous Max, you are about to be made Alpha, what if this is a trap?’

‘Why would it be a trap, she is my Mate?’

‘I’m not letting you go on your own, I’ll come with you,’ he offered.

‘No I don’t want to overwhelm her again plus we still need to carry out patrol duties, we can’t take two nights off.’ Ned raised his eyebrows at me, ‘You’re not going on your own Max’.

I was getting impatient why was this so difficult for him to understand. ‘This isn’t optional Ned!’ I snapped back. Ned calmly sat down in the armchair by the door to the office and he looked like he was trying to think of a solution. Waiting for him to say something I sat in the chair behind the desk swinging it backward and forward as I dug a line into the wood in frustration with my thumb nail.

‘What if…’ Ned started and I raised my eyes to him, ‘what if I come with you and the others go on patrol? At least that way you will have back up?’

I shook my head. ‘No it has to just be me and her’. I wanted to feel that mate bond with her without the prying eyes of anyone, even if it was someone I trusted like Ned.

‘Max, your parents will go mad if anything happened and you were on your own…’

‘I’M A GODAMN ALPHA’ I roared bringing my fist to the desk and looking Ned directly in the eyes. I may not have been Alpha yet but my authority still caused him to lower his head. My temper was ridiculously short today and whilst I felt bad for snapping, I knew I needed him to do what I asked to improve my mood in the long run.

We sat in silence until Ned mind linked me ‘What about this?’.

I looked over to him replying over our link ‘What about what?’, shrugging my shoulders.

‘This. I come with you…’ he raised his hand as I opened my mouth to retort, ‘as far our mind link will stretch, you will have a good half mile distance from me. That way if anything is to go…off plan…I am still close enough to give you back up but still far enough that if she is there she will not know that I am?’

A big smile crept across my face, genius. This was the best I had felt all day.

*****

Unknown

After leaving the lake I ran backwards and forwards probably more than I needed to as I made my way back home. I was used to covering my tracks and an expert at being elusive but I took extra precautions this time. If the black wolf had felt a Mate pull then he would likely be more persistent than others who had caught my scent before. I made it back home about an hour before sunrise and despite the events of that evening I didn’t feel relieved. I felt anxious.

We need to go back.

I rolled my eyes, ‘I wondered when you would be back Aphinya.’  I could feel her anger at me as I shifted and walked towards the front door of our small stone cottage, ‘I know your annoyed but please stop being so anxious, it feels awful.’ That’s not me. I hesitated briefly as I pushed through the door and grabbed my joggers and a sweatshirt from the chair. Feel it in the pit of your stomach? Aphinya asked as I pulled my clothes, Like you’re going to be sick?

‘Yea’, I replied. That’s not me. I could feel the smug grin on my wolf’s face even though I couldn’t see her.

I sat on the end of my mattress on the floor and shivered from the cold. I had enough wood to light a fire to keep warm for a couple of hours and then I would go out in the afternoon to get more. I had survived many of the cold nights out here shifted into my wolf form to keep warm but I knew if I did that now Aphinya may try to take control and run back.

I lit the fire and stared absentmindedly into the flames as I waited for them to grow larger. I could not stop my mind going back to him. I replayed the roar of the black wolf as he yelled ‘Mate’, the certainty of his voice and then the howl that reverberated through my chest that he had given on the edge of the lake. Surely not?

What other explanation do you have? Aphinya butt into my thoughts. She had me there, I didn’t have one. I didn’t know this wolf, I had no other connection that I knew of with him other than a potential Mate bond.

‘And if he is? We are rogue Aphinya, I can’t just walk into his territory and expect to be welcomed with open arms can I? We will more than likely be rejected and then torn apart by Warriors before we can make our escape. I know its not much here Aphinya but we have a good set up for our situation.’

And what if that doesn’t happen? You are just going to reject him now for the both of us?

I didn’t answer her. I sat looking at the flames dancing in the fireplace and eventually I must have fallen asleep as the flames morphed into images of me and Aphinya in wolf form darting through the forest playfully with a huge black wolf. He didn’t seem terrifying, in fact he was rolling and pouncing playfully towards us like a pup. Aphinya swished her tail in his face as she stopped dead in front of him and he lowered his powerful head to nuzzle her. We were happy.

****

I woke up from the cold invading every inch of my body but I had a smile on my face from the dream. I looked round the cottage, we had done alright for ourselves given the circumstances but did I really want to be here forever? Was this it for us? A cottage deep in a territory that no one claimed any longer? No pack to support us?

‘Aphinya?’

Mmm?

‘What if,…what IF we try and understand about more about this wolf?’

I’m listening.

I am not going to march through every territory around here looking for him, that’s suicide, but we could go back to Forest Atlas and…observe? See if he comes back? If he felt the Mate bond I’m guessing he is likely to and then we can decide what we do?’

A pleased rumble resonated in my chest as Aphinya clearly approved of my plan. It was late afternoon I decided I would eat and get up to Forest Atlas before sunset to find a vantage point to watch for his return.