My Shifted Life

Chapter 9 - Fabian

“Come back to bed darling.” Cleo purrs as seductively as she can.

“I can’t sleep.” I reply agitated and continue pacing around the room.

“Who said anything about sleeping?” She asks with a flirtatious smile.

“I’m not in the mood.” I shout back, walking out of the room, out of the suite and all the way out of the pack house. The cold breeze hits my bare chest hard and I stand still to breath in the refreshing night air.

Blake my wolf has been on edge for weeks but it has been getting worse. I can feel him pacing around inside my head all the time. I can’t sleep for all the pacing and I have been tired and short tempered with everyone. I had decided to head to bed for a quick nap but Cleo had taken that as a sign for something else and had followed me to the room. This was supposed to be the honeymoon period of our relationship after all. We have been mates for just under a year. I had found her late. At 35 I didn’t think I would ever find my goddess gifted mate, and to be honest, I didn’t care. I had my fair share of she-wolves to pick from and I was happy with the variety. I knew I would probably need to take a Luna and have a pup at some point, but that was always a problem for another time. However scenting my mate at a ball in a pack hours away from home had changed all that. She was beautiful and the bond was strong, but it was suffocating. I wasn’t used to having someone around me all the time, the same someone touching me and cuddling up to me every single night. Blake had been ecstatic and the pack was doing great with a Luna, better than I could ever have imagined. The pack members all love her and everyone is eagerly awaiting news of an impending pup, but it is all too much for me. She is a great mate, Alpha-blooded, so will bare me strong pups, and she is desperate to start trying, but however much I know it’s the right thing to do, I can’t bring myself to take that next step right now. I’m just not ready for all that just yet. I am also incredibly angry with her right now, but she seems completely oblivious to it. My brother Fynn is away from the pack fighting for her brother. A fight he had no place to be fighting, but he had defended her when we had argued about her promise of our help, so I had sent him there to deal with it. It was the last thing in the world that I actually wanted to happen, but somehow that is how it is. He was originally due back earlier today but they had been unexpectedly delayed and they were now due back at any moment. I can’t wait to see him, it has been far too long, the longest I have ever been without him by my side. Our mother and father died when I was 18 and I became the Alpha overnight with all the responsibilities for the pack that came with it. Fynn was 17 and became one of the youngest ever Betas, my Beta. We had been inseparable since he was born and now as my Beta we always come as a pair. I curse myself again for the thousandth time for sending him to that goddess forsaken pack.

I stare up at the full moon praying to the goddess, as I wait for news that my warriors are back in the pack territory. Usually we have a pack run on the full moon but without Fynn it didn’t seem right, so I had cancelled it. Some wolves are running around the pack in small groups anyway, and I can hear the occasional howl in the distance. A strange feeling like a spider crawling across my body creeps up my back. I shrug my shoulders to try to shrug it off but it doesn’t work. A vision of a beautiful, deep, chocolate brown wolf completely takes over my mind. There are several brown wolves in the pack but this one feels different, a newly shifted wolf perhaps but I don’t know of any wolves that should be shifting for the first time tonight. First shifts are special, happening on the first full moon after your 16th birthday. The pack runs are a way of the new wolf joining the pack and solidifying the bond with the other wolves straight away. If there was a first shift due tonight I would never have cancelled the pack run, Fynn or no Fynn. I can feel a different type of bond with this wolf though, but I can’t explain it, it just feels different.

“Blake, do you know who the wolf is?” I ask my wolf. He has much better instincts than me.

“Ours.” Is all he says on the matter, but thankfully he has finally finished pacing around in my mind and is now as still as a statue, seeing, listening, sensing. Desperate to feel more from the new wolf, but as suddenly as the vision of the wolf had appeared it is gone.

“Can’t be ours. No first shifts in the pack tonight.” I reply perplexed.

“Ours.” Blake repeats slowly, the different meaning evident and the gravity of what he is implying hits me hard.

“It can’t be ours.” I argue back. How can I have a pup? I have always been careful, I never take any chances. I don’t want just any she-wolf birthing my pups. I rack my brain through all the she-wolves I have slept with over the years. It’s a long list but most of them are still around the pack or neighbouring packs. None have shown any signs of being pregnant in a timeline that would indicate I could be the father. Blake must be mistaken.

“Alpha we are back on pack lands and it sure does feel good to be back.” Terry one of my best warriors mind links me.

“Is Fynn with you?” I ask panicking. Terry would have had the command if Fynn hadn’t gone, but because he did, Fynn should have been the one to let me know they were back.

“Yes although he’s sulking at letting Georgia Monroe slip through his paws again.” Georgia Monroe? The name sounds vaguely familiar but I can’t place her. From the way Terry described her she is probably some she-wolf Fynn has met on his travels and has spoken about, but that doesn’t seem right. Fynn has never spoken much about the she-wolves he has been with and he has been with a lot. The only female he has ever really spoken about was the human girl who had enchanted him when they were teenagers. Thinking about the beautiful girl with curly blond hair and pale grey eyes was bringing back a whole heap of memories I didn’t want to think about. She had been so beautiful and innocent with a voice like an angel. Although I don’t usually find myself attracted to humans, I had been very attracted to this one. As had everyone else, including Fynn. Even though everyone had wanted her, ultimately she had found herself in my bed and there she had stayed for a time, until she found out the hard way, that I wasn’t exactly the faithful type. She had left and I had barely given her a second thought over the years.

“Tell him I need to see him in my office straight away.” I say through the mind link and turn and walk into the office to await my brothers arrival.

Blake is still deathly silent and trying to reconnect to the new brown wolf, when Fynn walks in with a face like thunder. He is very clearly pissed off, either at me for sending him away or as Terry suggested himself for letting Georgia escape without a good pounding.

“It’s good to have you back.” I say trying to lighten his mood.

“Hmm.” He grunts sitting down in the chair facing the desk, even though I am not sitting at my desk right now.

“Terry said you found something interesting whilst you were over there?”

“Not really.” He slouches down further into the chair placing his fingers together as his elbows rest on the chair arms.

“Georgia Monroe?” I ask.

“She is a person not a thing.” He sulks.

“Whatever. Did she give you the slip again?”

“Technically it was Terry who she gave the slip to, but I was there.” He replies.

“Cheer up, there are plenty of beautiful she-wolves out there for an unmated Beta.” I tease him, although in all honesty I am jealous of his situation. “I have a list of numbers I can give you if you need a release. Unfortunately I won’t be using them any time soon.” Fynn was also now 35 and unmated, and uninterested. Enjoying spending his time with as many different she-wolves as he could.

“No thanks.”

“Whatever. I didn’t ask you here to talk about your love life. The reason I asked you here is because I have just acquired a bond to a new pack wolf. I think that’s what it is. I can’t explain it, but without the pack run I can’t be sure. I felt a new bond form and saw a large brown wolf just before you got back.”

“Is that how it normally feels.” Fynn asks stopping his strop and sitting up in the chair.

“No it’s not, but we always do a ceremony and the run for the first shift.”

“Perhaps it’s just different cos of that then.” He suggests helpfully. He was still pissed off but he was always professional with pack business. “You should have still done the run.”

“I had hoped you would be back in time for the run, but you weren’t here, and there shouldn’t have been any pack members shifting for the first time tonight.” I clarify.

“That’s strange.”

“Can you help me check that there aren’t any pups in the pack that have shifted early? Start with the ones closest to 16 and work back.” I ask optimistically. It was very unlikely for a wolf to shift before their 16th birthday but not impossible.

“Sure thing.”

After checking through all the files, the old paper ones and the recent computerised ones, and checking with each family, we have between us accounted for all the wolves and pups in the pack. None shifted for the first time tonight.

“It must be something else then. Can you locate the wolf?” Fynn asks.

“No. I can’t find them or see where they are and neither can Blake. I only saw them for a few minutes just before you got back to the pack, then they were gone.” I explain.

“Perhaps you and Cleo have made a pup? The wolf could already be attaching itself.” Fynn contemplates. That would be great news to many in the pack, but it was totally impossible.

“Not a chance.” I reply.

“Well, not Cleo then, you might have a pup by someone else who just got their wolf or just shifted for the first time.”

“I did think about that, but no she-wolf just disappeared. I would know if I got one of them pregnant. Most of them are still around.”

“Then not a she-wolf.” Fynn says quietly. An expression of hurt and jealousy evident all over his face.

“You don’t think…?” I start but let the question trail off, not wanting to say the words, to acknowledge the possibility.

“I don’t know.” Fynn replies.

“Where is she now?” I demand.

“I don’t know.” He repeats.

“I need to find her.” I explain frustratedly.

“She left after she saw us, she ran away as fast as she could, and left no trace. We looked for her for hours today, but she has completely disappeared.”

“Are you sure? How could a human escape two of my best warriors?”

“We didn’t know to follow her too closely and we didn’t want to piss Cleo’s brother off. I checked all around the town and the pack but she has gone.”

“We need to find her.”

“She doesn’t want to be found and the wolves in that pack have a big thing about respecting the humans.”

“f**k. I think I need to speak to Cleo’s brother.” I fume. This is a conversation I would most definitely rather not have.