You Will Be Mine (New Horizon Book 3)

Chapter 34: Gabe

I know seeing the two of us fighting is upsetting Jeannie, but not only can I not seem to calm myself down when I can still smell her all over him and him all over her, quite honestly, she needs to get used to it. She lives with werewolves now, and this one is my brother. He’s my best friend, usually, but the rest of the time, he’s the only one who knows exactly what buttons to push to rile me up. We fight a lot. It’s just who we are.

And this time, it’s more than justified. This sneaky little snake went behind my back and took my mate out for lunch, something even I haven’t had the pleasure of doing yet, and whatever they were doing together had them getting close enough to mark each other with their scents. I don’t even have to put my nose all that close to Jeannie to smell that she’s wearing his scent in places that should only ever bear my scent.

Of course I’m mad, and Garrett doesn’t seem all that surprised about it. It’s almost like he wanted to get me all worked up and take me out back to fight me. Maybe he doesn’t feel like we finished whatever he was fighting me about just yesterday. Or worse, and I hate that this is where my mind immediately goes with this, I fear that he’s indirectly challenging me, trying to get close to Jeannie so he can steal her out from under me the way I did to him with Gabby.

I’d like to think that I know my brother and can feel confident that he’s better than that, but the truth is, this thing with Gabby has hovered over us and put a giant stain on our relationship for the better part of a decade. We always end up just dropping the topic instead of resolving it when it comes up, but really, how do you even go about resolving something like one brother sleeping with the other brother’s mate and inadvertently luring her away from him?

That’s a wound that will never heal for him, and we’ll never quite be the same as we were before that. And now that I’ve found my own mate, those old wounds seem to be getting ripped wide open for him, heavy doses of salt being poured right in.

I don’t care what happened in the past or if he thinks I deserve it, he’d better keep his paws off my mate. She’s mine, and I intend to drive that point home. Right now, today. He won’t be walking away from this. Limping, crawling even, but definitely not walking. I need to leave him with something to think about and remember for later.

The best part is that for once, Simon agrees with me. He senses something from Sebastian that he doesn’t like, and it has to do with his interest in Jeannie. It becomes clear early-on in our scuffle that fighting Garrett in human form isn’t going to get us anywhere. This goes deeper than that and involves our wolves too, so it’s time to let them out. Let my brother see who is the true Alpha here.

We might be evenly matched in most cases, but today he messed with my mate. Today, he’s going to find out what happens when I’m not holding back, when I don’t care whether he can get up and shrug off his injuries. And Simon is going to help me instead of fighting against me for once, so this will be the first time that Garrett sees his true strength and dominance too. We’re going to demolish him. I can just feel it.

Despite Jeannie’s pleas and protests – which I must admit do affect me, and I did consider abandoning this fight and calling a truce for her benefit – I can feel Simon pushing his way forward and taking over my body. When I see that Garrett has given in and let Sebastian out, I don’t even hesitate any longer. It’s time, and it’s on.

Neither of us bothered to disrobe first, but we’ll worry about that later. Nudity is another thing Jeannie is going to have to get used to around here.

Realizing that Simon is angry and focused enough to handle this on his own, I gladly let him all the way forward to take over. He wastes little time lunging for his brother, going straight for his limbs and whatever he can reach that might cripple Sebastian enough to give us an advantage. Sebastian is coming at him with just as much focused rage, and it’s actually quite a challenge to fight him back. He has his guard up, but he’s also seizing every opportunity to attack that he can find. So is his brother, though.

Simon is singularly focused on debilitating Sebastian when I hear a strange sound from where I know Jeannie was standing a moment ago. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s almost like a battle cry, and the effect it seems to have on Simon is to reinvigorate him and give him a fresh burst of energy and renewed focus. I wonder if it’s some magic thing she’s doing to help us, but unless I want to distract his focus so I can turn his head, I can’t see her.

Then I feel a rush of power wash over us, but it’s not like the Alpha power that I’m used to from my mom. It’s something different, but just as impossible to ignore. And seconds later, it’s accompanied by a powerful roar that sounds strangely like another wolf has joined us, emphasis on the strange. The sound is as eerie and beautiful as it is intimidating, and it reverberates through Simon as though it’s calling to him.

All thought of the battle with his brother evaporates from his mind, almost as if it was forced out by that eerie sound and the resounding aura, and he ceases his actions with a yip, turning to see who or what is calling for his attention. It just feels natural to get on the ground and greet the wolf before him with reverence, almost like she’s royalty or something.

But she’s not. She’s Jeannie, even though that makes no sense. I can sense it though. She smells like Jeannie, although her scent is stronger now, and she feels like Jeannie. At least Simon seems to think so. He’s used to the feel of her in his mind, and I can sense that he recognizes his mate in this wolf.

Except, she doesn’t smell like a wolf, and her appearance is like no wolf I’ve ever seen before. Her fur is shiny and black at the roots, and it takes on some muted hues of those purplish tones from her hair toward the ends. But the eyes are unmistakable. Those are Jeannie’s indigo-violet eyes, and she’s glaring at us.

She lets out another powerful roar, and a feeling washes over us that leaves me with a sense that she doesn’t approve of our fighting and wants us to stop. It was the same thing she was saying when she still looked like Jeannie, except now we’re powerless to disobey her. Sebastian is on the ground watching her just as obediently and reverently as his brother, and neither seems to be able to make a move on the other with her right there watching and forcing their compliance.

“Jeannie!” I hear a familiar voice exclaim, and Simon turns his head so we can see that it’s my mom making her way over to us.

Matt and Tyler are right behind her, along with Beta Ryan. Great. I’m sure they’re coming over here because someone told them about us fighting. Garrett and I have definitely not been on our best behavior like is expected of the Alpha’s sons, and I’m sure there are some reprimands coming our way.

But first, we all need to figure out and recover from whatever Jeannie just did to herself, and to us.

Mom gets close to Jeannie, approaching cautiously as if she expects a hostile reaction, but Jeannie gets up and goes right over to her. My mom pets her head a little, sniffing the air and probably coming to the same conclusion I have. She doesn’t smell like a wolf. She smells clean and fresh, with a hint of sweetness to her, on top of her normal minty citrus scent, although I might be the only one who can smell that part.

“I thought for a moment that you might have been a shifter this whole time, but I don’t think so,” Mom comments thoughtfully. “I don’t think you’re really a wolf. You just look like one, and could maybe even run and fight like one. Did you know you could do this?”

She’s asking Jeannie, who shakes her wolfy head. I didn’t figure that she did since she never mentioned it to us before. And if she knew she could shift, she probably would have done so when we went for a run to the secret clearing.

“Maybe it’s like how Clarice can make herself into a pet cat,” Matt suggests, seeming as mystified by Jeannie as my mom is. “And maybe she could turn into other things if she wanted to, like Clarice does. I don’t think Clarice can use her spells to become something as big as an Alpha wolf though.”

“She doesn’t need to. She already is one,” Tyler reminds him. “But Jeannie isn’t, so that’s impressive, especially since she really feels like an Alpha.”

You weren’t here when she projected her aura, I mind-link them. She can give us orders just like you guys can.

“Okay, wow,” Mom says, at a loss for words. “Probably better if you save your Alpha aura for when you’re Luna. Don’t want my pack getting confused.”

Jeannie tilts her head as if she’s confused by that, which makes me wonder if she even intended to use an aura to stop us from fighting.

“Can you shift back?” Matt asks her. “And you two,” he turns to us. “Shift back. Enough of your bickering. Whatever happened, we can go talk it out like civilized people.”

Now he’s the one using an Alpha aura on us, so we have no choice but to obey. But Jeannie, on the other hand, remains in her wolf form. She seems to be trying, but since she’s not a real wolf, Matt can’t force her shift like he can ours. Neither can our Alpha mother, for that matter.

“I’m going to call Clarice and see if she has any advice for how to get her to shift back,” Mom says after watching Jeannie struggle for a bit.

Garrett and I take the shorts Tyler offers us and pull them on, though it’s a bit of a painful process considering how we were just tearing each other up. I have gashes across my abdomen that are throbbing and bleeding, and I’m pretty sure he dislocated my shoulder. My left leg hurts and it’s going to be a bother to walk on it too.

He looks worse off than me though. He can barely stand, and even his face is bleeding. It sounds like his breaths are a bit labored too. It comes as no surprise that after his shorts are on, he plops himself back on the ground. It’s actually a good idea, so I do the same.

“We should probably get the two of you over to the pack hospital,” Matt decides, looking us over with a grimace of disgust on his face.

That cuts deep. I hate disappointing my parents, and I also dread the inevitable lecture from my Alpha about how we have to be more careful about the way we present ourselves to the pack and how embarrassing it is to have her two grown sons fighting like hormonal teenagers out in the open like this.

“I’m on it,” Beta Ryan chimes in. “Linking some medics to come get them now.”

Jeannie cautiously makes her way over to me, looking me over and seeming to study my wounds in particular. I reach out to pet her head, with Simon whimpering in my mind the whole time because he’s jealous that he didn’t get to snuggle with her as a wolf, but she pulls away as soon as I touch her.

That stings a little, but I get it. We’re still not on speaking terms, and she doesn’t appreciate me fighting with my brother.

But then she surprises me by nuzzling her head against my outstretched leg before tentatively laving at it with her tongue. It’s as if she can sense how much my knee and the tendons of my ankle hurt because that’s where she seems to be focusing her efforts. Everywhere she touches tingles with warmth and soothing energy.

At first, I assume it’s just our mate bond to blame for it, but I quickly realize that what she’s actually doing is helping my wounds feel better. I think she’s using some sort of healing magic on me.

“Is it just me, or is the redness of his knee fading as she does that?” Beta Ryan asks, stepping closer to us for a better look.

“It’s not just you,” I confirm for him. “That’s helping a lot with the pain.”

“She did heal Eli earlier, after I was forced out of her mind by some latent spell effect that someone left there,” Matt informs us. “I’m betting she is helping you, though I’m not sure you deserve it. Maybe some time sitting with the pain is just what you need to help you remember to keep yourself in check next time.”

Jeannie seems to agree with him, backing away from me and going over to sit next to him instead. I have to fight back Simon’s urge to growl at that, knowing I’m already on thin ice with the Alpha and her mates after my fight with Garrett.

“Oh come on, my leg is worse than his,” Garrett complains, turning his leg to show us the open wound that starts high up on his thigh and continues across the side of his knee and down his calf.

Good. He deserved that, and it’s somewhat satisfying to see how much worse off he is than me. I’ll consider that a win for me.

Jeannie growls at him, which I can’t help smiling about. It’s as if she’s telling him to quit his whining because he earned those wounds, and I don’t disagree.

But then she turns her glare on me, wiping the smile off my face. She’s right. I’m no better than him here.

My dads and Beta Ryan are still chuckling at our little interaction when my mom walks back over to us, holding her phone in her hand.

“Clarice says that it should work the same way that you do anything else, Jeannie,” she says. “Whether it’s picturing the effect you desire or holding the idea in your head, something along those lines. Whatever you did to make the shift happen, you should just have to do something similar to reverse it.”

Jeannie just sits there looking back at her for a few moments, and nothing happens.

She’s too anxious, Simon chimes in.

“Come here, Jeannie,” I tell her as warmly and invitingly as I can manage. “I know I’m not your favorite person currently, but it might help to come sit by me and relax.”

She c***s her head at me, seeming to think that over, before reluctantly making her way over to me. Once she’s close enough and sits back down, I reach out to stroke her silky fur, coaxing her to lie down with me. When she finally does, and I manage to convince her to put her head in my lap so I can pet her neck and behind her ears, she closes her eyes, and I feel her relax under my touch.

That’s when she starts to shimmer, the air around her seeming to sparkle and turn a bit hazy until she disappears entirely, reappearing a moment later as her normal self. And shockingly, all her clothes and belongings are still intact, and she’s still draped across my lap the way she was as a wolf.

“Yeah, there you go,” I tell her proudly.

She turns her head to glance up at me, startling when she realizes she’s in human form again. She quickly sits up and scoots away from me, brushing her hands over her clothes as if to smooth out wrinkles. There aren’t any, but she’s obviously uncomfortable. I suppose it would be rather unsettling to suddenly discover an ability you didn’t know you had, especially one like that.

“Welcome back,” my mom tells her cheerfully. “I bet that was quite an adventure.”

“I still don’t really know what happened,” Jeannie admits to her uncertainly. “I do know that it’s never happened before though. I’ve never even felt those sensations before.”

“Clarice also said she’s going to cut her trip short and come back to talk with you sooner rather than later. She suspects that you may have even more hidden abilities that you have yet to discover, and she’d like to be the one to help you get in touch with the rest of your potential.”

“I have no objections to that,” Jeannie sighs. “I could probably use a mage mentor right about now.”

“I’ll say,” I can’t help agreeing with her. “But it’s really exciting to see you so quickly figuring out how to use more of your magic, now that you’re not being forced to hide it and act human.”

She turns and gives me a thoughtful look that I don’t get a chance to try to interpret because that’s when four medics jog their way over to us, ready to load me and Garrett onto their stretchers so they can carry us out of here. And since they were called here by the Beta, and my mom gives them a nod of assent, they don’t even bother asking if we’re ready to go. They have their orders.

I try to help the medics load me up since I can still move myself, but Tyler tells them not to let me. He instructs them to treat us like invalids and ignore our protests to the contrary. I guess humiliation is part of our punishment, not to mention having to wait to find out more about Jeannie until the pack doctors have their way with me and take their time clearing me to leave the clinic.