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1560 Words
“Landon, lost your d**k?” my brother bit back at him as he turned his attention to him. “Seems you were playing in the water with the women when you should have been training.”
I bristled at the tone and the statement—my brother is an ass. He’s also one of the pack’s betas and head of pack security, so they respected him within the pack. But he was still an ass.
“He was helping me.” I cut off whatever retort Landon was about to give. We didn’t need him and my brother bitching at each other right now.
Kris glanced at my basket. “Nothing?”
Looking at the seven fish in it, I looked back at him. Yup, I knew it—we’d fooled no one. “If you let me hunt without the spear, I would have caught more than fish.”
“Not everyone wants your saliva on their food,” he chastised me. Stepping forward and taking the basket off me, he tipped the contents into Cass’s. “Stop cheating for her,” he softly reprimanded. With a hard look at me, he turned on his heel. “Come.”
Giving my friends a weak smile, I hurried after my brother.
“I wouldn’t mind if he commanded me to come.”
Hearing Cass’s soft whisper to Landon made my eyes widen in shock as I turned to stare at her in disbelief. If I heard her, that meant my brother did too, and also, what the hell?
With a cheeky grin, she blew me a kiss and grabbed Landon’s hand, ignoring his disgruntled look at her remark. They both headed to the kitchens with today’s haul.
I walked behind Kris as I followed him to the shaman’s house. This routine was well-known to me. If I left the town’s boundary, despite being with the pack leader’s children, on my return, I was to be taken to the shaman who would ensure I hadn’t shifted.
For eight years, this pack denied my wolf, and from the age of fourteen, I could not shift unless it was at the command and supervision of the pack leader.
The Anterrio Pack may accept my brother, but making me do this every time I left the town confirmed that they still didn’t trust me. I’d been wild and free for so long, how could someone like me conform to their pack ways?
What I resented even more was that my brother went along with it. Kris never once took me at my word. He would always chaperone me and then, more often than not, wait for the shaman to tell him if I had shifted so Kris could tell Bale I’d remained human.
As I said, he was an ass.
“Did you hold the spear the way I taught you?” he asked me over his shoulder.
“No, I held it with my feet while I stood on my head.”
“Quite the feat to stand on your head while holding a spear.”
I stopped walking, my mouth falling open. “Feat? Was that a pun? Did you try to make a joke?”
Kris snorted as he turned to look at me. “I don’t care if you’re almost eighteen. You’re not too old to be sent to bed without supper, especially a supper you didn’t catch.”
He would do it too. Asshole.
“I held the spear as you taught me. I moved through the water as you taught me. I threw the spear as you taught me. I missed the fish—”
“Because no one can teach you,” the shaman said as he emerged from his home. He was blind in one eye and had reduced vision in the other. Even so, his smile was wide as he looked straight at me. “Kezia, my child, you’ve been hunting?”
“Yes.”
“No,” my brother answered at the same time. Turning, he looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “To hunt means to kill. I see nothing you’ve killed from today.”
With a tight smile, I looked him over swiftly. “The day’s not over yet.”
Kris merely ignored my implied threat, but the shaman’s chuckle brought my attention back to him. “Come, pup, let’s finish this inside. Kris, she knows the way home.”
The shaman was the only person other than Bale who could easily dismiss my brother. It gave me perverse satisfaction watching my tall, broad-shouldered brother being dismissed by a small, thin, wiry old shifter.
Kris, of course, had nothing but respect for the shaman, and as his head dipped in acknowledgment, I didn’t miss the quick flick of his eyes to me with the unspoken order to behave.
“Come on, you,” the shaman said as he turned to enter the house. “The afternoon is waning, and I heard trout is on the menu tonight.”
“You hate fish,” I reminded him inside as I sat on his couch, leaning back with my legs kicked out in front of me. A pose so casual that my brother would die of shame if he saw me like this in the shaman’s house.
“I do, which is why you and I are having burgers.”
Sitting up straight, I looked at him in excitement. “Tell me you’re not joking.”
“About food? Never.”
“You are the best,” I told him as I leaned forward and picked up the small knife and wooden bowl. “Left or right?”
“Hmm, oh, the right one, if you must. You know I don’t need to taste your blood anymore to know you didn’t shift.”
“I know,” I answered softly. The shaman, unlike my brother, took me at my word. “But he may come and ask, and I don’t want to put you in that position.”
As I made the small cut across my wrist, I let the drops fall into the bowl. When there was a small amount, I selected the herbs that were on the table, and with a pestle, I mixed my blood with them. Holding out the bowl to the shaman, he took it, then with a deep sniff, his tongue darted out, and he licked up the contents.
“Hmm,” he murmured as he placed the bowl down. “Interesting. Your first heat is coming.”
“Is that why I’m so snarky?” I asked him, even as my cheeks flared with embarrassment. There were things a female didn’t need to hear from an ancient man, even if he was a shaman.
“No. You’re snarky because you’re an eighteen-year-old shifter with a bad attitude.”
“Wow, I must be feisty today,” I muttered as I watched him take a long drink of water to wash any remaining influence of me from his mouth.
“The flavor of your blood is strong,” he told me easily, smiling when I said nothing. The shaman knew that the act of tasting blood made me queasy. “It packs quite the punch,” he added. Sitting back, he considered me. “Your heat is a problem.”
“I’ll be eighteen soon.”
“I know.”
“Isn’t it less of a problem because I’m almost an adult?”
“We’re not animals,” he began but stopped when I snorted. “Okay, we’re partly animals. A virgin’s heat is more potent. Your age is irrelevant in our world. Humans need an age of consent. Our wolves only need the first heat to descend, and maturity is theirs.”
“He’s going to lock me in a cell and throw away the key, isn’t he?”
The shaman chuckled. “In Kristoff’s case, I think that may be fairly accurate. It’s his duty to protect his sister.”
“It’s his duty to smother her, you mean.”
“He loves you very much, young one,” the shaman admonished me quietly.
“Meh.” Looking down at my lap, I thought about what he said. “Do you know when?”
“Hard to tell at the moment. I’ll keep a close eye on it, though.”
“If it’s soon, I might miss the Luna Ball…” I tried to sound nonchalant despite the hope surging in my chest.
His face fell, and he nodded in confirmation. “You could. I’m sorry you’ll be disappointed.”
On the contrary, I would happily miss the ball. For once, Mother Nature might do me a solid.
“Kris will be gutted,” I said instead, knowing he would also have to miss the ball. But as head of pack security, he would be sad he wasn’t throwing his weight around in front of the visiting packs.
“He may entrust you to another,” the shaman said absently as he checked the pouches of herbs on his table.
Yeah, me in my first heat in the middle of a ball and lots of visiting packs? My brother would not leave my side. There wasn’t a chance in hell, and I was genuinely grateful this time that he was an overbearing oaf.
- Writer
