Chapter 39 — Husk

Fagua didn’t want to travel with me. In fact, I didn’t fucking get how we were supposed to be mates when it was clear that she couldn’t stand to be in the same room as me. The bar she chose was a short walk from the hotel. The idea was for us to get a drink, then I would imprint on her. That was the short summary of it.

Winter made it sound so easy—the mate that had been in our casino for so many weeks, was now going to roll over and allow me to mate with her. I nodded and agreed with his explanation of the events that should take place, knowing that there was no fucking way that it would happen so easily.

"Go relax. Chill. Spend time alone and see how you feel about each other. Then, if it doesn't happen, we can take it from there."

No pressure. None whatsoever. Doc was dead. He'd been killed by Fagua's father's pack, and part of me blamed her for it. Even if she wasn't part of their pack anymore.

I had so much resentment and anger about the trail of events, but I was supposed to just relax, drink, eat, and mate.

My brothers knew nothing about the turmoil inside me called emotions, which I possessed a little too much of, and which made me the hard-headed one of the family.

I would be joining Doc, along with my brothers, if we didn't unify and bring her parents down. They were the ones behind this war, and all of them should be killed as a result of it.

I couldn't tell her what was in my mind, let alone my heart, especially when I found out that Doc was dead. There was no need to kill such a gentle soul. Someone who only found the best in wolves and had done so much for our community.

Fagua's scent was so potent, that it took me all of two seconds to locate her inside the crowded bar.

"What's your poison, Husk?" she asked. I tried to avoid eye contact because sometimes when I looked at her, I could see the fear in her eyes. I didn't blame her; I tended to act first and then regret it later. Then again, I'd never regretted anything, not until I saw the way she looked at me when the other pack turned up the other night. One doesn't forget a look like that in a hurry.

I'd washed up at the hospital as best I could, wiping away the blood. I wore a bandage on my arm from the fucking wolf's bite because in my state, my healing abilities had been reduced to almost nonexistent.

She wrinkled her nose and I knew she could probably still smell the other wolves' blood on me. I didn't need to tell her it was either kill or be killed.

"JD," I answered her.

She called the bartender and then ordered, "JD neat."

"You didn't order anything for yourself?"

"Nope." I couldn't read her, and it annoyed me even more.

Was it because she didn't want to get drunk around me? Or have her senses dulled in any way? Her gaze darted across the bar, as if she wanted to be any other place than here with me. A tightness pressed into the back of my throat and I wished I'd ordered a double.

She paid for the drink and then handed it over to me.

"We can sit over there."

I was being paranoid, but what was the point of going to a bar, if not to drink? "I'll buy the next two rounds. You sure you don't want anything?"

"I'm a little hungry. I see they have a menu. Do you mind if I get something to eat?"

"No," I whispered, realizing that she was just as nervous as I was but for different reasons. I imagined if it was a date with Sky, or even better, Winter, then they would be whispering sweet nothings in each other's ears and then escaping to the bedroom. I forgot where I was and who I was with, as I spent the majority of my time getting jealous about events that hadn't taken place or even were about to.

She’d managed to get her food and was sitting snacking on a fry as I spent more time being lost in my thoughts and trying to remember the last time I'd been in a place like this. It reminded me of the reason why I used to be proud to be a wolf. Not the brutal side that others classed us as being, but the type that enjoyed our own company. Lately, the only wolves I'd been in contact with were my brothers and Doc. And the wolves sent by her father.

"Are you sure you don't want some?"

I looked at her plate. It had meat in the form of a steak, but it didn't look as if it was beef. It was small, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was a buffalo. The whole idea of it made my stomach rumble.

"Take some. You're hungry," she offered.

I shifted my lips as she passed me cutlery. I was about to say something about eating it with my hands, when I remembered why we were here, which was to get along. I cut a piece and devoured it within seconds once I popped it in my mouth. My anxiety became a thing of the past.

"It's buffalo, right? My favorite. I can't remember the last time I ate it. It tastes so fucking good!" I said.

She giggled, and the sound caught me off guard. I was used to her being angry and standoffish, not this nervous, unsure Fagua.

"I can tell. Especially by the way that you're popping it into your mouth and smiling every time. You're really enjoying it. It's a little too chewy for me."

Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised because most women tend to feel that way about buffalo.

"Who found this place?" I asked.

My attention focused in the direction of two wolves who said that they were going outside to catch wind. I assumed that meant they were going to shift.

"Mayia. She told me about this place. It's like a haven for wolves. So many come here from different packs, and as you can see, they all get along." There was something in her voice I hadn't heard before, a vulnerability.

I raised an eyebrow, curious about her relationship with Mayia, and wondered what more she knew of our kind. It seemed I had judged her wrong because she seemed to know more about us than I did.

"If I tell you everything that she told me, then we would have to spend a week here. We're not going to get through the conversations I've had with her in one night."

"Why?"

"I speak to her every day. We meet in the park, go for a walk at night, then have a drink or two. Sometimes a little more than that." She laughed as she reminisced about her time with Mayia as she popped the last fry in her mouth and wiped both her mouth and the grease off her hands.

"Why would you trust such a stranger?"

She shook her head, as if to dismiss what I'd just asked her.

"You have no idea what it's like to be alone and lied to all your life. You have your brothers. I've had no one. Well, not exactly no one. I had my mom and dad, but they used me just to gain power over other wolves."

I finished the buffalo, and the temptation to order another was hard to resist. But I held back, thinking about the way she behaved when we first dined together. She made me feel like some sort of brutal animal, which I was, but then she made me feel like shit for being me. Besides, I wanted to hear what Fagua had to say about her new friend.

"I'm sure you had friends back home."

"One. And she was… well, she was like you."

She meant a wolf. I couldn't think what else she meant by that statement.

"Mayia is different, like I am. Unlike everyone we've ever come across."

"Yes, but you are not the same half-breed as her." I had guessed this from the conversation and my brief encounter with Mayia back at the penthouse before I got whisked away to the hospital.

She nodded in agreement. "But being a half-breed means that you get to know what it's like to not fit in. That's the point."

I suppose she was right. I'd spent all my life with my brothers and before that with our parents. We'd lived an honest life and trusted each other. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to not be able to trust the people that I loved so dearly.

"Oh my God," she shrieked with a huge grin on her face, jumping up and down. "Let’s go outside." She grabbed my hand and then we charged through the bar. I could feel her excitement through her hands, but I had no idea what had made her go from feeling slightly low to this high. And honestly, it made me both irritated that I couldn't cause a reaction like this with her and curious about what was going on.

Her vibration radiated through me as we ended up outside the bar and headed toward the woods.

"Slow down." I chuckled. She halted and then her eyes and face were all aglow, reflected in the moon above.

"I could shift; I can feel the urge to do so. I haven't felt this way in weeks, not since I've been at the casino."

Part of me wanted to ask her what she was talking about. How I'd never seen her shift and didn't know she could do so being a half-breed. But the other part of me didn't want to ruin this moment. I wanted to savor her looking at me like she was interested and not like I was a fucking monster.

"I just want to strip and shift." Her excitement was obvious.

I kept my hand in hers as we dashed deeper into the woods.

Now, I was the one running with her, and there was something sexual about being with another wolf, one that was my mate and I was supposed to be imprinting on.

I was running beside her into the woods, and we could hear the howls and it made us even more excited until we stopped by a tree. And it was there that we spoke with our body language and not our voices as we peeled off our clothes while focusing on each other.

She didn't look away, not like she did in the bar, or other times when I'd approached her. No, she was hungry to shift, and I was hungry to join her. I couldn't help but intently study her body, and she did the same with mine. I closed my eyes once I was naked and my clothes had been stacked in a pile.

The drug to keep me from going back into a coma still pumped through me and I felt stronger than I had in a long time. My wolf howled in my chest, eager to be free and run with Fagua.

It was weird shifting like this. I never was so careful before. It was a caveman moment for me, so at times I loved just shifting and my clothes ripping at the seams. But this felt a little too sophisticated for my well-being, something I wasn't used to, at all.

“I’m nervous.” She let out a small laugh. “Does it hurt? Shifting all the way? What if I get stuck as a wolf?”

“It doesn’t hurt as much as you’d think. Guess that’s the moon’s magic helping us. And as far as getting trapped in your other form, we can figure that out. It will help to return to this spot, something to trigger the memory of this moment and help you return to your human form.”

"I'll mark the tree with my lipstick, so we know where to come back to. Smell it."

I did as she commanded. And as she put her lipstick on top of our clothes, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I sank into myself, trying to find the animal within me as Fagua did the same. It didn't take long. We were both turning into the wolves we really were. I felt the lengthening of my limbs, and my back started to bend and my face no longer felt human. It had been a while since I'd shifted.

I'd never seen Fagua in her wolf form, but I relished the moment of being in mine. I told myself that seeing her this way was only for me. That my brothers hadn't witnessed this. One thing I could pretend was between her and I alone and no one else.

I felt a tap on my back, and as I opened my eyes, sure enough she was staring at me. She was clearly the most beautiful wolf I'd ever seen. I expected her to be flirting with me, toying with the idea of us both being in our wolf form.

Her fur was a mix of black and gray, most likely to show that although she was a shifter, she was a half-breed. She leapt up in the air, and I couldn't help but follow as she headed deeper into the woods. Ignoring the other wolves that passed us by, it was the first time we'd had a moment together like this. One that we could enjoy, far more than I'd envisaged we ever would.

Her yip brought me chasing after her, and my heart felt lighter than it ever had. I felt like I could do anything. Like I could fly. There was no denying she was supposed to be mine.

We approached a lake, and she leapt in. Something I hated doing in this form, but with her, anything was possible. I realized more than ever, she wasn’t my enemy but my mate, and I wanted to imprint on her more than ever.