Chapter 14

The pack welcomed us home with open arms...and with half a dozen dramas that required our personal attention ASAP. To my extreme embarrassment and joy, Wolfie merely raised one eyebrow at the assembled shifters, transferred our sleeping bloodling girl into Cricket's willing arms, and spirited me away into our cottage.

We locked the door and didn't reenter the real world for hours.

"So," Wolfie said at last, tracing a spiraling pattern across the tender skin atop my collarbone with one lazy finger, "you're relieved and our wolves are happy. Now it's my turn."

My human half was sated and my wolf was playful, so I couldn't resist the obvious quip. "I think you already had a turn. Or two, or three."

Wolfie's eyelids drooped back down to half-mast as he smiled indulgently. "Mmm," he hummed, obviously just as content as I was. Then his voice firmed back up. "That's not what I meant, though."

"So what's wrong?" I asked.

For the second time that day, my mate appeared to be uncharacteristically tongue-tied, and the silence stretched between us like a suddenly taut rubber band. Unable to bear the suspense, I nudged him both physically and verbally. "Do you need to go back to check on Chase? Are you worried about Ember?"

"No and no," Wolfie replied. He took a deep breath through his nose, and his words came out faster than usual. "It's about our claiming moon...."

At his words, the smile that had been dancing across my lips quickly faded away. I couldn't say that I'd forgotten about Wolfie's previous request. But, somehow, I'd hoped that Chase's and Ember's dramas would have made my mate overlook the fact that I never gave a real reply to his request.

Fat chance of that, my lupine half said succinctly.

My wolf was trying to cheer me up with her snark, but my human mind wasn't so easily sidetracked. Instead, despite my best efforts to stay snuggled into my mate's side, I couldn't help sitting up and clasping my hands across my bare breasts in an effort to turn invisible. And I could hear the child-like tremor in my voice when I finally filled the long silence with words. "Do we have to talk about this now?"

"Hey, this is me, remember." Wolfie tipped my chin back up with firm fingers, then ran the same hand gently across my hair. The gesture had always soothed me in the past, but now I could only think about the uber-alphas and their dominance display earlier that afternoon. A display that hadn't affected Wolfie one bit...making me realize that my mate was yet more powerful than I'd at first imagined. How could I fully commit to mating with an alpha who could send me to my knees by simply varying the intonation of his voice?

Not that he ever has, my wolf reminded me. Well, not much.

"Tell me what you're afraid of," Wolfie said softly. In his shoes, I probably would have been tempted to push a little alpha compulsion into the command, but my mate's words were a simple human request. And behind his eyes, my mate's wolf was alert but sanguine, resting his head on his paws as he took in the conversation that would determine both of our fates.

So I told him. At first, it felt like pulling teeth to emit each word, but soon every one of my worries was pouring forth in a seemingly endless stream of angst and woe. Apparently I'd have more bottled up inside than even I had realized.

And as I spoke, I realized how unfair it was to be putting this load on Wolfie's shoulders. After all, he'd done nothing to earn my distrust and had instead used every trick in the book to turn us into equal partners both in the eyes of the pack and within our personal lives.

So my misgivings should rightfully have annoyed my mate. But, instead, he simply accepted each of my concerns, filing it away within his bloodling understanding that always seemed to reach far beyond the surface and deep into my heart.

"So if you could know for a fact that I wouldn't command you against your will, then you'd accept us," Wolfie said when my disjointed rambling finally petered out. "There are no other reservations?"

I was surprised to hear relief in his voice, as if my mate had truly thought I was withholding the final piece of our mate bond because I wasn't fully committed to our relationship.

What else was he to think? my wolf grumped. You never told him any different.

"Yes, in a heartbeat," I promised. "I'd beg you to join me on a claiming moon if that were the case. But don't you see, Wolfie, that what you're suggesting is impossible? You are who you are and my wolf could never overpower yours."

"Not unless I commanded you to do whatever you want now and in the future," my mate said simply.

As his words sunk in, I found myself both amused and shocked by Wolfie's suggestion. My father would never have dreamed of releasing a shifter within his pack from the bonds of alpha compulsion. After all, what was the point of being a pack leader if you didn't have the ability to tell everyone else what do to?

In fact, I wouldn't have even thought the trick would work if I hadn't understood the way the pack bond was built. Most of the time, the invisible tether stretching between an alpha and his pack mates formed organically over time, but now and then a newcomer would choose to swear to his leader as a show of good faith. I'd seen myself the way the fealty oath immediately strengthened the ability of an alpha to use compulsion on his new subject, so it made sense that Wolfie might be able to use the same method in reverse to give me my freedom without casting me out of the pack.

But why would an alpha as strong as Wolfie want to relinquish so much control?

I must have spoken my thoughts aloud because my companion answered easily. "I'd give anything for us to be true mates," he said. Then I saw Wolfie's lupine half nudging his human side and he glanced up at the ceiling with a little smile on his lips before returning his gaze to mine. "Plus, my wolf says it's just the smart thing to do. Our pack is stronger with you to back me up and with me to back you up. You have skills my wolf and I lack, like nurturing the pack, understanding the brains of those strange two-leggers...and driving in a straight line."

I chuckled at his joke, but didn't let the levity get us off the proper track. "You know you don't have to do this to keep me," I told him earnestly.

It felt absurd even providing the reassurance since I felt that, if anything, Wolfie was the one who would be better off without a half-strength female alpha weighing him down. But he must have needed to hear the words as much as I needed to say them, because both man and beast immediately relaxed back into their usual harmony as I spoke.

"Thank you," Wolfie answered, his words a balm for us both. "But if it makes you feel even a little more comfortable being a part of this pack, then giving you the freedom to do as you wish is the right choice for all of us."

Then, without giving me a chance to backpedal further, my mate pulled up his full alpha persona. For a split second, the same pall that had weighed me down on the peacekeeping grounds made blood rush so hard behind my ears that I could only see Wolfie's lips move, not hear the words he was using to tear apart and then reform our mate bond.

I felt a twinge, as if a loose tooth was severing the final bit of flesh that held it rooted within my gums. But then the tiny jolt of pain was replaced by a strength that made me want to jump to my feet and see whether I really was abruptly able to lift Wolfie off the floor with a single hand.

Side effects: delusions of grandeur, I thought inanely as my ears popped and my connection with the physical world solidified once again.

"...yourself," Wolfie finished. He cocked his head to one side and peered at me while I assessed my own body. My head was dizzy, my sight spotted with black, and my breathing once again as erratic as it had been upon leaving the peacekeeping grounds. But I felt good. Better than good, I felt amazing.

"Did it work?" I asked. Because, except for the sudden exhilaration, nothing seemed to have changed within my skin.

Wolfie had initially appeared less affected than me, but I could now make out beads of sweat on his forehead despite the cool temperature inside our bedroom. His eyes crinkled up into a smile, though, and his mischievous streak was clearly wide awake.

"Let's see," he said. Then, without giving me a chance to recover further, Wolfie put our revised bond to the test. "Terra," he commanded, "go straight to the Barn and kiss the first yahoo you see on the lips."

I could sense the compulsion rising in the air, but it seemed to flow around me now instead of affecting my behavior. So I was able to ignore his request easily, just shaking my head at my trouble-making mate. "That's a low blow, Wolfie. Sick of me already?"

His resulting grin was so wide it looked as if it really should have cracked his jaw. "I would've stopped you before you got there," he rumbled.

And then our wolf spirits rose, refreshed, from within our skins and took our human bodies back to bed.