Page 26 of Moon Fated

“Do not call me that!” I shoved the door open and dropped to the ground just as my wolf burst forward, and I shifted for the first time in two years.

On the side of the highway.

At 9 am on a Friday.

Chapter

Fourteen

Rowan

Ichased after Evelyn through the dense forest. Her wolf was a blur of speed and panic, her scent a wild mix of fear and desperation, and my wolf surged with the need to protect her.

We came on too strong, bud, I chastised. As usual, my wolf didn’t understand the definition of the word ‘chill.’ I loved him for that. But when he got his mind set on something, keeping him from it was like trying to drag a Great Dane by a length of twine.

I threw my consciousness toward the blur of roan fur flashing through the trees ahead of me. Evelyn, stop.

She stuttered a step, and I silently celebrated. We could talk to her. I’d never spoken with someone outside of my pack in wolf form, but somehow, I knew it would work. I could sense her wolf almost as acutely as I could sense my own. It was disorienting, and yet it filled me with such intense emotion, I thought I’d split at the seams.

Evelyn, please, I tried again, and that time I caught a response.

I can’t do this. I need to find Callista. Her voice was fragmented. Chaotic. It reminded me of the first time our adolescents joined us on runs. I pushed harder, my paws digging into the earth as I closed the distance between us.

She was fast, but I knew these woods like the back of my hand. I could sense her inner turmoil, the raw pain and fear that drove her forward. Then color flashed in my mind, and I nearly sideswiped a Lodgepole Pine.

What the hell was that? Another image, this time with a face I recognized. Nathan Black, his eyes dark, stalking toward us.

These were memories. Her memories. Through whatever bond we’d begun to form, I could feel them pressing in on her, the horrific images she was trying so hard to outrun. Her wolf’s stride faltered, and I took the chance to close in further, only to have to change course as another wolf appeared at my flank.

Blake. I’d never seen his form before, but by the worry in his eyes and the fact that we were both running the same direction, I had no doubt it was him.

Evelyn slowed. Something was passing between the two of them, and my wolf growled at the realization that Blake had been able to get through to her when we hadn’t.

They were old friends. Pack mates. Even if Evelyn was convinced she’d left our world behind, her wolf was proving she wasn’t satisfied to stay hidden forever.

Evelyn finally stopped at the creek ahead of us, panting hard. Blake and I stopped next to her. I wanted to shift back so I could hear what they were talking about, but none of us had any clothes. I doubted standing naked in front of each other was going to make this situation any better, though we were going to have to deal with that inconvenience sooner or later. I had extra clothes in my truck, but since she’d insisted on taking Blake’s tin can, that wasn’t going to help anything.

I’m sorry, I sent to her. For whatever I said or did.

Her head turned toward me, but she didn’t speak. When she turned back to Blake, I pawed at the ground.

Evelyn’s wolf was trembling, her eyes wide with fear and panic. She focused on Blake and whined softly, her body tense and ready to bolt at any moment. It tore me up inside seeing her like this, but I realized at that moment I didn’t know everything I thought I did. She wasn’t the same wolf I’d known back when we were kids.

You didn’t do anything. Her voice finally sounded in my head, and my shoulders relaxed. I came back to help my friend. This is too much.

Blake moved closer to her, and my wolf understood before I did. He let out a low growl as I was catching up. This was too much. I was too much. She’d come back as a tracker, and here I was telling her we were fated. Even if she felt it like I did, she’d made it clear that she wasn’t planning on coming back to her pack—to any pack.

But even as her words echoed in my head, her wolf took a step toward me. I raised my head, and she immediately yielded, lowering her eyes to the ground.

Why was her wolf acting as if I was challenging her? Why was Evelyn acting as if I was a threat?

The images I’d seen earlier clicked into place.

Because her old alpha was a threat.

Her wolf sensed both my alpha energy and the beginnings of our mating bond. One she wanted. The other she did not.

But I couldn’t help that I was an alpha. I couldn’t help the instinct to be by her side or to protect her at all costs. But what if that was exactly why she couldn’t accept this? Couldn’t accept me?

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