Page 6 of Wild Wolf

Ethan glanced at me, but I gave him nothing. If he couldn’t face off against the big bad Storm Dragon then he wasn’t worthy of a place in this family, moon mate or not.

“Something like that,” Ethan hedged.

The silence dragged on, punctuated by the kids giggling and tugging at Ethan’s shirt to seek out more ink.

Dante whistled sharply and they scattered, shrieking and howling as they ran, calling out to the other kids who were no doubt lurking in the closest rooms waiting to learn all they’d discovered about the new arrival.

“Look, I dunno what Rosalie has told you about the way this all happened,” Ethan said, once again shooting me a look but I only stared back blandly. My mind was on more important issues than him figuring out the power balance with Dante anyway.

“Assume nothing. But I’d suggest against lying all the same,” Dante purred like a bastardo and my lips almost twitched with a smile but my heart hurt too much for that.

“Where are the others?” I asked, having expected them all to have been ushered into this room – the heart of the house and all that, but there was no sign of them.

“Let’s focus on the Lunar first, hm?” Dante suggested and I rolled my eyes but waved a hand, indicating he should get this over with.

I bit into my apple again, the juice rolling over my tongue but I tasted nothing.

Ethan blew out a breath. “Alright, I’ll tell you straight – I fucked up. When me and Rosalie first met I knew I wanted her, shoulda seen then and there that it was more than simple want, in fact. She was my destiny staring me in the face pure and simple. She was beautiful - obviously – but it isn’t that I fell in love with. Her soul is like a blazing mirror to my own. I’ve never met anyone as strong as her, in spirit and mind. She drew me in like a fish on a line and once she’d got that hook in me, there was no denying that I was utterly hers. But…”

“But?” Dante asked darkly and yeah, maybe I’d relayed a bit of the but to him and maybe he was looking all kinds of pissed off already. Ethan was gonna have to get used to that if he was going to become an Oscura though.

“Like I said, I fucked up,” Ethan said on a long breath. “I…well I can fill you in on all of it if I must but what it comes down to is that I failed her. I didn’t step up. Tried to hide what we were…are. It was fucking cowardice if I’m honest. I knew claiming her would equal the end of my pack, my rule and though I should have understood faster that she would be worth anything I lost in the claiming of her tenfold, I took far too long to come to terms with that truth. In doing so, I guess I lost my chance to claim her as mine alone but when Rosa was mated to Roary too I realised I hadn’t ruined everything. He…I…we aren’t a thing like that, but he’s my pack now. The three of us are in this for the long haul and I’ll spend every day I am fortunate enough to be able to call that stunning creature across the table from me mine making up for the ways I failed her in the beginning. I’ll be worthy of her. I swear it. And if you harbour hatred for me because of the shit that went down back at Aurora Academy between us then-”

“Wait,” Dante said, frowning at Ethan, electricity crackling in the air around him. “What shit at Aurora? I didn’t go to school with you, stronzo.”

Ethan narrowed his eyes on Dante then gave me an accusatory look. “Did you tell him to say that to fuck with me?”

I snorted. “No. You clearly didn’t make much of an impression. Told you he wouldn’t remember some jumped-up Lunar stronzo from ten years ago.”

“I wasn’t just some random Lunar – I was Ryder Draconis’s second,” Ethan said firmly, raising his chin and looking at Dante like that should be all it took to jog his memory. “I didn’t have so much ink back then,” he added when Dante looked just as non-plussed by him.

“Ryder’s second was Scarlett Tide. You’re not her.”

“No,” Ethan said. “Well…yeah, but also no. I was his second at the academy after all that Bryce shit went down. You gotta remember me. We had all those run-ins. I kinda assumed you’d wanna beat my ass for even looking at your cousin – not that you could, but-”

A booming laugh made me flinch so violently I almost dropped my apple and my head snapped up as I looked to one of the beams which spanned the roof of the kitchen where Sin now hung upside down, grinning at us.

“It’s alright, kitten. Nobody minds that you were a nobody at school,” he purred, tossing Ethan a wink.

“I wasn’t a fucking no-”

“Lemon?” Sin offered, pulling a bright yellow fruit from his pocket and holding it out to me in offering.

“What the hell are you doing up there?” I asked him, accepting the lemon because I’d learned that if Sin Wilder offered you lemons, you just took them and didn’t ask questions.

“Hiding.” Sin pressed a finger to his lips but a shriek of delight came from the doorway where a hoard of pups had just come flying into the room.

Sin shrank so fast it was as if he’d disappeared altogether, a slight weight landing on my shoulder, followed by a tiny giggle letting me know where he was. His tiny feet pattered across my shoulder before he used a strand of my hair as a swinging rope and launched himself onto the table.

I watched as he sprinted towards the window, taking a running jump for it and shifting again as he did so, becoming a woman coated in ginger hair like a cat, long tail swishing wildly as he disappeared through the open glass.

The pups all whooped and howled in delight, most of them turning and bolting for various doors to get outside and chase after him, though a couple dove headfirst out of the window, almost sending a huge vase of wildflowers toppling after them.

Gabriel stepped into view outside it, catching the vase before it could fall and offering me a knowing smile which said he’d seen that coming.

“You’ve brought chaos into the future of this family by bringing that one to our door,” he said, gazing after Sin who was now racing along the edge of the pool laughing maniacally as the pack of pups chased him.

“Oh I know,” I agreed.

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