Page 11 of Into the Grasslands

I shrugged my shoulders. “Who knows? We only have to go by what everyone else tells us. For those who don’t have to worry about the power balance, I supposed it is an easier choice. It is also probably why so many females end up on this island. As for me, I know that there is no hope in hell I would ever mate Aiden willingly after he left me here on this island. We might not have issues with sharing power, but we would have far too many with his pack not respecting our authority. Imagine being one of the men who willingly chose to be one of the many women servicingthe Alpha, and then you’re supposed to mate that woman and be led by the male who disrespected your future bond.” I shivered at the thought.

“Imagine being one of those harem girls and fighting for dominance when you get back and boot them all to mates who no longer want them,” Janella offered.

“Exactly. There are so many reasons why the harems were done away with. It creates an awful environment for the pack. Plus, I would appear to be weak-willed indeed if I went back after the disrespect I was shown.” As I mentioned that last bit, my anger burst free, in a near physical manifestation that caused a disturbance of wind that pushed the water out further from the island on the northeastern side where we found the last box.

“I thought you were a moon wolf, not an elemental?”

Again, all I could do was shrug. “I don’t know why that sometimes happens when I’m angry. It isn’t something I can consciously control.”

“Make sure I’m upwind before it happens again, okay? I don’t want to be blown into the water.” Janella teased me, but I didn’t miss the shiver that crept over her body at the thought of that happening.

“Are you going to see if one of the men is your mate this time?” I asked her in order to change the subject. Janella was the only person who kept me sane. It felt like a sacred duty to care for the other women on the island, but Jan was special. Her innocence and naivety made me want to keep her close and look out for her. I also wanted to hunt down whomever had left her on this horrible island when she was just a pup, so I could exact some revenge in her honor. It was a tragedy that she had grown up around so much sadness and despair.

Janella shook her head. Having been here most of her life, and remembering next to nothing before coming to the island, she was afraid to leave. Frightened of the unknown was morelike it. Still, whenever boats full of men showed up to the island, she made herself scarce.

“Do you think it’s your mate coming to claim you?”

“No. I had the dreams already and I don’t meet my mate here on the island.”

I nodded but didn’t understand how Janella was supposed to leave the island to find her mate if she didn’t ever come out of hiding when the med came to the island. “The western shores lead to the grasslands and a different forest beyond that. I think Johann Graywolf still runs that pack, but who knows? I was in university, and mostly cut off from the shifter world for a couple years. Then I was dropped here on this island. Things might have changed.”

“Are they a good pack?”

“They were. Johann was a great Alpha. I remember Aiden’s dad seemed to like him a lot. They were able to work well together when it became necessary. I’d like to say nothing has changed on that front, but everything turned upside down when Aiden took over my old pack, so who knows what has happened with the others.”

“That is why I hide when they come. Who is to say whether it will work in my favor? What if I was abandoned here because my parents knew the type of shifter who would one day become my mate?”

“I doubt that’s what happened.” When Janella gave me a funny look, I explained. “If Selene blesses someone with a vision of their mate, it’s usually the female half of the future mated pair who receives a vision of the male half, so she can find him easier. Others may have a god guess as to who your mate will be, but I’ve seen that go awry. Take my case, everyone always thought Aiden and I would be mates-”

Janella cut me off to say, “You are moon-blessed mates.”

“Yes, we could have been, but Selene saw fit to give me the choice between two. So, technically, everyone might have been wrong. There was a female a few years older than me that swore on her life it would be the boy she had crushed on for years who would one day become her mate.” Janella’s bright-eyed stare asked the question she didn’t bother to form into words. “He wasn’t her mate. The male shifter who she always bullied, to get in good with the shifter of her dreams, turned out to be her mate.”

“Oh my! Did he reject her for being a mean brat?”

I shook my head. “Not that I’m aware of, but it was shortly after that revelation when I went off to college, so it would have happened after I left.”

“My mate has never come for me, and I’ve never received a vision that he might. I always see him in some far off place, but he is never alone. There is a female who is with him in all my visions.” Janella glanced worriedly over her shoulder toward the western waters of the lake. “My greatest fear is that I will find him only to realize he has chosen another and I will end up back here on this island.” Her voice took on a sad tone and then she huffed in frustration. “I want to hide like normal, but there’s something calling to me from beyond the waving grass on the western edge of the water.”

“It could be your mate,” I reminded her. “Just because things didn’t work out for the other women here, doesn’t mean that it won’t for you.”

“I guess.”

“Promise me, if you have a chance to leave this forsaken island, that you will take it.”

“I can’t leave you behind,” she insisted.

“What about all the others who had no problem leavingyoubehind, even when you were just a pup?”

“Exactly. I know what it feels like to be left here and rejected over and over and over again by everyone I meet. I couldn’t leave you to that fate.”

“Oh, Janella!” I threw my arms around the woman who had quickly stolen a piece of my heart. “I promise, if I ever get to leave here, you will come with me, or I will refuse to go.”

“You say that now,” she lamented.

“And I mean it. I know you can taste the truth of my words.”

She nodded her head and then ducked before I could see the smile on her face. Janella would not be left behind again. If she thought that her mate was out there, somewhere on the western horizon, I would make sure she found him before it was too late and she wasted away on this horrid island.

---