Page 2 of Into the Grasslands

“Beautiful wolf,” her honey-sweet voice held us in her thrall. Little snack wiggled beneath our paws as we looked around for the owner of the voice. “Look up,” she whispered.

When our snout rose into the air and eyes connected with the moon, we could have sworn it twinkled. “You will face a cruel reality in the many moons to come, little one. Let your heart guide you on the right path. You are meant to be a ruler, my little wolf queen. What kind of ruler will be determined by the choice you make. One path will damn you, sicken your wolf, and the people who follow you. The other will guide you to become the ruler you were always meant to be, at the side of a mate who is truly worthy. Neither will seem like a good option when first presented.”

My will to speak caused the shift to roll over my body and give me feet where once there were paws. As the tingles sweptover my body and everything settled into our other form, I stood tall and held the rabbit under my foot as I addressed the moon who spoke to us.

“I don’t understand. If they’re both poor choices, how will I know which is the right one?” I called to the moon. She had never spoken to me before. There were different wolves out there, some like the pack I hailed from, who believed that the moon, our symbol for the Sky Goddess- Selene, was our guide. Through her, everything was fated and would be revealed in time. There were others who were elementals and had powers beyond the moon-blessed abilities our pack was given. They were able to control some form of elemental magic or other.

Moon-blessed wolves weren’t necessarily in touch with the moon herself though. No, the big orb in the sky wasn’t the goddess, just a symbol of her power, and yet… I stood under the full moon speaking to her just the same.

“What choice will I have to make?”

“You already had the dreams. There will be two paths to choose from. Your past and your future. They might be one in the same, or you may choose differently. I cannot offer you guidance, as the choice must remain yours. Now, little wolf queen in the making, there are hunters about. You need to finish your little snack and run back to safety. Remember to follow your heart, dear one. It won’t lead you astray.”

After shifting back to paws and sating our belly with the fresh bunny kill, we ran. My logic overruled the innate desire for the wolf to run free through the forest with no boundaries. The moon had warned of hunters in the area after all. It was safer to stick to the places we had already scouted. As we ran, images began to trickle in of the man who had become my pack’s Alpha in the past year.

There was a flash of him smiling at us during a pack gathering, then another of his own musky scent mixed with ahint of pine from the forest. He reminded us of running free and giving into the wild spirit of the wolf. Interspersed were flashes of another powerful male wolf, one we had never met. The final flash was of my new Alpha. He was waiting on a throne, one I recognized from his family’s dwelling.

Instinct kicked in, and before I realized where we were headed, I stood over the clothes that had been discarded just before the shift took us. There was one pervading thought riding my mind as I shifted back to my human form. We must get back to our pack and claim our mate.

It only occurred to me after I shifted again, and was halfway finished dressing, that I hadn’t even felt the shift. It had been seamless from one moment to the next. No need to coax the wolf side to give our human body back. There was no pain, no popping and reshaping of bones. We were one.

“We have a mate,” I whispered into the wind while making my way back to the Jeep that had been left at the trailhead a hundred yards down the old forest service road. When I got back to it, there was still no one around, so I hopped in, and started driving as if my very life depended on it. I had a mate, and it was time to go claim him and be claimed by him in return. Giddy excitement rode with me the whole way back to the pack lands, even as a little seed of doubt creeped in at the thought of the other, unknown wolf who I had seen in the visions.

Chapter 2

Betrayal

NIKA

Aiden had always beena decent pack mate. Even knowing that one day the pack would be his, it never seemed to go to his head. I wondered how he was fairing as the Alpha, now that his father was gone. The transition of power happened about eight months ago, while I was away at school. With my family no longer able to pass along information about what was going on in the pack, I had no first-hand knowledge of how everything had gone since Aiden took over.

When I pulled into the pack’s lands, there was only one place I wanted – no needed – to go and that was straight to my moon-blessed mate. The drive there was spent worrying over whether I could handle beingtheLuna in an Alpha coupling. Graduating college had been a dream, but it had only been the first step toward what I really wanted. Step two might be thwarted by my duties as the Alpha’s mate. As scary as it was, even that wasn’t enough to keep me from going directly to him.

When I got there, no one stopped me from entering the Alpha’s domain. That was strange, as the previous Alpha required everyone visiting to be announced. Oddly enough, one of the sentries guarding the front door rolled his eyes before making a snide comment to his partner.

“I guess our Alpha doesn’t have enough already. What’s one more of our females, right?”

He ignored the querying look that I threw his way as I entered the heart of the Alpha’s stately manner. It was a bit much for me, but then again, it always had been. My taste ran more toward the humble and natural than the overstated and dramatic. The marble flooring and gold filigree banister that wrapped around the stairs and led to the second level were what I considered a touch too far in the opulence department. The money spent on the extra bells and whistles in this place could have been put to better use amongst the pack.

It wasn’t my place to decide those things though. Well, at least not until Aiden and I were mated on the next full moon. Truth be told, the mating ceremony was mostly pomp and circumstance, the minute we touched, the bond would snap into place, and he would know that we were moon-blessed mates.

Afterward, we only had to claim one another willingly. The bites that would seal the deal and leave our mark on one another, were the only formality. The mate claiming, normally a private affair for other pairings, would have to take place during a pack ceremony only because he was the Alpha, and I would become the Luna of the pack. It was important that the pack acknowledged and accepted my position. There might be challenges, but my wolf and I agreed that we could handle anything thrown at us.

Those were the thoughts that rolled around my mind when I opened the door to the throne room. Yes, there was a legitimate throne room where Aiden’s parents used to sit to hear pack grievances. The layout of the house, and usage of the rooms within, weren’t Aiden’s or his father’s fault though. Those things were all set in place long before, thanks to another generation of wolves who had a whole series of different beliefs.

Still, it was like stepping back into the past. The minute I looked up and really noticed what was going on, it truly felt as though I had been transported to a darker period in shifter history. I had only heard rumors of what the throne room used to be used for ages ago, when pack leaders chose harems to sit upon their throne and keep them entertained while their mate stayed out of sight and out of mind whelping their pups. That practice had been abolished several generations ago and set as an unbreakable rule in our pack by the former Alpha.

To my complete mortification, I realized that was no longer true as my intended mate sat on his throne amidst a harem of mostly undressed, and some fully nude, female shifters. There were six females in all. One knelt between Aiden’s legs. Her head bobbed up and down on him in a rhythm that made it obvious what was happening. She didn’t stop at hearing that another person had come into the room either, which meant what took place in the room was not an uncommon occurrence. As soon as the Alpha glanced up and saw me there, his face wiped free of the pleasured look and blanked out as he tapped the woman who still bobbed between his legs.

“Why did you suddenly go soft?” She asked. I knew that voice, even though it sounded a little rusty, no doubt thanks to what she had just been doing. Kyla and I had gone to school together. While I was busy with extra college courses she kept herself occupied with any of the males our age who didn’t care to save themselves for their future mates. as he stood to greet me. I couldn’t make my feet move any closer to the awful scene.

“Nika!” Aiden called out as he tucked his cock back into his pants and stood to greet me. His golden hair was teased up into short spikes on top of his head and his eyes glittered like the emeralds whose color they mimicked. “Welcome home. Are you here for winter break?”

The greeting didn’t seem real when paired with the scene I had walked in on. Words were meant to come out of my mouth, but I couldn’t remember what they were. What could I say? This wasn’t exactly the welcome I expected. My visions certainly hadn’t shown my mate surrounded by a harem of females from my pack. Had that been the case, I would have never returned to my pack at all.

“Nika?” Aiden questioned as I stood there still too stunned to form words.

“Aiden. Sorry, Alpha,” my mumbled apology was quickly waved off.

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