Page 25 of Into the Grasslands

I shook my head once again. I wasn’t even sure how I thought I would get away with her not knowing what I’d been up to. Someone in the pack would have mentioned it to her. Selene knows, Kyla would have informed Nika immediately upon her return if she hadn’t walked in and seen the evidence of what I’d been up to firsthand.

It tooktwo days to get to Mirage Lake. The waters appeared deceptively calm, but we grew up with the understanding that the waters beneath the smooth surface were unnaturally turbulent, as if they had been cursed to keep their prisoners on the island at all cost.

“Ready the rafts,” I shouted to the six men I’d brought with me. Avery and I would take one raft over and the other men would bring the other one. This was discussed ahead of time in case someone else found their mate hiding out on the island. It wasn’t a probable scenario, but my father had told us stories about some shifter women being dumped on the island before they reached the age of knowing - which is what the elders called the time in a female’s life when she received the message from the gods about who her mate was.

“Are you nervous?” Avery asked as we hopped into the raft and allowed the other men to shove us away from shore. We each picked up a paddle and started to make our way across to the eastern shores of the island.

“I don’t know if I’d call it nervous. More like I’m anxious to see her again.”

“Why did you let her go, man?” Avery shook his head. “I didn’t stand against your decision then because you’re Alpha, but I always wondered. How could you have your moon-blessed mate within arm’s reach and not grab hold and refuse to ever let her go?”

“I don’t know. It will sound weird if I tell you that I felt like I’ve been in a fog. More like I was in a fog for months on end before Nika showed up. After most of the girls distanced themselves from me, and I stopped allowing Kyla around, it was like the fog lifted a bit.”

“You mean the overwhelming lust from pulling all that Alpha power finally wore off.”

I glanced back at my brother who was seated just behind me and to my left. “Maybe, that’s what it was.” I shrugged. “Dad was already bonded to Mom when he took over as Alpha from his father, so he had no frame of reference to give me advice for being an unmated Alpha of a pack.”

“I still don’t understand why he passed the pack to you before you were ready. Before you had your mate even.”

I splashed Avery with some of the water that flicked off my oar as I pulled it out of the water to row on the other side in an effort to stay on a straight course to the island. “He seemed so sure that Nika was my mate, and I guess he knew that she was meant to graduate earlier than I thought.”

“That’s because he paid attention to his pack, especially the members who may have been fated for his sons,” Avery interjected. “It was something you should have checked into, instead of assuming.”

“Yeah, well, I have a lot to learn. Dad didn’t exactly give me a course in how to run a pack.”

I could almost feel Avery roll his eyes behind my back. “You were supposed to learn most of that by observing him over the years.” I could hear the note of disappointment in his tone. I wasdisappointed in myself too. If I could go back and change a few things, the first one would be the point when I agreed to take over the pack from my father early. When he offered, I thought it was because he believed in me. Instead, I think he was just looking for a quick way out for some reason. I wished I knew what the reason was, but he and our mom had taken off almost immediately after he handed over the pack officially. It didn’t make sense, because normally, the previous Luna stuck around to help with the transition until the new Luna showed up.

The only exception to that was supposed to be if the previous Alpha and Luna passed away. “I still can’t wrap my head around the way Dad handed everything over and then ran out of town like hell hounds were chasing him.”

“Don’t know what was up with that. Mom didn’t even put up a fight to stay behind and work until your Luna showed up. It was weird,” my brother agreed.

“I put out some feelers about our parents. We need answers one way or another. There’s something going on with our parents, and now that I’ve pulled my head out of my ass, it’s high time we find out what that is before it ends up being one more thing that comes back to bite us in the ass.”

“I’m happy to hear that you’re taking responsibility for what’s happened. Hopefully, Nika will see the change, and maybe if you explain how Dad left you with no guidance for how to handle the power and the hormone shift it caused…”

I cut my brother off there. “Avery, I don’t want to come at Nika with excuses. If she asks, I’ll be honest with her, but she deserves more. She deserved more from me from the beginning and I fucking didn’t give it to her. It’s time to make up for my bullshit.”

“Let’s hope you can.”

“I believe she’ll come back home with me. She’s had time to think about things, the same way I have.”

“Okay, now you’re back to delusional land, Aiden. She’s had time to think about how pissed she is that she has been trapped on this island for six damn months. The woman graduated from a major university with honors and her welcome home was to find her mate fucking a harem of women and then imprisoning her on an island for rejected mates. Something tells me that her thoughts have gone to a much darker place where you’re concerned. You better be prepared to fight for your mate.”

I didn’t bother to respond because we had finally paddled close enough to the island that any of the women on its shores might hear us, and that wasn’t ideal. “Where is everyone?” I asked as my eyes tracked the shoreline as far as I could see. “I would think the women of the island would be here to greet anyone who came along.”

“I think maybe the problem here is thatanyonecan come along. Maybe they’ve had bad experiences with shifters trying to force women off the island with them.”

“Hello, Alpha,” a woman called from the tree line as our raft finally ran aground. She made her way toward us until she met my brother and me on the beach.

“Tania?” I called, thankful that she was still there to look out for her future Luna.

She bowed her head only slightly. Avery and I hopped out of the raft and tied it up to the dock that had seen better days. It looked charred in spots as if someone attempted to burn it. Other spots seemed to be hacked into by something sharp. When I turned my eyes back to the shoreline, Tania was still the only one present.

“Where is everyone?”

“Hiding, in case you turned out to be rogues.” Tania rolled her eyes. “I told everyone that I didn’t think they would come again so soon, but they didn’t believe me.”

“Where is Nika?” I glanced around again as if she would pop out from behind a tree. When she didn’t I turned my attention back to Tania in time to notice the pitying glance she gave me.

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