Page 36 of Luna Ascending

“She's invincible! She just shifted and attacked!”

The teenagers saw the cougar kidnapped as Marciel and the elder Coven members flitted away, leaving a few witches to block the wolf-shifter's path.

“She killed them all” they breathed, awed.

“She stood over me, protecting me”

“She checked I was okay”

“She was amazing!”

I shake my head much the way my wolf would, trying to clear my thoughts, ignoring the rest of their jabbering. Again, I can't tie it all together. Who's this unknown shifter? What relation are they to Freya? Was Freya the 'good witch' the kids sensed and is that why her scent goes a different way?

It's all a mess, it doesn't make sense and neither do the goofy grins on my father and Angus's faces. I glare at them.

“There's only one foreign scent here, not two – it's a hybrid” my dad says surprisingly gently “Not it, she... your girl... Aaron, she's a hybrid.”

It hits me so hard I sit down in the blood soaked grass with a thud. It's very un-alpha like, and I don't give a fuck. I sniff the air, realising they're right – there's no foreign shifter smell... only Freya. I bet she came to save Liz. She must have tried to use her powers, and whatever physical strength her human form had.

Something forced her to shift, without knowing she could, to protect her friend and my pack. A glow of pride seeps through me. I think maybe I'm prouder she tried with her bare hands to protect my paralysed wolves, than of her shifting for the first time to fight.

I turn back to the youngsters, hearing them chattering amongst themselves, describing to each other again the moment she shifted, how she had screamed at Marciel and told him her side was chosen. A thrill goes through me.

Mine, my wolf growls.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Freya's POV

I regain awareness, and I'm running again. It feels different, I feel different. Everything's very intense, the sunlight through the trees, the sounds. The scents of the forest have never hit me so hard before.

Suddenly as I take a deep sniff, I blanch, unsure I can believe my own senses. It's there though – fuck knows how, but I can smell Aaron. There is no mistaking that it's him, and he's getting closer. I put on a spurt of speed, my anxiety taking over.

If Tavey and the young wolves haven't recovered, and I've no fucking idea if they will, then all he'll have sensed was that I was there. He won't know that I was trying to save them. And he must have known that Marc and I were engaged. Marc's scent was there too... Shit! I force myself faster, my mind rushing on. He'll assume I had something to do with the attack.

Raw emotion pours out of me and I drop to all fours, screaming. On hands and knees, it finally hits me. I really care about Aaron. My feelings for Marc were manipulated, but deep inside I always harboured a need, for my big, rough, down to earth man, for Aaron. To him, I'm now the enemy. Another wave of pain hits me, my emotion so overpowering it knocks the wind from me. My body feels like it's folding in on itself.

Glaring at my hands in the dirt I will myself to get up, to run. I let out a yelp as I see my hands change, they're elongating, growing hair and claws. My tongue lolls over my teeth which seem to grow sharper inside my mouth. Holy fuck, what's happening?! Is this what happened before when I was fighting the Coven?! I'm off again, this time on all fours, running away from whatever I've become.

I'm not sure how long I've been running. Whatever creature I've become, it has physical limits too. My lungs burn with every inhale and my limbs are thick and heavy, each forward stride is more effort than the last.

My new sharper animal senses are dulled by extreme fatigue. It's like trying to run in a swimming pool. I barely register how close Aaron is before he barrels into me. He bowls me clean over, off my feet and we roll several times before he pins me to the ground.

My breath rasps and I can only hear my heart thudding in my ears. Somehow he's inside my head, demanding roughly that I shift. I panic, writhing at his invasion of my thoughts. The realisation I have no idea how to change back hits me sending another wave of terror rolling over me.

He glares at me, pinning me ever more firmly until I stop fighting. Still on top of me, looking into my eyes warily, he shifts to human form.

My exhausted brain can't understand why he would make himself vulnerable. My first instinct is self preservation, and I tense ready to attack while he's in this weaker form.

Within seconds though I feel oddly calmed, simply by his body touching mine. My brain climbs down from its complete and utter devastating panic. My breathing slows, and I gradually become aware that he's talking to me, slowly, gently like you would a child or an injured animal.

I finally tune in and realise he's repeating the same thing over and over, chanting it. He tells me he knows what I am, tells me it's okay, tells me he knows what happened in the clearing, that Tavey is okay and so are the youngsters. Relief hits me like a wave. I take a deep steadying breath in and feel my body give an odd squeeze and a twist.

Exhaustion hits me like a brick, and I realise I'm human again and completely and utterly naked. I'm completely naked, pinned underneath an entirely naked Aaron.

Relief, exhaustion, desire.

As I look up, feeling self conscious, I realise Aaron still has me pinned by the wrists and is looking warily into my face. A ripple of need runs through me, despite my fatigue. I arch my back up to capture his mouth in a kiss. He pulls back in surprise.

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