Page 18 of Shadow Wolf
"Don't overthink it. When I say a movie, I mean a movie.”
Chapter11
Jett
Ipaced my room. I couldn’t pin down what was making me feel this way, but I knew it wasn’t right. It was like my chest was aching, pulling apart, and I didn’t know what to do or where to turn to stop it.
I hadn’t felt like this since Clare left for college and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad had happened. My wolf prickled under my skin, wanting to be let loose to run in the woods behind my house. He needed to be free to shake this feeling, but I didn’t think that would stop it.
“Stop it, Jett. You’re driving me crazy,” my brother Lyell growled from his room. The trouble with wolf shifters, or shifters in general, was the lack of privacy. He could hear everything I did in here. I could hear him too.
“Go cry into your tissues then,” I teased him back.
Wolf shifters didn’t get sick, yet my brother always had a box of tissues in his room… and a pile of used ones too. He could at least throw them away after he was done.Gross.
My wolf was too close to shifting, and I knew I had to get out and run before I shifted in the house and my father, the Alpha of Pack Kiba, ripped me a new one.
We only had a few house rules… and not shifting in the house was one of them. Just like in human form, our wolf forms shed… a lot. And with five sons of his own, the fur situation was extreme.
Once I was outside, the sun hitting my skin, I felt a little better. I could sense Mekhi was out there, waiting for me. I stripped naked and the pain was only for a moment before I was on all four paws. I ran toward the woods, listening to Mekhi in wolf form running to the same spot we always met.
The wind in my fur and my packmate waiting for me had my chest feeling lighter already. I was glad to have him as my packmate… and lover.
I barreled through the shrubs and into the clearing where he waited for me. Still in his wolf form, he looked so large and elegant as he glanced over at the blue sea from the cliff. He didn’t move as I entered the clearing. But his ear twitched.
He brought his head back and let out a long, sad howl.
It took me back for a moment. He wasn’t one to do that usually.
My younger—and more annoying brother—Ranger would howl so much my father would get livid and ban him from shifting when he was younger. That wouldn’t stop my dumb brother though. He couldn’t control his shifts; he would get mad and shift at the drop of a hat.
I shifted back and approached him. He didn’t move after he finished his sad cry to the wind, he just kept watching the waves. Wind blew up and ruffled his dark fur and my hair fell into my eyes. I pushed it back behind my ears and looked down at my mate. I ran my hand down Mekhi’s wolf head, stroking his fur.
“It’s Clare, it has to be for us to both feel this way,” I spoke out into the wind, not understanding why now, after all these months. Hell, it had almost been a whole year since we had seen her. It killed me when she left, but we knew we had to set her free for her to ever return.
She was our soul mate and we would do anything to make sure she was happy. Even if that meant she didn't remember who we were anymore to protect her heart. But that didn't protect ours. We didn't have the option to forget the years we all had together. Not that I would ever want to forget her. It was worth the pain, knowing that one day she would return and our lives would once again reconnect.
Mekhi shifted to his human form beneath me and my fingers ran through his long inky strands. He stood. He was taller than me, but his frame was slimmer than mine, and we both had defined muscles—thank you shifter genes. His abs were sculpted… but it was the V that had me growing hard.
“I don’t know what it is, exactly. Just something is off.” He looked down at me, his expression pained. Running his hand through his hair, he let out a deep rumble.
I nodded, but he didn’t need to see that to know I agreed. He could sense it, scent my emotions that I never hid from him. He was my packmate.
Wolf shifters were cursed to never have female offspring. It wasn’t just us, bear shifters were also cursed. We had the power to turn human females into wolf shifters to continue the bloodline of our kind, but it was dangerous. Not all the women survived the transformation. So, over hundreds of years, wolf shifters had adapted to taking on packmates. Two or more male shifters would form a bond and take a human female as their mate. Share her. That way fewer females were turned and there were less casualties.
A packmate didn’t mean you wanted to take them on as a lover. It was promising your best friend that you would be with them for life, share your mate together, and always have each other’s best interest at heart. You became a family with that person. A strong bond was important to have.
Mekhi and I took our time. We had always been close, best friends since the day we were born. When we first shifted, we were there for each other. Our first kiss at fifteen… We were both there for that too.
It wasn’t the best kiss, messy and inexperienced, but over time we had gotten much better. We were attracted to both girls and guys and fell for each other hard. Pretty easy for me when Mekhi was built like an amazonian god. He was the hottest guy I had ever laid my eyes on. Okay, I lied; Jason Momoa was right up there on my list of hot guys.
“We shouldn’t have let her go. We shouldn’t have taken her memories. We should’ve found another way. I need to go to her.”
His voice cracked and all I wanted to do was go and get Clare. I didn’t like that he was hurting so much. I could see the rational side, the side not affected by emotions. But that wasn't the case with Mekhi. It had been harder on him; emotions ruled him. It was only going to get harder the longer she was gone. I hated that and was starting to think we’d acted in the moment when we took her memories. That it was the worst thing we ever could have done and we’d messed this up badly.
He knew we had to let her go, but I also knew it was breaking us too. Mekhi fell for Clare first. “Love at first sight,” he had told me. I didn’t believe him, I thought he was messing with me. The shy, quiet girl from elementary school. She’d used to wear her long dark hair in pigtails, and yes, I was that boy that had pulled them.
When we all got back to school for junior year, her braces were off, she wore her hair down, and it was so long and beautiful. She had grown up from a girl to a woman.
