Page 64 of Rabid
“But—”
He cuts me off. “Your old pack may have made you wait until you were older, but to us,that’scruel.”
“No, it makes sense,” I argue. “We have to be older so we can handle this shit.”
Tyran shakes his head and gives me a pointed look as if to say,and how’d that work out for you?“Wolf spirits choose us, Seneca. They wouldn’t choose a host if the connection weren’t there, and sometimes, they don’t, and our pups have to wait and try again later. But that shit you’re insinuating about our other wolves trying to mate them right away? I don’t fucking appreciate it,” he says, eyes hardened.
I lean away from his anger, but it’s feeding into me through the bond, his face as stony as the table pressed against my back.
“The Flux for us has nothing to do with taking mates. It’s a sacred rite of passage. These pups will finish growing upwiththeir wolf spirits, learning and growing together. To us,that’show it should be as a Totemic shifter, and they become stronger and more in tune with their animal because of it. Mating comes much, much later, and that too is aided by following the instinct of their wolf. Which you would know if you’d watch and learn instead of jumping to fucked up conclusions.”
His words fall one by one like rocks to rattle against my skull and then weigh me down with contrition. Through our mate bond, I can feel just how offended he is by what I’m saying, how much he believes in his pack and these children waiting for their wolves. I grab on to his words and examine them, trying to see how they fit in what I thought I knew as I look over at the wolves and the way they’re guarding the pack’s young. There’s no doubt in my mind that they would never let something bad happen to their pups.
It makes me reevaluate, because the more I think about it, the more I realize that the things he’s saying...theymake sense. Guilt fastens around me like too-tight buttons all the way up my throat. I didn’t realize how narrow-minded I’ve been behaving until just now. Up on the mountain, I figured out how to drop the guilt and judgment I was harboring about myself and my wolf, but right now, I realize that I walked into this pack thinking they were feral beasts, and I’ve unknowingly been clinging to that prejudice ever since.
That is...until now.
“I’m sorry.” The whisper falls from my lips, the shame making my eyes drop down. “I didn’t mean to accuse you or your—our—pack of doing anything horrible. I was just shocked and worried, and...I’m sorry,” I say again. “I never understood how different things could be.”
Tyran sighs, and his hands come up to settle on my hips. “Different doesn’t always mean bad, Vicious.”
“I know. I’m getting it. Slowly, but I’m starting to understand.” I peek up at him through my lashes. “They really will be okay?”
“I swear it. I would never let any harm come to the pups of our pack,” he promises, one hand moving to press against my belly button. “And one day, when we have pups of our own, you’ll see how much care we take in raising them to be strong and respectful of the spirits they’re trying to earn.”
“Our own?” The words fall out unbidden, because...I never really thought about having pups before. I didn’t even expect to take a mate I’d ever want to breed with. But the moment Tyran said it, I find that it’s not a horrible thought.
One side of his lips crook up. “Yep,” he says, voice dropping an octave. “I’m going to fuck you again and again and again...and then one day soon, I’ll plant a pup in your belly, and you’ll swell with the lifewemade.”
I find myself growing teary-eyed, because as unexpected and terrifying as that sounds, there’s no denying how badly my wolf and I want that.
“Okay,” I say a little breathlessly. “Can we stop talking about this for now? Because I can’t be weepyorhorny during my first Ruin Falls Flux.”
He chuckles and nips my lips before pulling away. “Alright, I’m set up here. You ready?”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll walk you through it.”
Tyran grabs a bowl and motions for me to pick up the other one. I follow his lead as he walks to the fire and tosses in the herbs. The second I do it too, the smoke goes from light and wispy, to dark and thick, like stirring clouds of thunder.
When we turn around, I note an older female with graying hair standing off to the side, her hands clasped in front of her, and a twine of herbs hanging off her neck. Tyran and I walk nearer to her where she stands just behind the circle of wolves, and the moment I get close, I sense a familiar power that brings both a sense of comfort and a rush of devastation.
Healer.
Hazel eyes flit to me, and the woman smiles, face crinkling as she nods to me. “Luna. Alpha.”
“Seneca, this is Healer Vorria. She’ll make sure the pups transition well,” Tyran tells me.
I clear my suddenly tight throat. “My mother was a healer,” I say, and the woman seems to glean a lot from that simple sentence, because sympathy fills her expression.
“Then I am blessed to know that our new luna has been raised beneath such a caring nature,” she says kindly, but that just makes my eyes burn more. All I can manage is to smile and turn away, hoping everyone will think it’s the smoke that’s getting to me.
Tyran holds out his hand to me, and I take it immediately. Two wolves move over to let us through, and then we’re standing in the middle of the circle, a half dozen children in front of us. “You six have proved yourself ready to invite a wolf spirit down,” he says, looking each one of them in their hopeful eyes. “It’s time to choose the wolf you’d like to be your spirit guide.”
All at once, the pups move. Four of them find wolves in the circle that they go to, and I realize they must be their parents. The oldest boy marches straight up to Tyran, chin held high, gangly shoulders thrown back with pride. “Alpha, will you honor me?”
My mate nods, and I smile, but then I feel a tug on my shirt. I turn around in surprise, finding a little girl standing there looking at me like I hung the moon. “Miss Luna? Will you...uhh...spirit guide me?”
