Page 90 of Full Moon
Her gaze moves to Torben and Khal, still in their shifted forms in the snow, both of them bleeding from wounds of their own. The bear's flank is torn. The basilisk has lost several scales along his side. But they're alive. We're all alive.
"Let's go home," she says, her voice carrying the quiet authority of a queen. She shifts back into her wolf form with a fluid grace that still takes my breath away, and begins trudging through the churned, bloody snow toward the alpha house without looking back at the carnage we're leaving behind. She doesn't need to look back. The dead aren't her concern anymore.
When Feray and the others are far enough away—white wolf, brown bear, and silver basilisk cutting a path through the snow—Easton turns to me, his brow furrowed with concern. "Why didn't she want to be healed? The scar is going to bother her once she calms down and sees it in a mirror."
I watch our bond mates go, feeling a strange mixture of pride and protectiveness and something that might be awe. "Wolves, like dragons, take great pride in their scars," I explain, stroking my beard thoughtfully. "Her wolf is probably telling her that the scar is proof she survived against all odds, proof that something tried to kill her and failed."
"But still..." Easton's voice carries a rare note of vulnerability, his healer's instincts warring with his understanding of shifter psychology.
"Settle down," I say, gripping his shoulder with a reassuring squeeze. "If it's not bothering her, leave it be. She healed herselfto this point using your feather—if she wanted her skin flawless like it was before, she would have come to you immediately. If we leave it alone and it bothers her later, she'll ask you to fix it then."
"It's harder to heal the longer a scar is left to set," Easton murmurs, defeat coloring his words. "Couple that with a shifter's enhanced healing factor and my feather accelerating everything, and it may be too late by the time we reach the alpha house." For once, he doesn't sound like a pompous ass—just a man worried about the woman he loves.
I nod, considering his point. "Let's catch up to the family. Everyone needs to eat and bathe. I'm sure you can find an excuse to bathe with Feray to check her for other wounds." His eyes light up at the suggestion, and he shifts immediately, golden wings carrying him swiftly after our mate. I let out a soft laugh before shifting and taking flight myself.
I circle the ravine where the moose were killed, ensuring the wolves have gathered all the bodies. Most of the kills have been loaded onto sleds, but the largest one—the final moose Feray and Torben brought down together—lies abandoned in the bloody snow. A chilling reminder of how quickly everything changed.
From above, I can see the trampled earth and the dark stains marking where the battle interrupted the harvest. The wolves fled in such panic they left behind enough meat to feed a dozen families for a week. I won't let that sacrifice go to waste.
I'm too large to land directly in the narrow ravine, so I touch down on the ridge above it and lower my spiked tail into the gap. The barbs impale the moose carcass with wet thuds, and I lift the massive weight into the air, gripping it with my taloned handbefore taking flight again. One more piece of my mate's victory, brought home where it belongs.
When I arrive back at the village, I land near the other sleds and place the moose with the rest of the kills. The scent of blood hangs heavy in the air—from the hunt, from the battle, from wounds both healed and healing.
As I shift back and walk toward the alpha house, the residents of this little village begin to emerge from their hiding places. Their eyes are shadowed with worry, with fear of what almost happened, but I see something else there too. Gratitude. Hope.
They watched their Luna fight a monster and win. They watched four mythics rain fire from the sky to protect them. For the first time in two decades, they have someone willing to bleed for them.
The walk back to the alpha house is pleasant despite the lingering tension that coils in my chest. Many of the small shops have beautiful displays in their windows, glinting in the afternoon light like jewels—carved bone trinkets and woven blankets and delicate silver jewelry that catches the sun. I make note of which windows make me think of Feray.
She'll never buy anything for herself—she's too practical, too focused on others, too convinced she doesn't deserve beautiful things. But I have nine hundred years of accumulated wealth and a dragon's instinct to hoard treasures for his mate. I'll come back when she's not looking. Feray deserves all the beautiful things her heart desires, whether she'll admit it or not.
And whoever sent that wendigo—whoever is hunting her, tracking her, trying to snuff out the last winter wolf before shecan become the queen she was born to be—they're going to learn what happens when you threaten a dragon's hoard.
The hard way.
