Page 92 of Bite

Tore returns with a collection of foraged foods and things that the Foothill folks must have sent with us. “Y’all need to make sure you’re eating. We’ll be in wolf territory by the end of the day, and then your biggest battle begins. You’re going to need as much strength as you can muster.”

“What do you mean?” Raine asks, uneasy.

“You’re going to have to convince the Lunar Mother that allowing a strange, bitten alpha into her lands is worth the risk.”

[ 58 ]

RAINE

Northern Pacific Territory

The train stops at the mountainous depot just as the sun kisses the treetops on its descent. I watched the landscape fly by through the train windows, but I couldn’t truly appreciate the beauty of this land through the glass.

I stand on the old brick platform, gazing across the horizon at the evergreen and autumn leaves as far as the eye can see. The warm beams of the sinking sun turn the changing leaves into dabs of molten copper, bronze, and gold, and my chest aches at the beauty of it. In the distance, I can see more rocky caps of mountains, the tallest of which even have the tiniest dusting of snow.

Deep in my soul, I know that this is home. I finally understand Dair’s spiritual pull toward these lands. It feels like there’s an ancient energy flowing through these trees, calling their people home. I might not have a wolf, but I can feel that I belong here in a way that I never felt at Grand Prairie.

The surviving forests in the Appalachian Territory are mostly newer growth trees planted hundreds of years ago when humans logged the area to the ground. They even managed to log one of the most prolific native trees to extinction. Very few old-growth trees remained, and of those that did, there’s no telling if they survived climate destabilization. The same can be said for a lot of the forests in the Midlands, too, although a few native forests protected by Indigenous folks were spared.

Here, so far above the rest of the world, I can feel the history stored in these trees.

“It’s overwhelming at first, experiencing a place nearly untouched by industrialization,” a calm voice says from behind me.

I turn just enough to see a woman looking out into the sea of trees with eyes the color of dried pine needles. The golden light illuminates her long, silver curls and warm, wheat-tan skin so that she looks otherworldly, like a forest spirit reigning over her domain. She wears her age in wrinkles, like warrior paint, reminding me fondly of Josef. She’s taller, like me, with a generous frame draped in a loose, earthy-colored skirt and hand-woven shawl.

She looks so powerful that it shocks me to my core when her soft omega scent wafts over in a fresh, crisp embrace. I can’t quite identify the exact scent, but it brings to mind delicate needles staying forever green despite the world around them.

“It feels like I’ve been waiting for your arrival for years,” the woman says, gaze connecting with mine. “You are exactly as I saw you.”

Feeling deeply uncertain, I don’t know what to say, but then Dair walks over with a small smile on his lips. “Lunar Mother,” he greets the woman with a small head bow. “I see you’ve already met Raine, my mate.”

“Yes,” she smiles. “Where is your other mate? There is another, yes? I can smell him embedded in your skin.”

The silence drags on a moment longer than is comfortable, so I say, “He’s unconscious after being bitten.”

The Lunar Mother’s eyes grow cloudy as her gaze casts back out over the sweeping forest. She asks, “What are you expecting to do with him?”

Dair replies, his voice serious, “I’d like to bring him home. I know what I’m asking you to risk by allowing him on our lands, but he was bitten two days ago and has not turned. His body is fighting the infection, and maybe if you help us tend to him, he’ll pull through.”

“You say you know what you’re asking, but you have no idea,” the Lunar Mother replies, frowning. “We haven’t had a Biter in wolf lands for well over fifty years thanks to the hard work of our people. What am I supposed to tell everyone if he does turn? That Dair promised me he wouldn’t?” The Lunar Mother brings her hand to her mouth, covering it. “Why didn’t the trees tell me this?” she whispers into her palm.

“Please,” I beg. “Just come see him. See for yourself how his bite hasn’t progressed. You don’t know me, I understand, but I give you my word that survival without turning is possible.”

“How do you know that?” she demands, voice firm but inquisitive.

“My mother survived. I don’t know how, and I admit that it seems like her recovery was vastly different from Ferris’s, but she did fight the infection and went on to live another twenty-some years without ever changing.”

The Lunar Mother stares at me, looking into my eyes so deeply that it feels as though she can see my soul. “I’ll look,” she says, “but I make no promises.”

Tore, Ren, and Vale’s wolf are already gathered in the small room of the passenger car where Ferris is still resting on my haphazard nest. The train won’t be leaving until morning, so the Foothill engineers were kind enough to let us keep Ferris resting while things are decided. However, the air between Tore, Ren, and Vale is charged with something unnameable, and their body language is odd, to say the least.

I try to ignore them while walking in ahead of the Lunar Mother and Dair. Immediately, I kneel at Ferris’s side, noting that his breathing finally seems to be evening out and his skin feels less clammy. His coloration is still his normal warm complexion, without even a speck of rotting blue or gray, and the bite looks the best it has thus far. I allow my seed of hope to grow.

I scent the Lunar Mother as she kneels next to me and can’t help the rise of my protective instincts to clutch him closer and away from her. If she orders us to leave, what then? Where will we go? What if she orders us to kill Ferris? Unbidden, a tiny omega growl rumbles in my throat.

“Easy,” she says. “I won’t hurt him.” I look at Dair, who nods, so I relax my grip, allowing his form to roll toward her.

She clutches her chest with a gasp as she looks at his face. “Moon above,” she says, breathless. Her hand shakes as it leaves her chest to reach toward Ferris to push his curls away from his closed eyes. Maybe now that we’re bonded, he’ll finally let me trim his hair again. I try to send my thoughts down our silent bond, You hear that? Just wake up and I’ll cut your hair the way you like.