Page 20 of Fated to the Lone Shifter (Curse of the Lunaris Alpha #1)

Chapter eighteen

Ties that Burn

NOAH

W aking up with Sera curled against me should’ve set off every internal alarm I have.

But it didn’t.

It felt inevitable. Like she’d always been meant to be there.

Her fingers stayed tangled in mine, breath warm at my neck—and for one dangerous second, I believed we were safe. Until I remember the sigil.

But that mark was no dream.

It’s still burned into my memory, even as I drive into town for a supply run for the kitchen. My knuckles tighten on the steering wheel.

Am I endangering her by letting this happen? My mother warned against picking the wrong mate.

But what choice do I have? This feels fated.

And it feels right.

What could possibly be wrong with that?

My tattoo says it’s right.

Every time we touch I feel it’s right.

We’re connected.

Is it bad that she’s a witch and I’m a shifter?

That seems like something we can overcome.

But that sigil… it wasn’t just a symbol of our bond. It was a threat. A warning. A claim.

And yet, if I had the chance to do it all over again—to feel her magic arc through me, to hear her whisper my name with wonder—I wouldn’t hesitate.

I park the truck in front of the grocery store and go in.

Loading the grocery bags in the truck bed half an hour later, my mind still hasn’t stopped whirring. So many thoughts. And for once, many of them are good.

Last night felt like a turning point. A moment of fragile peace and shared truths that shifted something deep between us.

We’d stayed up late after the storm of our bodies settled. Talking. Her curled into my lap, her fingers brushing mine. There was a softness to her that didn’t match the tough, guarded agent she pretended to be. And in that vulnerable lull, we spoke about our families.

I told her about my real parents…what I remembered. Their joy. Their love. And then how the Bensons raised me.

She had lots of questions about how I learned to hunt and manage my wolf by myself.

I shared what a gruesome time it was. Feral testosterone running through my veins.

Emotions I didn’t understand…until I ate.

Luckily, it was deer season, so no eyebrows were raised.

And I had some memories from my parents and watching them hunt as a child.

It wasn’t always easy hiding the truth from the Bensons, particularly as a teenager, but I couldn’t have asked for more understanding…

or patient…parents. Still, I suspect they were glad when I moved out at eighteen to become a firefighter.

It gave me discipline, confidence and a job that made hiding who I was easier.

Sera absorbed my story, one I had never told in its entirety to anyone before. The admiration in her eyes made me fall a little deeper in love with her.

She told me about her parents—two witches with power and darkness in equal measure. How she’d seen them do things that would haunt most people. Not out of malice, but to protect their kind. Their magic. Their bloodline.

While she understood their motivation, it still broke something in her.

“Have you glued yourself back together?” I asked.

She shook her head. “There’s still too many secrets for that,” she voiced calmly, without apology.

I didn’t ask her to reveal her secrets. Many of them I knew already.

She was a witch. That I had seen. She was working for some agency.

Which one, I didn’t know. I could only hope that it was on the side of the law and that maybe she had turned to the law to try to unbreak herself.

To protect. To serve. To clean up the messes her parents had left behind. That I could understand.

Sera asked me a strange question as we were falling off to sleep, the investigator never completely off duty. “Where did the first of the six fires start?”

“On the other side of the west woods, just past the circle,” I responded, on the verge of dozing off.

“Were there any bodies?”

“No. We got there too late.” I rolled over and was out.

I had no idea where she was going with that line of questioning. She hadn’t told me about the case she was working on or exactly who she was working for. She couldn’t. I understood that. Hell, I respected it.

But secrets cut both ways.

I didn’t tell her about the circumstances around my parent’s death. For now, that stays with me.

I pull into a turnout and park the truck, gripping the wheel as the crisp mountain air rushes in through the cracked window.

My chest rises and falls with the cool breath of pine and memory, grounding me as the past claws its way forward.

My fingers drum on the steering wheel as another memory forces itself forward.

Six months back, a friend of Captain Greene’s let me see the old evidence box from my parents’ case. It had been collecting dust in evidence storage, long after the fire that killed them was ruled a tragic accident. Except… it wasn’t an accident.

Their bodies were charred beyond recognition, but not before some DNA was salvaged—thanks to a sharp-eyed park ranger who caught the blaze earlier than expected.

Hunted. That’s what the damage looked like. As if someone or something had torn through them before the fire ever started.

The friend wanted to know what I knew. I didn’t have answers. Just theories. Whispers of a curse. A family legacy soaked in blood. And the one person who might’ve known the truth? Gone. Disappeared twenty years ago.

Until now.

Uncle Bode.

An experience I had buried in the back of my brain surfaces. Huddled in the tree house far out of sight from seeing eyes, I could still hear things. Smell things.

Shortly after my mother left me, the voices came—fractured, distant, like shards of memory piercing the silence.

I was a child, crouched in the treehouse, heart thudding like a drumbeat in my chest. My parents.

Uncle Bode. My mother’s voice rose in panic, a desperate edge of fear lacing every word.

Then came the growls—low, savage, animal. They didn’t sound human.

Something was happening below. Something terrible. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it in every trembling bone. The thuds, the snarls, the scream that ended too fast. Blood bloomed in my mind’s eye even though I never saw a drop. A child’s mind fills in the blanks.

Then silence. The kind that makes your breath freeze in your throat.

I remember curling tighter in the corner, clutching my knees, trying not to make a sound. I wanted to help. But I was small. Powerless. Alone.

And then the fire began, crackling, roaring and popping. And the smell. The smell was the worst. Even as a child, my sense of smell was over-developed. I swear I could smell every item, every stuffed animal, every piece of furniture as it burned. Plastic, metal, wood…and burning fur and flesh.

Last night, in the woods... I’m sure of it now. That was Bode. I don’t know how I know, but I do. And the look in his eyes when he saw Sera…

It’s happening all over again.

I slam the door shut behind me as I walk into the firehouse, jaw tight. My wolf is pacing again.

The Captain’s waiting in the hall. "Your parents are here," he says. "And they brought a visitor. You might want to brace yourself."

I step into the common room, and there they are—my adoptive parents, standing awkwardly beside a man I haven’t seen since I was five. Until that night in the bar.

Older now. Grayer. But those eyes—still sharp, still assessing—haven’t changed.

Predator eyes dressed in family nostalgia.

He smiles like we’re family. Like he didn’t abandon me after my world went up in flames.

Like he didn't skip town after his brother and sister-in-law's home had burned to the ground with them in it.

And I could see that the Captain felt it too. Bode’s not a doting uncle. And he’s no film director either. Of that much I’m sure. Why he’s in town and why he has chosen to show himself to me now is still to be determined. Whatever the reason, it can’t be good.

And to make matters worse, he’s involved my family, my wonderful, unconditionally doting parents who only see the good in others, not the wolf.

I keep it civil. We catch up. The Bensons beam at me, proud and warm, like they’re giving me a gift. Uncle Bode shares how surprised and happy he was to find out I was still alive.

I’m not buying it.

“Hey, you remember that teddy bear I gave you when you were two? You had begged for a wolf, and I had searched everywhere for one, but I couldn’t find one. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a stuffed wolf to this day.” He chuckles, amused at himself.

“I guess most children are afraid of wolves,” I say. “They don’t trust them.”

Bode’s eyes flash at the challenge.

“Whatever happened to that bear? Did it make it through the fire?”

I shake my head “no.” It’s a lie. It was one of my favorite toys, and my mother had had the foresight to leave it in the treehouse with me and several of my other favorites, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of a shared memory between us.

“Ah, that’s a shame. That must have been a very difficult thing for you to go through.” He doesn’t mean a word of it. He’s pouring fire on a wound, reminding me what he’s capable of.

The conversation moves on to his film projects, his travels, the importance of telling stories rooted in truth. I nod, playing along, praying that the imitation reunion ends soon.

But the tension seems to be easing.

And then my parents ask to meet Sera.

Strange. I’ve mentioned her before. Maybe even acknowledged she was my star probie. But is that really enough for them to ask to see her now.

How did they know?

Bode’s got a shit-eating grin on his face that gives me a clue.

But there’s no time to work through the details.

Sera enters the room.

The shift is instant. Bode’s body language sharpens. Possessive. Too interested.

She smiles, recognizing him from their previous encounter. And Bode…

His smile deepens. Like a predator recognizing a prize.

“Well, she is a special one,” he offers.

My hands curl into fists. My wolf snarls in the back of my throat.

I step between them like a human shield.

The Captain watches me closely.

So I say nothing.

But inside, I am on fire.