Page 52 of Pack Rage (The Splintered Bond #4)

Chapter 51

The Hunt

GRIGOR

M y little flame burned wherever she ran, even in the darkness, but it wasn’t the red of her coat that made it impossible for her to hide from me. It was the unquenchable fire of her spirit.

I’d heard Glen and Finnick a few days before talking about how much she had changed since they’d first met her. They’d been doing some combat training with the Eastern females who’d inexplicably chosen to stay with the new pack. Or the old pack. Cilian Malloy would be the new Alpha after the next full moon, and he’d decided to rename the pack. Very wisely, he’d chosen to call it Oriens, and to set up his pack with no Enforcers or ranks at all, using roles in their places. He would have pack artists, pack chefs, and pack warriors, as well as pack nurses and historians.

They needed the historians most of all, in my opinion. A pack that lost their history was forced to run the same trail again and again, until they learned.

I’d been in the forest with Luke, double checking the females’ camps there. They still lived close enough to the Mansion to use the kitchens and bathrooms, but none of them could sleep in the place. I didn’t blame them, though I’d done my best to cleanse the building of the residual foul magic that had seeped into the walls.

“They think our little flame has changed,” I’d remarked to Luke as we walked in the shadows of the tall pines.

“Flor hasn’t changed at all,” Luke had said with a slight smile. “She was born just like she is now. Fierce and strong. The same foolish courage, the same loving heart. You should have seen her when she was a toddler. She would walk right up behind the cruelest Enforcers and swipe the food off their plates when they weren’t looking. And then she’d scamper off and hand the stolen food to someone even hungrier than she was. Once it was an orphaned baby raccoon.”

Luke had suffered alongside her, and her fire had been all that kept his own burning. And now, though her wolf was a clever quarry in this playful hunt, that fire—my North Star, my full moon, my lodestone—led me straight to her.

Led my wolf to hers.

I padded into the clearing, past a stack of boulders that threw deep, irregular shadows in the moonlight across the rabbit path she’d followed, knowing she was crouched on top of one of the rocks, waiting. I stayed low to the ground, pretending to be scenting her, hunting her, and waited. I would be ready for her when she— “ Oof! ”

I let out a very un-wolflike sound as Flor pounced far more quickly than I’d anticipated, her small form landing squarely on my back. In the same move, she managed to flip me over onto my back, then froze. She was splayed on top of me, her forelegs around the sides of my ruff, her jaws clamped gently on my throat. The sharp pricks of her teeth were a warning never to underestimate her.

I never would.

My hunt, her wolf laughed into my mind. My prey.

My mate, I replied, using my back legs to flip her over my head, knowing she would let go, and not rip my throat out.

Or if she did, I would die happy, gazing into those amber eyes that were now filled with mischief and laughter. She leaped for me again, and I mock-growled, losing myself in my instincts. Her jaws were wide as she nipped and spun, teasing me, slapping my snout with her tail before darting away, then diving back under my neck, marking me with her scent. She peeked over her shoulder, those eyes blazing as she enticed me. Invited me.

I hesitated for a moment, though my wolf snarled at me. We had made love dozens of times since the battle, but never in this form. Never as wolves. Little queen?

I had never seen a wolf blush, but I would have sworn her red-black fur went a deeper shade as she whined a soft assent.

I gave my soul over to my wolf, who had waited so long for this mate, who had kept us both alive when I would have given up. I gave him the moment, and he took it—took her—biting gently into her neck as he entered her warm, willing body. She panted beneath me, waves of bliss pouring through our connected bonds and out into the others where they waited, all of them awake. Through Brand, who was crafting a message to Dean, planning the expansion of the Alpha’s Den for the new occupants of the Alpha’s family.

Through Luke, who stopped in the middle of cataloguing the library at Oriens, taking note of which books and journals needed to be copied and which would need to be brought as originals to the library at Mountain, the handwritten notes revealing which Alpha and packs in the wider world were true friends, and which were threats for us to address over the coming years.

Through Glen, who stood watch at the edge of the city park, just in case. None of us took our mate’s safety for granted, or each other. He was in human form, but his wolf was yipping to be let go, to share in the mating dance under the moon.

Through Finnick, who cursed softly as he began to glow brighter in the hotel room when I pressed deep into our mate, giving her wolf side a pleasure she hadn’t known with any of the others yet, as the thick base of my wolf’s knot pulsed and thickened, locking us together.

She tied us all together as she hunted and found her bliss. And every one of us knew we’d found ours as well: our purpose and plan. Our joy and our salvation.

Our queen, who ruled us with a heart filled with hope.