Filed to story: The Wolf Prince’s Fated Love
“Yeah? You sure?”
“Yeah,” I said, waggling my eyebrows at him. “I’m sure. If… if you still want me. After hearing everything, about me being a broken mess of a murderer.” I hated myself just a little for ru ining this moment with my ugly insecurities. Goddess, I kept on shooting myself in the foot. But?-
“You are not a murderer,” he admonished, giving me a stern look. “You’re a hero. You saved not just yourself, but every other little girl in those shipping containers from a horrible fate. And if you’re broken, well, I guess I am too. But maybe together, we can rebuild something beautiful. The fact that I didn’t kill when I was feral doesn’t mean I didn’t in my time as an enforcer or even since. I have no regrets about taking out the assassin who stabbed you.”
I nodded, too emotional for words at his acceptance. After all the things I’d kept hidden, even from my very best friends, he’d just wiped away the stigma, the shame, with an easy smile like it was nothing.
But to me? It was everything.
He kissed me then-both a reprimand and a promise-and I felt the tingles from the top of my hair to the very tips of my toes. And everywhere in between.
Everywhere.
We stayed like that for a long while, just basking in the comfort of a mate’s touch and kissing as we talked, until the moon had traveled far across the sky and even his banked-coal-level warmth wasn’t enough to keep the cold at bay any longer.
“Ready to head back?” he asked.
“Yes, I just wish it weren’t so far. I’m exhausted.” And I was, to my very bones.
“Luckily for you, I’m not. Hop on,” he said, then shifted into his wolf form.
He was big, yes. Almost chest height when I was still in human form.
“Are you sure? You ran just as far as I did.”
He yipped his assent, and I pursed my lips, considering the long, long way back.
“Okay, here goes nothing,” I muttered, and climbed on his back.
FIFTY
Shay
By the time we made it back, the sun was already kissing the horizon. The twilight was fading into soft lavender, the deep orange of sunrise hot on its heels.
As beautiful as it was, though, I couldn’t look away from the man standing outside our lodgings. He stood tall and proud, but quiet, patient. He looked exactly as I remembered from my childhood, as if time hadn’t touched him, the same hint of silver at his temples, the same laugh lines at the corners of his eyes.
Brand.
He’d waited. I’d tried to run from the past, from the shame and hurt of a little girl’s memories, but he’d waited.
Suddenly, I was really glad we’d stopped at a cache at the edge of the woods to pull on sweats and weren’t walking up buck freaking naked.
“Shailene,” Brand said, warm familiarity in his tone. “I’m so glad to see you again.”
“Everyone calls me Shay now.” It was an asinine thing to say, but it was all I had.
Well, not all that I had. Dirge was holding my hand, his solid presence at my side an easy reassurance. I wasn’t alone and scared anymore. I had a mate, and a pack who had my back.
I had a family. The realization nearly knocked me down. All my life, I’d wanted a family. And now I had one. I’d thought back then it would be Brand and his pack, who was my family. But it was time to let that go. He had saved me from a feral life in the woods, and that was enough.
“Shay.” He said the name like he was testing it, rolling it around on his tongue. Then he nodded. “I wanted to give you something.” He held up a coin, waiting to see if I’d take it.
I closed the distance, accepting the weathered and ancient-looking piece of metal. “What kind of coin is it?” I asked, looking up to meet his eyes.
“An Etruscan coin. Very old, from ancient Italy.”
My eyebrows shot up as I turned it over in my hand. There wasn’t a date stamped on it, but it seemed weathered enough to be ancient, and it was heavy. Nothing like the newly minted thin coins we had nowadays.
I closed my fist around it as if it was going to vanish from my grip like he had from my life all those years ago. “It’s cool, but why did you want to give it to me?”
“It’s a token. A way to call for help, if ever you need it again. It can only be used once, but if you kiss the coin and say, ‘In time of greatest need, I call for greatest might.’ Help will come.”
“Umm, okay.” I was confused. So very, very confused.
He smiled then, the look oddly wistful. “I wanted you to have it before I left.”
“Thank you,” I murmured.
He looked down, and I realized his hand seemed to waver in the burgeoning light.
“My time draws to an end, and I must go. Fare thee well, until we meet again,” he said with a soft smile, and then faded away, right before our eyes.
“Okay, that was weird as hell,” Dirge said. “Is the coin still solid?”
I opened my fist, and there it was. Solid and real, glinting in the sunlight even though the mysterious man who’d given it to me was long gone. Suddenly, I had all new questions about why he hadn’t kept me all those years ago.
“Huh. Well, can’t hurt to hang onto it, right?” He squeezed my shoulder, and I nodded.
Couldn’t hurt, indeed.
We crashed for three hours before the noise from the living room woke us. Dirge was up and out of bed first, using the bathroom and heading to his suitcase to pull on fresh clothes. He froze in front of it, then spun to face me.