Chapter Eighteen

The run I suggested wouldn’t happen until the following week when they had enough time to rest. According to Bree, these runs could last hours, and if they had to work the following morning, it would’ve hindered them more than helped. So, in the meantime, I stood in front of the living room window and watched Bree as she circled the house time and again.

Not wanting to interrupt her or to startle her wolf until we had the chance to run, I simply stood there in silence, admiring her coat as moonlight shone off of it. I’d watched her for several nights now, turning her wolf’s visits into a nightly routine which I then used to lull me into a deep sense of security.

I didn’t need the protection, not since she and Jackson ran that other wolf off my property, but I appreciated her company all the same.

However, on this night, something told me to open the front door. Something deep inside myself insisted I let my presence be known to the wolf that continued to watch over me night after night.

Please don’t run away, I pleaded as I quietly unlocked the front door, waiting until she was near before opening it the entire way. She immediately picked up on my scent, her pace slowing just enough for her to risk a glance in my direction.

Undeterred, she continued her patrol, rounding the other corner of the house only to return moments later from the opposite direction.

“You can stop,” I told her once she was within earshot. “I don’t think he’s coming back.”

She hesitated, glanced the way the rogue wolf had flown, then at me again. ‘Are you sure?’ I could almost hear her say.

I smiled, then stepped away from the front door and off the porch so I could join her. “Do you smell him?”

She swiveled her ears at me, then lifted her muzzle to scent the wind. When she didn’t pick up his scent, she looked at me again as if to say, ‘No, but I smell you.’

It was probably foolish of me to give Bree’s wolf a voice, but there it was, playing clear as day in the back of my head.

“Mind if I join you?” I asked when she didn’t move away. “I’m feeling a little restless myself and could use the distraction.” At least that much was partially true. I wasn’t restless so much as worried for her safety. Or Bree’s safety. If her wolf didn’t sleep, that meant Bree didn’t get enough time to rest as well.

Quick healing or not, there were some setbacks she and her brother couldn’t afford, especially after Jackson’s recent injury.

Bree’s wolf paused a moment and lifted one of her front paws as though she was about to run. However, when she looked at me again with her head slightly tilted to one side, she let out a very low whimper followed by a single wag of her tail.

“I really need to ask Bree for some pointers the next time we talk. I’m not very good at speaking wolf.” I shook my head at the odd wording but it couldn’t be helped.

The wolf didn’t seem to mind and started to make her way around the house once I joined her. Without knowing her personally and not wanting to overstep any invisible boundaries, I paused and held out my hand so it was hovering just above her shoulders. She stopped as well, looking back at me as the very tips of her fur brushed my palm.

She waited a moment more, and when I didn’t move, she made the connection for me, turning her head so my hand lightly brushed her ears. Her tail wagged a second later, and as soon as she went to head-butt my hand again, I decided to meet her halfway, delighting in the softness of her fur and just how wild she truly was.

I’d pet her before, shortly after Jackson’s injury, but this was different. I wasn’t comforting her and she wasn’t comforting me. Instead, we were experiencing one another as though it was for the very first time. It was exciting and nerve-racking all at once.

Fear coiled in my stomach at the thought of screwing things up and inadvertently pushing her away. However, even as the icy panic coiled around my spine, she was there, rubbing her head against my hand as she slowly walked around my one side and over to the other.

“Sorry,” I apologized when she sat back on her haunches. “I guess you can feel that. I’m okay, I just don’t want to do anything wrong.”

She didn’t rub against me or run her head under my hand. Instead, she licked my palm and pressed her cold nose against it when I didn’t move. ‘It’s okay. I won’t break.’

I swore I was putting words in her mouth again, but when the voice belonged to Bree instead of some other mysterious entity, I realized that wasn’t the case.

“You can understand me?” I asked as I looked into her silver eyes.

“I can.” This time, the words played in the back of my mind, soon accompanied by a series of bright colors.

“What is this?” I asked, my heart skipping a beat when she pawed at the front of my leg, inviting me down to her level. “I must be dreaming.”

“It is no dream,” she assured me, the voice in the back of my mind tickling my nerves just enough to make me smile.

Then, without warning, her pelt peeled away to reveal Bree underneath.

“Let’s go inside so we can talk,” she said, her teeth chattering a bit as she quickly made her way over to the side of the house where she kept her spare change of clothes.

“You know,” I said, unable to hide the giddiness in my voice, “if this is going to be a thing, you might want to keep some of your clothes here. Inside.” I gave her a pointed look, then took her hand in mine. “This is so weird. I have so many questions.”

She laughed at that, then gestured at the house. “I thought you might, but it’d take a lot more time and energy to explain if I stayed in my pelt.”

“So you and your wolf aren’t—”

“At odds anymore?” she cut in, gently kissing me on the cheek. “Doesn’t look like it, and it’s all thanks to you.”

Heat rushed into my cheeks the moment her lips touched my own, and as my heart leaped into the back of my throat, I let go, losing myself in her arms, under her touch, and her fierce kiss. Perhaps it was the warmer weather or the fact it was a full moon, but regardless of the reason, neither one of us moved, losing ourselves in one another as the world swam around us.

Vaguely aware of her hands walking down my back, I finally caught my breath enough to kiss her back.

That’s all it took to send her into motion, breaking our kiss if only for a moment. As soon as we made it through the front door, she took me in her arms again, meeting my aggressive kiss with one of her own.

All the while, I couldn’t get her wolf’s voice out of my head.

“This is right,” it said, “this is how we’re meant to be.”

Only Bree wasn’t in her pelt, so how could I still hear her wolf?

“Your wolf,” I said between kisses, following Bree’s example when she sat down on the sofa. “She’s still talking to me.”

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Bree said once she caught her breath, pressing her forehead to mine a moment later. “This is so bizarre.”

“To you?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “I thought this was supposed to happen. You know, strengthening the bond.”

“Feeling connected, yes, but this?” She shook her head, clearly at a loss for words. “I’d heard about this years ago, but we all thought it was a myth.”

“What?” Talking to her wolf?

She leaned back and collected her thoughts before speaking again. “Unions between humans and wolves are rare, which you already know. However, there have been a few reports where the human and the wolf while in their pelt could still communicate with one another. At first, I thought maybe it was one wolf’s way of justifying their bond, you know? And when the other reports came in, I figured it was due to the positive response the first one received.”

“But now?” I urged, already knowing the answer.

“It’s very real,” Bree said with a huge smile on her face. “And it changes everything.”

 

 

According to Bree, the bond shared between wolves is a simple one. The images that flashed in the back of my mind were her wolf’s way of sharing her joy with another, which was exactly what two wolves would normally do in a similar situation. However, the fact her wolf was able to send those images and I was open enough to receive them was something neither one of us could fully comprehend.

Wolves communicated through sight and body language, but after running a few tests, I could still sense her warmth and decipher her emotions through those mental images even when my eyes were closed. She showed me things I’d never seen before, things best viewed through the eyes of a wolf just starting to learn its way around the world.

She showed me her first hunt, which was an absolute failure, followed by her first success alongside her brother. Her heart swelled and gold and red flashes filled my mind whenever she thought of her brother. The love and pride she felt toward him filled my chest until I thought it might burst.

Overwhelmed and out of breath, I opened my eyes and gently pushed her away.

“What?” her voice rang in the back of my mind. “What is it?”

“I just need a moment,” I assured her, running my hand through her fur until I got my heart rate down to this side of normal. “The bond you share… it’s a lot.” I loved my sister to pieces, but the amount of faith and love she had for her brother was so strong that it almost brought me to tears.

“Wolves depend on one another,” she told me as she pressed her cold nose into my palm. “We’re nothing without our pack. Our family.”

I nodded gently, then leaned in so I could kiss the space between her ears. “Thank you for sharing this with me,” I said, wiping my eyes when a stray tear rolled down my cheek. “Thank you for trusting me with this.”

“You are my bonded. What else would I do?” She canted her head to the side, then gently licked at my face until my tears were no more.

I didn’t have an answer for her, and as the evening rolled into the early morning hours, I found myself leaning into her even more. Exhausted from the night’s events as I continued to process everything she’d said, there was something I had to ask.

“Why me?” I honestly didn’t expect her to answer. I didn’t deserve that kind of explanation. Love is love, and the heart knows what it wants, right?

“Because,” she said after a moment, flashing even more warm colors into the back of my mind. “The spirits guided you to me. You’re family and mine to protect. I know this just as I know I must breathe to stay alive. It’s as simple as that.”

“Did you always know?” Bree said she had when the subject first came up, but I wondered then if her wolf had something to do with that as well.

“As soon as I picked up your scent.”

The night of my arrival. The high beams of my car weren’t what alerted Bree, it was her wolf.

“Yes,” she said in the back of my mind, likely picking up on some of my own thoughts in a similar fashion.

“I wish I’d known sooner,” I said with a touch of regret in my voice.

She let out a low whimper, then placed her chin on my lap. “How come?”

“Because then we wouldn’t have lost so much time together.”

“We’re together now,” she said with warmth in her voice.

“We are,” I agreed as I buried my head in her fur.

And that’s all that matters.