Chapter 4

Drew

Wings. Fucking gold wings had just appeared out of my best friend’s back. And I didn’t mean small, delicate, wispy things. I’m talking giant, pure gold wings. They were still beautiful, don’t get me wrong. But they looked nothing like what I pictured when I imagined a fairy with wings.

Because it was obvious that’s what she was. Not a witch. Never a witch. A fairy. A fucking Fae. In our pack.

Out of all of our pack members, I should have known, should have realized when we were kids, that she wasn’t a witch. Her magic differed from mine, relying more on the elements rather than coming only from inside her and being limited by the amount of power held inside. Like I was.

Being only half witch, I had a very limited power level inside of me. Not even half of the amount of power June had, if you didn’t include the power she could draw from the elements. If you included that, well, mine was a drop in the bucket compared to her power level.

She reached behind her body, the matching tattoos on our arms immediately forgotten as she tried to touch the wings behind her back. I rolled my eyes at her and pulled out my phone, opening up the camera app and putting it in selfie mode so she could see herself.

“Whoa!” she exclaimed, almost dropping my phone in surprise. She lifted it higher, trying to get a better view of them, her deep green eyes wide the whole time, the swirling flecks of gold that used to only occasionally appear there now a permanent fixture.

I watched her as she looked at herself in my phone, using her distraction to examine her. I had to admit; she was stunning. And in love with my best friend, my future alpha. And he was also in love with her. And neither of them realized it.

And I… Well, there was someone else I wanted. And now… well, I was not sure what was happening between the two of us, but it was obvious that Luke wasn’t her mate, based on the state I found her in before… well, before whatever the fuck this was… happened.

I could feel her. Well, obviously I could feel her. She was literally sitting in my lap. But I could feel her in my mind, like a presence. I could feel her confusion and sadness and pain and regret, like it was a part of me. Like what they tell us mates feel.

Fuck. Was that what it was? Was that what the markings on our arms meant? I knew nothing about fairy or Fae mate bonds. None of us did.

The only thing I knew about fairies was that the Fae were the most powerful type of fairy. They had pointed ears and large wings, and were able to use several different types of magic. There were many other types of fairies — nymphs, dryads, salamanders — all different with different types of magic, but all fairies.

Fairies and Fae had all but disappeared from the realm about 20 years before, give or take, when King Tobias had ordered his wolves and witches to assassinate the Fae royals. The Fae king and queen had found out, and fought back, fighting against the wolf and the High Witch King until the very end, but they had ultimately died, and the fairies and Fae had vanished.

Or, I guess, we thought they had vanished. Apparently, at least one had hidden in plain sight for about 19 years. Who is to say that there weren’t others out there just like June?

But she was surprised. I could feel it through the connection we shared. She didn’t know. I was not sure how she had lived this long without knowing about this huge part of herself. I couldn’t imagine living my whole life thinking I was just a wolf, to wake up one day and find that I was actually a dragon.

I pushed those thoughts aside, instead focusing on the… bond… that we had. My wolf was calm, just sitting back in my mind. If we were mates, he would freak out. He’d be able to smell her and he would try to come forward to claim her. Right?

Unless… maybe the spell or charm or whatever had concealed her wings and her ears (did I not mention the pointed ears?) also disguised her scent? So my wolf couldn’t smell her?

No, that made little sense. She had clearly broken through the charm completely, so any disguised scent should be clear. Maybe my wolf was just in shock?

I grabbed her hand that was holding my phone, taking it back from her and using that moment to feel for the mate sparks that everyone always talked about, but there was nothing.

Still, there was an obvious connection between us, and other than it being the mate bond, I couldn’t think of what it meant. I had this… need… to make sure that she was safe, and I had felt it from the moment I found her crying near the stream.

I acted without thinking when I absorbed her magical blast, protecting the forest from what would have been a potentially devastating explosion.

“Can you stand?” My voice shook with uncertainty as I asked her.

I didn’t really want her off of my lap or out of my arms or even out of my sight, but I also wanted to make sure that she could hold herself upright since she had these new appendages on her body. I imagined it might throw her off balance since she wasn’t used to having giant ass wings sticking out of her shoulder blades.

“Here, hold on,” I muttered, putting my arms around her and standing back up while holding her, before setting her feet carefully on the ground.

I kept my hands on her hips, gently resting them there so she could find her balance while using me to hold herself steady.

“Thanks,” she whispered, her hands resting on my shoulders, her eyes looking everywhere but my face as if she was avoiding looking at me. “You can let go now,” she told me, but I didn’t want to.

I wanted her close to me, wanted to keep holding onto her, to be her strength and her safe place. Fuck, this was going to be difficult.

If we were mates, if I was her mate… I knew I wasn’t who she wanted, who she had been hoping for over the years, and she might not have been who I had been wanting, but goddess, I would do whatever it took to make her see that I could make her just as happy as Luke could have. I would make her fall in love with me, show her it’s not just the mate bond pulling the two of us together.

Except… I still felt nothing from my wolf, felt no pull to claim her or kiss her. Just the need to confirm that she was safe and unharmed, and currently I satisfied that need by touching her. Shit, we really needed to talk to her parents.

Her parents. Were they even her parents? Did they steal her? Or were they in disguise, too? And Myles? Did Alpha and Luna know?

“Drew! Drew, calm down. I can feel you panicking right now, and I don’t need that on top of my own anxiety, okay?” Juniper yelled, her hands squeezing my shoulders and her eyes finally meeting my own.

I nodded, swallowing and taking a deep breath to calm myself. “Yeah. Yeah, of course, I… I’m sorry.”

“Juniper?! June? I felt your energy release as I was pulling up to the cottage, and I came as soon as I could.”

We both looked in the voice’s direction, and June’s brother, Myles, burst into the small clearing, his face worried as he took in the two of us and June’s wings.

“Oh earth goddess, June, I am so, so sorry I wasn’t here when your full powers came through. I should have been here, I should have—”

He moved closer to us, and again, I acted without thinking, pulling June behind my body, placing her between myself and the tree, and snarling at Myles, “Don’t you come any fucking closer to her!”

I blinked at myself, shaking my head, trying to overcome the intense protectiveness I was feeling. This was her brother, for crying out loud.

Myles backed up a few steps, his brows furrowed at my outburst, his eyes looking between the two of us and landing on the matching tattoo… mark… thing on our arms.

“Huh,” he said, his hands coming to his hips as he looked at us. “Weird. I thought it would be me,” he added, almost to himself.

“What the fuck? You’re her brother, you can’t be her mate?” I said in a mix of confusion and disgust.

He shook his head, the hint of laughter on his face. “You’re not…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck, this all just became way more complicated than it should be,” he muttered to himself. “We need to get you both to the house. Mom and Dad can explain everything better.”

I nodded, moving to the side to let June out from between me and the tree. She smiled at me, putting her hand into mine, as if she knew I needed to have contact with her to appease the overwhelming need to protect her.

“June, you need to put your wings away,” Myles told her as we walked towards him.

“How do I do that?” she squeaked, her brows furrowing as she turned her head to try to look back at them.

“You just imagine them being put away,” Myles told her, his arms folded as he watched us.

I scoffed at him. Like that was going to help her learn. I turned to her, stopping her in her tracks and taking her other hand in mine, making her face me.

“Think of it like our wolves,” I started. “When we want to change, we picture ourselves in the form we want to be in, and let the change take over from there. So, when I’m in my wolf form, I just imagine what my body looks like and feels like when I’m human, and then I’m able to change.”

She nodded, then closed her eyes, taking a few breaths. I could feel her focusing, feel her relaxing her muscles and letting her body do what it needed to do as she pictured herself without wings.

Just like that, they folded in on themselves, and then disappeared into her shoulder blades. I turned her body around, looking at her back, realizing that not only were her wings completely hidden, but her sweatshirt didn’t even have any holes in it from where they had burst through when her body had changed.

“Fairy magic,” Myles said with a laugh, answering my unspoken question.

“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up from a bad dream or come down from some crazy ass mushroom high, but nope. This is all real,” I joked, forcing a laugh, trying to lighten the mood between the three of us before we headed to their house.

They both stared at me before exchanging a look with each other, and bursting into hysterical laughter.

“Why… Why are you like this?” Myles asked with his head shaking, his smile betraying his true feelings for me.

“Don’t listen to him, Drewbie. I like you just the way you are,” June said, linking her arm through mine and giving me a kiss on my cheek.

“Come on, weirdos, Mom and Dad are waiting for us, and I’m sure they’re getting worried.” Myles led the way out of the clearing.

June and I were still walking behind him with our arms linked, both of us quiet as we walked.

She stopped, staring at the ground, and I looked down at the ground, looked down at what she was looking at: a set of fancy colored pencils, the kind she used on all her best drawings, and a small jewelry box that had broken apart, revealing a necklace with a black wolf charm on it.

I bent down to grab them for her, knowing they had to have been from Luke. The charm on the necklace represented his large black wolf form.

She must have seen him just before, must have seen him so he could give her the gifts and they could find out if they were mates — though I doubt either of them voiced that desire to the other. I handed them back to her, and she smiled sadly, tears forming in her eyes as she took the necklace out of the now broken box and put it around her neck.

I checked myself for any jealousy, for any flicker of rage at the thought of her still having feelings for another male, but there was nothing. Goddess, all of this was so fucking confusing.

We reached their home quickly. Her mom, Sofia, stood worriedly in the doorway, waiting for us to reach them, her hand covering her mouth while she bit her nails. Her dad, Simon, standing behind her, his hands resting comfortingly on her shoulders, watching the three of us as we came up the path to their house.

When we were mere steps away from the porch, Sofia ran down the last few steps, sweeping June into a big hug before I even had a chance to pull her behind me. I let out a growl at her, and Simon smacked me on the back of the head.

“Drew Smith, we have known you since before you even knew how to use the toilet properly. I know you’re feeling an intense amount of emotions and confusion right now, but you will not growl at us for trying to hug Juniper!” he warned me in a low voice.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, Simon,” I hissed, rubbing the back of my head where he had hit me. I always forgot how strong he was.

I pivoted my attention back to June and her mom, tuning in just in time to hear Sofia say, “Let’s get inside. We can explain a bit before Alpha and Luna get here.” She smiled at me, wrapping her arms around me in a hug. “Your parents are on their way as well.”

I nodded at her, squeezing her tiny body quickly before leaping up the stairs after June, who had already made her way inside.

I found her in the living room, her body curled up in one armchair near her fireplace. She looked so sad and broken and helpless, and I wanted to be there for her, to comfort her, but I didn’t know how to be what she needed me to be, especially since we still weren’t sure what exactly was going on between us.

But one thing I knew was that I was not okay with her sitting where I could not be right next to her.

“June, I, uh…” I glanced at the smaller of the two navy blue couches, pointing at it abruptly. “I need you to sit on the couch with me.” My voice was pathetic, almost a whine with how ridiculously needy I sounded. “I’m sorry, I don’t… I’m not sure what is going on with me, but I really just need you next to me. If that’s okay,” I sputtered out, rambling on and on, trying to make everything less awkward, but instead, making it more fucking awkward.

“That’s normal for a protector,” Sofia said as she came into the room, followed closely by her husband and Myles.

“Protector?” I asked with a furrowed brow, sitting down at the same time as June.

“Princess, are you all right?” Simon asked June, ignoring my question.

Princess. Her parents and Myles, and now that I’m thinking about it, even my parents and Luke’s parents have always called her princess, ever since we were all little kids together. Princess June. Princess.

“Holy fucking goddess,” I said under my breath as I pieced it all together.

She wasn’t just a fairy, a Fae. She was the Fae princess. The one that the queen had been pregnant with when the werewolf king had killed her and her husband. Somehow… somehow they had tricked the king, tricked all the kingdoms into thinking that they were dead, that the princess had never been born.

“I — she — and you—?” I couldn’t even utter coherent sentences, my thoughts were running through my head faster than I could get the words out of my mouth, but one thing I realized was I was sitting in front of the king and queen of fairies and I was not even bowing to them or calling them by their proper titles.

I shot up out of my seat, and tried to bow to Simon and Sofia, but Myles pushed me down before I was even halfway done with my action, and muttered, “Sit down you idiot, my parents aren’t the king and queen.”

I blew out a breath of relief, but his admission just raised more questions for me.

“Um, hi, Juniper Costa here,” June said, waving her hands in the air to get our attention. “Anyone care to fill me in on what exactly is going on here?”