**Jade POV**Within about 5 minutes, the blonde man and another huge and intimidating man with short, dark hair came into the room. I knew they were probably Elliott’s beta and gamma, but the dark haired man seemed almost higher rank than that. He both terrified and mesmerized me with his stature alone. This man had to be at least 7 feet tall. “We’ve been given an hour to get off the property. Are our bags packed?” Elliott asked them.“Yes, alpha. I have the car all loaded up and I’ve already asked the doctor if he’d like to bring his family to join our pack. They’re almost finished packing their car as well.” The dark haired man answered.“Perfect. Jade, do you have any belongings you would like to take with you?” Elliott turned his beautiful gaze to me and I was suddenly filled with nervous energy. Would I really be escaping to what would hopefully be a hopefully better life with this man?“No, I don’t really have anything besides a few clothing items,” I started before realizatio
**Jade POV**I opened my eyes to see Emma and Elliott standing over me and I was excited to find that it wasn’t a dream, this was all really happening. Elliott’s dark eyes seemed to twinkle as he looked into mine. I couldn’t help but smile shyly at him. “Sorry to wake you, love, but we’ve been on the road a little over an hour and a half and we figured now would be a good time to stop for lunch since you haven’t eaten and poor Emma missed breakfast because of us.” Emma smiled hearing her name acknowledged and I realized that by falling asleep I’d left her alone with a car full of strangers. I hoped she wasn’t too upset with me. “Elliott thought you might want to change before we go in,” Emma said cheerfully and held up clothes for me. “I’ll hold up this blanket so no one can see you guys.” Elliott said, turning around behind Emma and spreading a large fluffy blanket as far as his arms could stretch, forming a semi circle of coverage for us, the open door to the car covering us on t
**Victor POV**Stupid piece of shit alpha of silver moon. That brat was half my age and acted as if he were some sort of gift to our entire species and therefore better than me. I hated how my wolf surrendered so easily to him. He’d always done that even when his equally pompous and annoying father was the one visiting here. I could see this kid would be a bigger pain in my ass than his holier than thou father. Who did he think he was to be reporting me over to the elders? Under what authority was he allowed to control my pack? I’d never gone to his packlands and treated him with such utter disrespect.“It’s not his fault we’re not of true alpha blood. Your father took over this pack by force, he was never meant to rule and neither are we. We should surrender the title to him and cut our losses” my wolf, Kai lectured in my head. No one except for us, my father, and a few elderly members of the pack who were there for the takeover were aware of that. My father was once the Gamma of th
**Jade POV**The next several hours were filled with laughter, music, and “I spy”, a game Cameron claimed was a road trip right of passage. I had to admit I didn’t quite get what made it interesting, but I did like Jasper’s comments as he observed his friend choosing one obscure thing after another and we’d usually pass them before anyone managed to guess correctly. We’d spent the afternoon in the car asking each other random questions every time one of us had one pop into our heads. At first it was just Elliott and I but then Cameron insisted that they all join in because in his words “we’ll all be working together to run a pack, so we’ll need some pretty good dirt on each other to get the job done”. We’d covered a good amount of basic information, I learned that Elliott’s parents are still alive and very nice people. He has a sister who’s about my age, and a brother a few years older in training school for ranked members for a few more weeks. He’s been an alpha for 5 years, and his
**Elliott POV**My mom touched Jade’s face and as I watched their hushed conversation, I felt my dad clap me on the shoulder. “Well, it’s easy to tell but I thought I’d say it anyway— we love your mate!” We both chuckled and my heart swelled seeing my parents embrace Jade so quickly. Although technically, they’d had the whole beginning of her life to warm up to her.As I was smiling and taking it all in, I realized my mom and I had been making eye contact through almost the entire long, tight hug she was giving to Jade. Everyone around us seemed frozen in time and all I wanted to do was have some alone time with Jade to process the last few days and start getting to know each other better. I felt this sudden urge to scoop her up, take her to my room, and lock ourselves away from anything but each other. I was realizing how close I came to never even knowing my true mate because we’d thought she’d been dead all these years, and the protective instincts that had been laying dormant in m
**Jade POV** Elliott dropped my hand as we finally reached his door. I was already overwhelmed by the sheer size of this place. Every inch of it was beautifully decorated, like I’d jumped into a fairy tale and was now inside the book with Prince Charming forever— at least I could only hope it’d be forever. He turned the small metal knob and the door swung open with a soft and charming creak. He gestured for me to walk ahead of him and I offered him a nervous smile as I walked through.I couldn’t believe what was in front of me. The ceilings were dark wood and tall coming together in a point at the top. In the center of the back wall was the biggest bed I’ve ever seen in my life piled high with fluffy pillows and dark green linens. A fireplace split the room in half with a large tv screen mounted to the top facing the bed. “Holy shit,” I said, spinning around to look at Elliott. This had to be a prank. There was no way this was real. “This is your room?” I asked almost as a rhetoric
**Elliott POV**If I thought I was having a hard time keeping my wolf under control during the kiss, smelling my mate’s scent amplified by the bath products Cleo had expertly selected was going to absolutely drive me over the edge. It didn’t help that with advanced hearing, I caught a few small moans, probably from the feeling of a warm shower I’d been basically taking for granted my whole life. The problem was they sounded so pleasurable that it was all I could do to leave clothes at the bathroom door and not demand to shower along with my mate to get a look at her naked form.I breathed in the fresh air, willing my self control to bulk up and help me out here when my mate’s scent hit my nostrils stronger than ever. I heard her padding across the room before I saw her saunter outside. I realize this sounds dramatic because we’d just met, but she’d never looked more beautiful. Her hair looked even brighter red, her curls looked immaculate, and her eyes looked bright and full of energy
“My wolf warned me not to at River Bed.” I said, my brows furrowing and newly wondering what she meant and if that rule extended here.“We can shift here. It’s safe.” Astrid assured me.“THEN WE NEED TO GO NOW LET’S DO THIS!” William surprised everyone by jumping up and shouting in excitement. Everyone laughed and agreed, taking our plates to the sink for the staff to wash and heading out the back door of the house connected to the kitchen.I could feel my nerves intensifying the closer we got to the woods. I’ve always heard shifting for the first several times could be difficult and painful, so I wasn’t too excited for that but I was curious to see what Astrid looked like and what it felt like to run as a wolf. Elliott guided me to a larger tree we could hide behind and began to strip immediately.“I’ll shift first so Aries can support Astrid through her shift. I’ve heard from wolves who shifted the first time with their mate that it helped with the pain some. Cleo said leaning again