A mental image of three very large wolves standing in the entrance hall was the first alert Jake had of strangers on his land.
He was not impressed.There would be consequences to whoever had neglected their post. The snarl hadn’t even left his throat before Mark, Dylan and a few other men leaped from the table, shifting to wolf as they went, their clothes torn to shreds before their paws hit the floor.The next mental message was sent to every werewolf in the pack but was not a pack link. The wolves all lay down on the floor, their necks bent in submission. The werewolves who were still in human form all knelt down facing the door and bowed their heads. Jake caught Lia’s hand and gave her a small tug and she knelt down too. He tried to share the idea of a Lycan royal family visit with her and hoped her wolf could get the message across. They really had to find a way to get more free-flowing communication. No sooner had Lia copied the others than the three large wolves and a tall-robed man walked into the hall.“Alpha of the Cloud Lake werewolves, we are here to mend the injured one who can not fully wolf.”Jake stood, pulling Lia up beside him. “Right this way,” he said, bowing and motioning to the hallway. His mother followed behind them.“When did she first lose her ability to shift?”“We don’t know for certain,” Jake answered. “Nobody has seen her as a wolf in about eighteen years. She has not woken, so we can not ask if she has shifted in private. Her wolf speaks to nobody, though she does seem to listen and sometimes responds to a few.”“To whom?”“To her daughter, to a mated pair whom she has known eighteen years, and once to a young omega.”“The omega is the pup you call Zinnia?”“Yes.” The Lycan nodded as if that explained everything. Jake glanced in surprise at Lia and then his mother. How did the Lyans know of the pup, let alone know her by name?Lia watched in amazement as Jake and the entire pack seemed to freeze and wait for these Lyan to tell them what to do. They were frozen in the hallway until the Lycan motioned for them to move, and then they scattered quickly away. Jake was answering questions but asking nothing. Mother Luna was not even talking, which was very unlike her. Who were these people? Were the werewolves scared of them, or simply respectful? Were they royals? Why were they asking about her mother? The robed Lycan stopped and turned so abruptly that Lia almost bumped into it. She gasped and stepped back. “Sorry,” She said softly. Then for some reason, her wolf was insisting she lift her eyes, so she looked up into the face of the Lycan.“You are the chosen Luna.”“Y-yes?”The Lycan nodded then, stared silently into her eyes for what seemed like a long time. “Your wolf is proud, gentle, spontaneous, and fierce. Your human is intelligent, logical, curious, and caring. The goddess has chosen well. However, your wolf must learn to communicate better. Speech is not natural for us, it is inconvenient, but we will speak aloud so that all present will hear us clearly.”“Sorry? And Thank you.” Lia bowed her head, Jake squeezed her hand reassuringly.“Our assumptions were correct. There is silver in her,” the shortest of the Lycan said. “It poisons her blood and keeps her wolf trapped.” Lia hadn’t even noticed that while the one stared at her, the other Lycan had shifted to a more human shape, though they were still rather wolf-shaped bodies and covered in fur. They had pulled the sheet away from her grandmother’s scars and were examining them closely. “I have retrieved her memories of what caused this,” the short one continued, “I will share these privately with the Lycan council for consideration.”There were a few moments of silence, then the lightest coloured Lycan growled, “the Bane willingly and unnecessarily tortured both the wolf and the human. It had no legal claim to do either. The punishment for each of these atrocities is death.”“Agreed,” the others said in unison.“The Bane also murdered her parents without cause and abducted her.” said the short one, “it was not her fated mate, nor was she gifted to it by her kin. It chose her and plotted to acquire her without consent of goddess, kin or law.”“A third death sentence. We must see that it is killed thrice.” The lightest coloured Lycan said.“Another nuisance.” Said the tall one. “The leniency of the bane’s banishment is a curse to us.”Liana found herself wondering what law had been broken in the first place, but dared not ask.“We will remove the silver on the morrow,” said the shortest, “We have brought all we require, except sleeping quarters and sustenance for ourselves.”“Of course,” said Mother Luna, “we are preparing the guest houses for you now. The Omegas are waiting to be told what you would like to eat.”“We have told them,” the Lycan said in unison.“Then it will be done if they are able,” said Mother Luna.“Once the silver is removed she will need to sleep in the light of the wolf moon,” The short one said as she drew the covers back over Selene’s feet. “See that a cot is prepared in a location where the moonlight will not be interrupted for several hours, the entire night if possible. Since she may still be human, heat will be required for the location as well. We can remove the toxin, but only the goddess can heal the trauma.”“She can do that?” Lia asked, then bit her lip, not having meant to speak aloud.“She can teach you as well naive wolf, all that you have been denied will be known to you if you wish to learn.”“Our rooms are ready,” the Lycan said in unison, and then they disappeared.“I hate when they do that,” said Mother wolf. “Well, I’m off to the kitchens to find out what we’re serving them and figure out how we’re going to manage it.”“They don’t just message you that with the link,” Lia asked.“We try to limit the use of the link when the Lycan are here,” Jake explained, “They can intercept it. They consider it normal, we consider it rude since they aren’t from our pack and we can’t hear their thoughts in return.”“I hope it is something that actually lives on this continent this time,” Mother Lunca continued. “Even better if it is in our freezers.”“Lobster,” said Zinnia, coming up quietly behind Mother wolf. “They want baked lobsters, and we just bought a bunch fresh this morning so we’re all set. The other image was a pie that Mrs. Rogue was holding, but there was no scent sent with it. We’re hoping Lia can tell us what kind of pie it is, but we don’t know how to show her since she isn’t linked to any of us.”“She might be able to choose to link, the way other lone wolves do,” Jake said, “The Lycan said her wolf needed to learn to communicate better, not that she couldn’t. Think about the image, Zinnia, and look in Lia’s eyes. That’s how the Rogue wolves manage to crate random links.”“Raspberry,” said Lia after a moment, “Though I don’t know if my wolf saw it and could actually discern that, or if I just know it would be raspberry because Mrs. Rogue always bakes me a raspberry pie for my birthday and my birthday is so close that I’m assuming that’s what it would be. I was actually thinking about raspberry pie about the time they arrived and wondering if she’d make me one this year.”“Maybe your wolf was linking the questions to Marie and they intercepted it,” Jake suggested. “They often read thoughts without permission. They knew about the fresh lobster, likely someone in the kitchen was dealing with those. As for the pie David said you sometimes send incomplete messages, so if you were linking an incomplee message about pie they may have become curious about the scentless pie, not knowing the message was incomplete. The raspberry might be quite a surprise!The few remaining days before the Wolf moon had flown by. Selene was still unconscious, but the silver was removed from her blood. She had fully shifted to her wolf in the middle of her first night sleeping in the moonlight. Seeing a scruffy white wolf on the cot made everyone much more confident that she would heal well as soon as she got enough hours with the goddess. Every morning her coat seemed to have filled in some, which was a good sign. The lycan appeared to have left, but the guest houses still smelled recently used, so nobody in the pack was quite as comfortable as they would normally be. Jake had fallen back on his traditional pack party plans, omitting most of the birthday and mate announcement plans he’d been making. He really wanted to count on both Lia’s shift and their mating, but he understood Lia not wanting attention from a bunch of werewolves who were still mostly strangers to her, so he’d agreed to keep those things just between them for tonight. Knowing most of
Lia dove onto her bed and spun around, her knees bent up to hide her chest and her hands over her burning red cheeks. Had she really just done that? Had she really felt him up like that and then stripped naked? What had come over her? She heard Jake following her and buried her face behind her knees.A large hand wrapped around her ankle and tugged her leg out, hauling her to the end of the bed. She squealed, then burst out laughing as Jake ran his tongue up her leg. His shoulders stiffened and he stilled for a moment, cursing softly. “Come here Lia, our wolves need to have a chat before we do anything else.”“Why?”“’Cause yours is sending out messages when you have strong emotions or sensations. David doesn’t want any more glimpses of me licking your bare legs and apparently, he heard a couple of giggles from Ellie and Elsie’s room a few minutes ago so they’re probably seeing or feeling something too. Dylan also says that Zinnia just asked him some interesting questions about tingly
After sleeping most of the morning, Lia and Jake snacked, snuggled, and made love in their rooms. The activities on the lawn and in the house grew louder as everyone’s anticipation of the wolf moon grew. The new coupe hardly noticed the festivities, except once, mid afternoon, when the howling and cat calling from below the balcony had Jake reluctantly pulling Lia up from the bed.“Put on...something.” He grumbled as he waved around her room. “They’ve scented our pheromones now so they won’t leave us alone until I take you out and introduce you as my mate and Luna.”“Oh.” Lia’s face burned with embarrassment.“Yeah. Then I guess we better leave the doors open and put a fan on for a bit to push the scent out as much as possible, otherwise the little Rogues will be asking questions and the big ones will be distracted all through dinner.” A smile curved Jake’s lips as the heat of her blush made the scent of their lovemaking even stronger. She was definitely more easily embarrassed than an
Lia sighed in relief as her wolf and Jake’s finally managed to mind link. The first image he shared with her was of a majestic white wolf on a lounge chair with her eyes closed and her head tipped up to the sky, the moon gleaming brightly behind her, its light sparkling and glowing on her fur. His first image of her as a wolf, she guessed. She heard Jake whimper then and knew that without her consciously trying to, her wolf had shared the feelings of her experience with him. Her orgasm had been sweet but then the pain of shifting had ripped through her with such intensity that for a moment she’d been terrified the change was going to just tear her open and she’d bleed to death instead of fully transforming! As that had dimmed, her other senses had exploded. She had always been able to see, hear, and smell more than her human friends, but the full wolf senses were amazing. The intensity of it had completely overwhelmed her at first. She could scent every wolf in the pack and hear every
Liana awoke the next morning with a sneeze. She sat up, looking around the room. She was human again. When had she switched back? Obviously that hadn’t been as painful as the shift to her wolf. She was human, naked, and curled up on the floor near the fire in the Alpha family’s suite. Jake was behind her, his hand on her hip tightened slightly as her movement disturbed his sleep. She sneezed again and felt the tingling all the way down from the back of her head to her shoulders. “Aconitine?”Jake sat up. “Wolfsbane? Here?”Jake stood, pulling Lia to her feet with him. “Is it on us? Do we need to shower?” She sniffed again, following the scent to the open patio door, sneezing twice before she got there. “It’s definitely coming from outside, but there can’t be any plants from the Ranunculaceae family growing wild in the winter. I think I smell Albert too, and Albert shouldn’t be hunting this close to houses.” She sneezed once more and pulled the patio doors shut against the smell and th
Jake heard David’s yelp of surprise at the same time he got his linked message. Lia had been there one moment, sneezed, then disappeared into thin air! There one moment and gone the next. Literally vanished in the blink of an eye. The werewolves around him were frozen in shock, looking at each other and trying to make sense of what they were seeing in the link. Only a lycan could make werewolves vanish like that, and they only did that when a law had been broken. There was always a warning too, not a hearing really, but a sentencing so the wolf and their family all knew what was happening and why. Jake took a slow steadying breath. Lia had done nothing wrong that he knew about and a lycan would ensure one mate knew the other’s transgressions. Usually their entire family and the pack as well. Lycan were heavy-handed and unforgiving when it came to law breaking, but they too followed their own laws to the letter. The family had to be notified first. Jake suspected the point of that was t
"For the love of the moon!" Yelled Mark, "how do they expect us to find what they can not? A Lycan who doesn't want to be found can not be tracked by werewolves just because the council commands it! We sure as cats can’t make him come here just by asking politely."The words were barely out of his mouth when David, Jake and Zinnia all cried out, "Lia!" Mark spun to look at his Alpha, surprised to see hope radiating from his smiling face."She is alive!" He said, "Her wolf is linking with me, though not well. I'm getting a jumble of images and sensations. I can't really figure it out.""I got the message scared, stuck, and a call for help as clear as air," David said, "but that is the sort of message Selene taught her to send specifically to me, so her wolf has known how to do that for many years. I don't have a location or anything useful. Usually useful information comes with the call for help.""She in on or near the ocean," Zinnia said, "and I think Selene is with her. I am getting
“What’d he mean by that?” Asked Albert. “Train 'er fer what?”“You’re a wee bit slow or something? Teach her to always do as the man in charge tells her. Strip. Stick her ass in the air. Suck a man off. Beg him to break her nose. Bring him a whip to crack over her pussy. Whatever he says.”“Jesus,” cursed Albert. There was a chorus of laughter. “You’ll like it when he gives you a go with her.”“He...he does that?”“Sure, you just can’t stick nothing in her pussy, that hole belongs to the buyer, but anything else you want to do to her is fine. Sometimes there’s a specific thing he wants us to do, but mostly we can do whatever we want. He says it’s easier to train them when they’re little, but really I think he enjoys breaking the older ones in more.”“How’d you mean?”“Well, this past summer there was this little dark-haired girl we picked up in Mexico, maybe twelve or thirteen years old. Just getting her tits. Anyways, she was fighting tooth and nail when we go her on board. He brough
Four white paws padded softly along the water’s edge, and the young werewolf was being extremely careful not to actually get his feet wet. Being a wolf was new to him, but he was determined not to let that show. He bent to lap gently from the water just as the full moon crested over the waterfall. The jet black fur on his head and back gleamed brightly as the moon rose high enough that her light slipped over the falls to illuminate the pool of water and the whole werewolf family at the bottom of it. The young wolf looked up at the moon, blinking his heterochromatic eyes, first the blue one and then the brown before he howled his greeting to the goddess.A wistful little sigh drew Lia’s attention down to her daughter’s dark brown eyes. “When will I get to be my woff, Mama?”“Oh my little wolf,” Lia laughed, scooping her tiny daughter up in a hug and rubbing noses with her. “You will shift when the moon goddess knows you’re ready.”“But eva-buddy but me gets ta be a woff,” the little one
There was a great blast of icy wind and the werewoves found themselves being drug back towards the hill where the council had assembled. “COULD LAKE. OCEAN MONE. LA LUNE ROSE. LONE WOLVES. VISITING WEREWOLVES. ALL WEREWOLVES MUST ASSEMBLE!” There was a loud rumble followed by a series of pops, like popcorn in the large theater popping machines. Wolves and people began appearing from thin air, all facing the lycan with their heads bowed.“Where is the pup from Cloud Lake who they call Zinnia?” A girl stumbled forward from the back of the assembled wolves. There was a bag over her head and her hands were tied. Both the bag and the rope disappeared, the only reminder that they had been there was a faint red line around her neck and wrists.. “Where is the mate of Zinnia?” Dylan’s wolf appeared beside her and she dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms around his neck. The council members all looked to one another and nodded.“The Bane is dead,” they said in unison. His body appeared on the
Around noon, bit of a commotion in the yard pulled Jake from his comfortable sleep by the fire. He lifted up to listen for a moment, but since no link message accompanied it he assumed it was nothing important and settled back down when Lia’s wolf snuggled in closer to his side. They hadn’t moved from beside the fire since they’d come in from the chaos of the previous night. Lia’s wolf was still weak and she got chilled every time the fire died. Jake fully expected to hear from the lycan again soon, but he wasn’t in any rush. A few more angry wolf noises roused him again, this time enough that he linked with Mark to find out what was going on.“No need for you to come, Alpha. We have dealt with the problem.”“What problem?”“First there was some commotion around the Lycan guest cottage. We didn’t know what it was, but the Lycan had not stirred and none of our pack members were there so we left it be. A while later Zinnia’s father and Grandfather grabbed her from the shore, but Dylan w
“Something is wrong,” Jake said, “why did the other pack speed up?” They raced along in silence for a few minutes, then David spoke.“There are unknown lifeboats chasing the Lune Rose’s small boats. It’s going to be a matter of who’s got the better engine. The fishing boats can’t get in any closer to help them out. It looks like the boat with Marguerite on it will make it back, but the boat with our pack members is heading for some sort of spillway or something. Sorry, I’m not good with maritime geographical terms. A bit of water that is always flowing into the ocean. It might be shallow now though, and they’ll be going upstream. They might get stuck. We’re heading there hoping to intervene.”“This ability to randomly link you lone wolves have is really handy.”“It isn’t something we can teach to you,” David said, “any Lone Wolf who marries into a pack or chooses to pledge to one, loses the ability. You have free communication, or you have a pack link. It can’t be both.”“I know this r
Jake cried out with everyone else on shore when he saw the giant fireball. He’d told him no. Killian had either defied a direct order or accidentally crashed. Defied the order was more likely. “If he survives, he’s a dead man,” Jake growled.“Even if he brings them back?” Dylan asked. “I said no.”“He didn’t ask though, did he? His message was that he was ditching the plane, hopefully onto the ship, and jumping in as close as possible to the three life jackets. He was probably out of the plane before he got your command.” Jake growled again, but not with as much force. He hated to admit that Dylan was right, and he hated even more that he was hoping Killian would succeed.“Any word?” David asked.“We’re not asking,” Dylan said, “he’s got enough to worry about right now. He hit the water alive, I don’t know beyond that. We'll just wait to hear.”“Jasper tells me the raft is open, but only a little over half inflated. It will hold Selene and Lia, but the men will have to ride the tide
Selene stayed so completely motionless that Lia wasn’t entirely sure she was still conscious. The last kick had moved her too far from her mother for her to reach. She didn’t dare try the link on her own though, not with both werewolves and a Lycan around. She was pretty sure it was all her wolf could handle just to remember to keep all the links closed. The boat swayed on a large swell and her nausea increased. She swallowed the extra saliva, pressing a hand to her middle and trying to think of anything other than the motion and the burning in her stomach. She was colder and more miserable feeling than she had ever been in her life. Either sea sickness increased over time and made every motion more miserable than the last, or the sea was getting rougher. Did that mean they were moving out of the bay? Was the falling snow in the bay just a taste of a storm raging off the coast? On the next large swell, her cage slid across the deck and bumped into Selene’s. The two stared at each other
“What’d he mean by that?” Asked Albert. “Train 'er fer what?”“You’re a wee bit slow or something? Teach her to always do as the man in charge tells her. Strip. Stick her ass in the air. Suck a man off. Beg him to break her nose. Bring him a whip to crack over her pussy. Whatever he says.”“Jesus,” cursed Albert. There was a chorus of laughter. “You’ll like it when he gives you a go with her.”“He...he does that?”“Sure, you just can’t stick nothing in her pussy, that hole belongs to the buyer, but anything else you want to do to her is fine. Sometimes there’s a specific thing he wants us to do, but mostly we can do whatever we want. He says it’s easier to train them when they’re little, but really I think he enjoys breaking the older ones in more.”“How’d you mean?”“Well, this past summer there was this little dark-haired girl we picked up in Mexico, maybe twelve or thirteen years old. Just getting her tits. Anyways, she was fighting tooth and nail when we go her on board. He brough
"For the love of the moon!" Yelled Mark, "how do they expect us to find what they can not? A Lycan who doesn't want to be found can not be tracked by werewolves just because the council commands it! We sure as cats can’t make him come here just by asking politely."The words were barely out of his mouth when David, Jake and Zinnia all cried out, "Lia!" Mark spun to look at his Alpha, surprised to see hope radiating from his smiling face."She is alive!" He said, "Her wolf is linking with me, though not well. I'm getting a jumble of images and sensations. I can't really figure it out.""I got the message scared, stuck, and a call for help as clear as air," David said, "but that is the sort of message Selene taught her to send specifically to me, so her wolf has known how to do that for many years. I don't have a location or anything useful. Usually useful information comes with the call for help.""She in on or near the ocean," Zinnia said, "and I think Selene is with her. I am getting
Jake heard David’s yelp of surprise at the same time he got his linked message. Lia had been there one moment, sneezed, then disappeared into thin air! There one moment and gone the next. Literally vanished in the blink of an eye. The werewolves around him were frozen in shock, looking at each other and trying to make sense of what they were seeing in the link. Only a lycan could make werewolves vanish like that, and they only did that when a law had been broken. There was always a warning too, not a hearing really, but a sentencing so the wolf and their family all knew what was happening and why. Jake took a slow steadying breath. Lia had done nothing wrong that he knew about and a lycan would ensure one mate knew the other’s transgressions. Usually their entire family and the pack as well. Lycan were heavy-handed and unforgiving when it came to law breaking, but they too followed their own laws to the letter. The family had to be notified first. Jake suspected the point of that was t