Bound by Fate (Moon Bound Series Book 1) (2 page)

Not that she was planning to get up to no good.  On the contrary, she just wanted to swim in the icy creek where it widened into a bowl of water, and spend some time with her own thoughts, without the hindrance of a guard watching her every move, perking his ears up at every little sound and generally making her uncomfortable.  These recent years were peaceful times; the blood-feud with the neighboring pack had settled into bitter memories and muted ramblings of shoulda, woulda, coulda’s. 

It had been two years or more since any blood was spilled, and a full season since anyone had even seen a member of the Tall Grass pack. 
Stupid name too,
she decided, her mood changing to a lighter tone as she picked up the distant sounds of water.  A nice little dip in the frigid water, and then an hour or so basking in the autumn sun, gradually warming her clammy skin would do wonders for her normally tempestuous disposition. 

A sudden snapping sound, disrupting the solitude and peace of the day made her jump.  She froze.  Had Gareth found her already?  Was he even now creeping up on her, readying himself for the take-down and inevitable bout of cursing and screaming the pack shrew would put him through? 
He’s such an ass, always trailing me like a snake in the grass.
  She smiled at the image of a snake with Gareth’s head glaring up at her, telling her she shouldn’t be out here alone.

“
What the hell do you want?!” she demanded, turning in the direction of the sound.

A keening arose from the thicket ahead of her, and she paused.  What trick was this?  Why didn’t he just come out and show himself?  She knew he was there.  And he knew she knew.
Games,
she cursed. 
Always playing games, this pack.  And most of them are mind games, damn them!
  She had long ago been initiated into the power-struggles and constant sniping within the hierarchy of the pack, and wanted nothing to do with any of it. 
Oh, to go rogue!

Tempting thought, but she could never do that.  Her poor, mad mother had gone rogue, getting herself killed and leaving Beth and her two brothers to die of starvation in the deep, dark woods.  But it was so long ago, and the woman in question nothing more than a stranger, that there was no deep trauma to awaken and no real pain to endure.  She didn’t even know what her mother looked like, being too young to remember her.

Besides, the pack had found her, mewling in a hole in the damp ground, pawing at the remains of her brothers rotting beside her.  Sole survivor of her tragic family.  Lucky, some said.  Ill-fated, others whispered.  But mostly, they avoided looking her in the eye, knowing she was not a true member of the pack, and refusing her the very essence of pack-life.  The closeness of pack and the assurance of a place in it.  She had no place.  She was just… lost property.

Screw this,
she thought, fed up of Gareth and his games, striding towards the thicket, intending to make him another piece of lost property.  Foolish wolf.  Did he think she wouldn’t make the connection?

“
Aww, poor Gareth,” she whined.  “Did you fall, sweetheart?”

Surely the playful tone of voice would tip him off to the fact that he was about to become the prey and she the predator.  She might even have a bit of fun with this one before he hauled her home.  A fight was exactly what she needed right now.

Gareth had been assigned to her for two days now, and though she’d spent yesterday playing the docile little cub, doing as she was told and venturing no further from their home than the ear could hear, today she’d needed the seclusion that the creek afforded her.  He’d been warned, of course, that she liked to pull a disappearing act, but she doubted he was expecting it so soon. 

Sometimes a week or two went by without her pulling a Houdini, only fleeing the confines of her guard when she could stand the psychic connection to the pack no longer and needed to be alone in her own head for a while.  She’d been to the creek just three days ago, and hadn’t planned on coming back so quickly, but she’d heard them talking yesterday, when they thought nobody was listening.

Elise and Marie.  The purebreds.  The only two pure-bred she-wolves in this pack, apart from Beth.  They’d been discussing her as a bargaining chip, deciding on the merits of offering her to this family, or that.  She wasn’t stupid.  She knew she’d be bartered to one or other of them at some stage.  But so soon!

She was barely past 21 human years.  Hardly long enough to learn how to live, let alone actually do some living.  If she could just get her emotions under control before facing them, she could perhaps bargain with them herself for more time.  Maybe.  A twinge in her belly reminded her that whether she liked it or not, she had little time left.  She’d been to see the pack’s Healer a week or so ago, complaining of odd cramps in her tummy.  The Healer had given her a conspiratorial smile and told her she was on the cusp of her first heat. 

Her first heat!  She’d thought she had more time.  Sighing to herself, she tip-toed as close to the undergrowth as she could without entering it and grinned.

Spreading the thicket wide, and scratching her arms all to hell and back in the process, she readied herself to leap upon the wolf and show him her bite before he got the chance to recover.  She glared.

It wasn’t Gareth. 

“
Oh, you poor thing!”  Dragging herself into the middle of the thicket, she gasped as the full extent of the badger’s injuries became apparent.  Both forelegs locked to the bone in a poacher’s trap, he was trying to chew his way out.  “Disgusting things,” she whispered, glowering in distaste at the metal contraption. 

Prying the trap apart, she wished there was something she could do for the pitiful creature besides putting it out of its misery, but it was a goner with or without her help.  “I am sorry, brother of the forest, while on another day you could have fed the pack, and made us stronger, today you are but the unfortunate victim of the cruel human poachers.  Go in peace with the knowledge that this trap shall never again harm another.”

With a quick twist of her hand she put the animal into an eternal sleep, snapping his neck and freeing him from pain.

A lone tear trickled down her cheek as she then set her hands to snapping the jaws of the trap and digging a hole to bury it deep twenty yards from the thicket. 
Stupid humans,
she thought, dispirited. 
How can they justify such an impersonal kill?  At least we kill to feed.  No humans eat badgers.
 

No doubt they had hoped to catch something a little more lucrative.  While bears were a rare sight in these parts, largely due to the presence of the wolves, they were not altogether absent.  They didn’t bother the wolves, and the wolves didn’t bother them.  Simple.  The last of the trap buried deep in the earth, she stood up, wiping dirt from her hands, and wondered if the pack knew of the presence of humans in these woods.  They would have to be careful.  The last thing anyone needed was the knowledge of the wolves becoming mainstream.  What a disaster that would be.

Expelling her breath in one loud gasp, Beth submerged herself in the icy depths of the creek, and didn’t break the surface again until she’d touched the bottom of the deepest part, right in the middle.  The leaves of the surrounding trees danced in the breeze, and the sun shone through in dappled spotlights, making the surface of the rippling creek shine as if lit from the deep.

She sighed.  Such was the summation of all her needs.  Silence.  Peace.  Solitude.  Cool water on her naked flesh and the sun waiting to warm her on the rocks on the far side.  She floated a while, enjoying the serenity of the only place in the whole world she would wish to claim.  It was already hers.  Sort of.  She was the only one who came here.  Thank the Mother. 

If she was free to choose her own location to build a Den House, it would be here.  She could raise some cubs here, with a mate she actually loved, not one who acquired her in a deal, and she would be happy here, content to live the rest of her days by the banks of the creek.

Not going to happen, Beth,
she scolded herself. 
So stop wishing for it, it just makes the longing worse.
 

“
You ever planning on emerging, Little Wolf?” a sardonic voice inquired from the far bank.  Her eyes snapped to the rocks, upon which her duped and dumped Guardian awaited, arms crossed, a mocking grin twisting his lips, eyes sparkling with suppressed self-satisfaction.

“
Crap.”

“
No, Little Wolf.  Gareth.”  His full mouth quirked, as if he were trying to hold in a laugh, or perhaps a joke at her expense.

“
Gareth,” she agreed, dipping her head beneath the surface of the pool once more. 
Smart one,
she admitted. 
He must be a keen tracker.

He was still sitting exactly where he had been when she once again raised her head from the water, still wearing that same indulgent expression, still evidently waiting for her to climb out.  “Care to turn your back?”

“So you can sneak off again?”  He snorted, very un-wolf-like.  “Not a chance.”  He ran a hand through his ink dark hair, as if deciding the pros and cons of letting her have another chance at escape.  Sighing, he glared at her, his chocolate eyes promising her swift retribution should she attempt it.  “So help me, if you try to leave here without me…” he trailed off, the threat evident by the stern set of his square jaw, which was lightly coated with dark stubble.  It was annoyingly attractive.

Lifting her hands above the water level to spread them out to either side, she motioned to the creek.  “You already found the only place I run to,” she spat, the admission burning her chest.  He’d invaded her privacy and her peace.  “What is the point in trying to evade you further?”

He shrugged.

“
So I can stroll back to the pack alone and let you catch hell for letting me escape twice?”

He narrowed his eyes, and she smiled.  “Tempting, I admit.  But I will make a deal with you,” she offered.

His laugh echoed around her, bouncing off the water and into her ears.  “You’re in no position to offer me a deal, Little Wolf.”  The nickname rankled.  “Naked as you are, and by your own admission, with nowhere left to run to, I am in a position to call all the shots.”

“
Nevertheless, here are my terms,” she continued, ignoring his mocking laughter.  “You turn your back and I will get out, get dressed and walk back with you, even let you spread word of my ‘attempted escape’ which you naturally foiled.”  She smiled.  He appeared interested all of a sudden.  She had him.

“
All this simply for turning my back?” he demanded, in disbelief.  He threw his head back and emitted a loud barking laugh, motioning for her to halt her speech.

“
Of course not!” she spat, thoroughly fed up with his sarcasm, and his laughter, which pulled at things low in her belly.  She hated that he’d always had this effect on her.  “You won’t speak to anyone of this place,” she demanded, infusing her voice with an authority she had no right to effect.

He did stop laughing then, and looked at her hard, seeing into her very soul, it seemed.  “This place means much to you?” he wondered.

“Look, it’s getting chilly here.  I’m getting out.  Turn your back or no, I no longer care!”  With that, Beth rose from her crouch in the water and strode for the rocks.  She was a she-wolf.  Weres did not suffer from self-consciousness.  A large part of their lives were spent shimmering from one form to another, completely naked, and no doubt he’d seen what she had to offer many times before.

The cool air wrapped her damp skin in chilly arms, and she longed to stretch out on the rocks, warm up as she dried, and spend an hour in thought.  The Guardian, who had in fact averted his eyes when she broke free of the water, made this impossible.  She was angry with him for finding her, finding her place, her secret.  She wanted to punish him and entertained the passing fancy of doing another Houdini, but knew he wouldn’t hesitate to inform her Den House of her secret place.  She would do what was required to keep this secret. 

She wouldn’t put it past her Den Father to station guards around here on the off chance she escaped her guard again.  She would find peace nowhere.  “Don’t look,” she warned him.  “I don’t have anything to dry myself with, so I’m going to have to either air dry, or put clothes on while I’m still wet, and I don’t know about you, Gareth, but I don’t like wearing damp clothes.”

The use of his name was a mistake, she realized.  It made the whole thing more intimate somehow.  Maybe she’d suffer the damp clothes after all.

“I won’t look, Little Wolf,” he assured her. 

The nickname still rankled – all the more because that pull came right back into her tummy when he called her by it.  “Mind that you don’t!” she grated.  She recognized the attraction for what it was – how could she not?  He was very handsome in human or wolf-form.  She’d seen his wolf-form at every Moon Feast, from the time she was old enough to join the hunt – sixteen human years – and noticed even back then that he was Alpha material. 

But attraction or not, it made no difference.  He would most likely rise in rank to replace Marcus, the old Alpha, and she would be purchased by a Den Father for one of his sons.  It was so medieval she wanted to scream.  But at least she knew she was a commodity that few could afford – being the only un-mated purebred female of the pack was a very good bargaining position.  Unfortunately not a position she occupied.  The Alpha would decide when and to whom she was mated.  Besides, the attraction was probably due to her heat coming on, and nothing more.  Her hormones were all over the place, to hear the Healer speak.