#Chapter3
Vampires
I don't respond as a cold chill runs through my stomach and I glance back into the dense darkness and try to feel anything beyond the tree line. There is nothing, they never followed us back in here, but the uneasiness that I picked up first is still there, almost like we're being watched. I shudder in subtle fear at the thought of what might be out there. Trying not to let my mind run riot and imagine the worst.
Don't! Colton nudges my face with his nose, reading my mind, and pushes me away from where I'm staring, breaking my train of thought. Let's go inside and change, clean up, and eat. Forget it for now and we'll talk to my mom in the morning. We're safe within these boundaries, even from witches.
His tone tells me he's worried about what we felt out there too but he's being his usual self. Solid, commanding and like nothing gets to him. He is brushing aside the current problem, and shelving it until after we eat and sleep, when I know Colton does his best thinking. He's a dawn riser and uses the quiet time to figure things out. We're all tired and it's almost morning as it is.
Aye, aye, Chica, do what the man says! I'm beyond starving. We have spent half the night out here. I need food, and sleep!
Meadow saunters into the clearing, hearing the link conversation inadvertently because we were not shielding to a private mate link, and nudges against me with her brown sleek furry body. As a wolf, Meadow is weirdly similar to her human form. Sleek, yet curvy, smooth furred with slanted amber eyes that somehow sit well in her face to make her attractive as a Lychan. She isn't as big as the males, but she is fast, and fierce, and despite her slender build I've seen her devastate everything in her wake and not even ruffle her fur in the process. Knowing she's half shifter took away any questions I had about her slight differences to regular wolves. Subtle, but I see them.
Two more wolves appear in the shadows and walk past, one huge dark one stopping to run his body along the length of Meadow, rubbing his head up against hers as he falls in step beside her. Her mate is as built as mine, only grey and equally rough. He nudges her suggestively and the two of them take off wordlessly ahead without a second thought and Colton snorts in humor at their behavior
For some the Haze is still lingering it seems. He pushes up against me to walk side by side with physical contact and I lean my head into his neck to share his warmth as we cover the last ground. Relaxing into that firm body as he takes some of my weight and guides me onward.
You can talk… I don't get a single night of peace from you, even before the haze hit. I laugh and lick him quickly, hitting the lower profile of his jaw with my darted action.
What can I say, my mate is a vixen and completely irresistible? I'm alpha, I can't be outdone in terms of testosterone and horniness, baby. Colton's smug and yet also right. I know he means it, but it still makes me blush and smile inwardly whenever he talks like this and nuzzle him adoringly. Still a little too enamored with my mate, even after months of being his.
The haze was crazy when it hit. We had only been mates for around three weeks when it swept over, and I was almost insane with the need to be joined to him about fifty times a day. I never knew how badly the heat and desire could get when you had already mated up. Never experienced a haze before turning either, so it was a massive wake up call. How we ever got out of our room for more than three minutes a day is beyond me because nothing could satisfy the hunger or the uncontrollable urge to mate, constantly. No matter how many times, or how good it was, it was just seconds of relief and I was whining again to have him back on top of me. Colton was only too happy to oblige, given he was in a worse state than me. Males apparently feel it with more vigor, given that it's meant to want to make them procreate and spread their seed to enable their blood lines.
Luckily, the haze only lasts two weeks and slowly tails off when mating season dies away, and the constant crazy hunger to be in his bed, wrapped around him, slowly began to fade to a manageable level of need. Not fully though. I don't think I'll ever stop lusting after him and needing to feel his touch every second of every day. We've rarely been apart since our union so many months back and I've grown and flourished with his love to become the Luna I never thought I could be. I truly believe it was the one thing I needed in my life to really find myself once more and blossom under his tender care.
The people treat me with respect and love, and I'm growing as mother to all. By the side of my born leader, him showing me how to command without fear because he's nothing like his father as alpha. He listens to his people, walks among them as though he's never been any different to them. He's hands on and involved with the building works and the overseeing of every detail, every waking day. We join patrols, make sure we know everything that there is to know about the sick, the school, the problems with the community, and we rectify as best we can.
His mother is a good mentor, but she grows restless here, and now she's recovering well from her time asleep, and regaining her gifts slowly, she's made it clear she wishes to return to the lab where the doctor returned and continue her work with him. I think she feels lost here, like she has no one to really focus her time and energy on. Not that I blame her. Her life isn't what she left behind when she fell to slumber.
The lab became ours after the Santo pack abandoned it and returned to the mountain under the command of their alpha. With Sierra out they had no use or interest in it and knew that Colton would send some of his own to claim it to keep all his mothers and the doctors work safe. Which Colton did and Doc was able to go back with a new, stronger, kinder pack, as protection to continue his work into our species. He comes here every few weeks to talk through his needs, his findings and keep Sierra up to date. Who knew we would have human allies in this new world in which we live.
Waking to find her son grown and mated, her husband a betrayer who still holds her home captive and defends it fiercely. No longer Luna of the pack, and no longer required to raise a child. No real mate to have another, even though she's capable enough and still in her prime. She's at odds with the modern advances of our world and she finds the noisy chaotic business of the pack hard to bear. She stays alone in her room most of the time and rarely ventures to see anyone except Colton or I, or the maids Colton assigned her to meet her every need. Doc comes and goes to see her, but she is almost a hermit, living in the west corner of the homestead.