> Run for me. <
As my wolf takes over controlling our pace, I turn my attention back to the system. I don't know if it's using my memory or hopes to trick me… but I focus on the map anyway. It will be a good test.
Over whether or not I can trust it's suspicious kind of magic.
The ghostly blue forms color gradients… topographical? Way more detail than this body should know, if it's correct. While everything shifts in one direction as my paws steadily beat on the ground, at the center is constantly the same bright point I assume must be my location.
I orient us towards what looks like a hill on the map and discover there really is a large one in the direction it appeared. Hm. Useful. What else?
Lines with a 'warning' denoting marks for the Duskpaw territory pulse gently as the map 'zooms out'. A vast expanse of space without any such bounding is beyond, though I know that can't be right. There were supposed to be packs that they had squabbles with at the edges of their range, from Helene's memory.
So it knows more than I know, but also is constrained by me somehow? It may be only showing the territories I've physically been in or this is just a holdover from being considered one of their pack.
Regardless, glimmering on the far edge of the map appeared to be a clump of glowing web-like lines. A city and its roads. It had to be. And where there was a city… there was a chance for anonymity.
For resources to survive on. For a fresh start.
It was a long shot, but it was the best chance I had.
I memorized the basic direction as I took over the run. The blue light in my mind feels like a lodestone, pulling me toward it. But it does seem… far.
The route ahead would be long and hard. Especially in my… condition. It would be better if I could have relied on someone to hunt for me. But I had no choice. The Duskpaw pack was no place for me now.
No place for this child. Not with casual cruelty, limiting traditions, and archaic expectations.
In civilization, I might have a chance at building a life on my own terms. I could learn things about this world easiest there and hide in the crowd if I need to. Still, it wouldn't be without challenges. I knew that.
I'm penniless and a non… well, not fully human. Shifters are weird, here!
Nothing about this situation I've landed in was easy. All I could do was take it one paw at a time. One minute at a time. Maybe I'll even get to thinking about the next day in more detail!
> We'll have to eat. Keep your attention out for scents and movement as we travel. <
For the sake of another woman's unlucky child... or maybe the poor thing is lucky that it didn't die with her? That would mean I already saved it once... so confusing. Whatever the case, I had to keep us moving forward.
If it ends up with a future because I've done what I could to forge my own survival, I guess her child can owe me another one.
⧖ ☾ ❄ ☽ ⧖
{Days Later...}
***[POV: Alpha Of The Rimecoat]***
I flicked my wrist and checked my watch as I strode down the city street. My mind ran three meetings ahead and it paid to keep a constant track. As CEO of Lunarizon Industries, most of my days were a whirlwind of negotiations, strategic planning, and the constant drive to push others to innovate.
Today was no exception - I had a working lunch with potential investors in ten minutes. Followed by a conference call with my R&D team right after. I really didn't have time to be patrolling on top of it all, but I'd calculated I would be able to make it to the reserved place as long as I was willing to call Luca if I found something.
But… when I passed a small, nondescript shop on the corner of the intersection I couldn't help but physically pause.
There was an unfamiliar scent on the autumn breeze. It was faint at first. Almost lost amid the riot of city smells. As I focused on identifying it and the direction… something about it grew stronger. More insistent that it was a beast.
My wolf stirred as that awareness ran down my spine. The scent was powerful. Enough to be a potential rival in most packs. Could there be another unfamiliar werewolf in the city with this timing?
My Beta had mentioned that he'd gotten a 'warning' about a rogue. The sort of formal acknowledgement that a pack liked to send, washing their hands of a runaway so they didn't cause political problems.
I hesitated, which isn't like me. The demands of my schedule told me to just grab my phone and place a call. But there was a growing unease in my gut at the thought…
Business was important, but I was the Alpha of the Rimecoat pack. I couldn't ignore a potential threat in my territory. That's how I convinced myself as my pace quickened in the direction they'd traveled.
It led me down side streets and alleyways, like someone trying to confuse and lose a pursuer. But this is my city. I know what smells to ignore. I…
I found myself back at the little corner shop I first noticed the smell. The back side of it, staring at the open door there with a strange sense of anticipation. This feeling of having gone on a hunt, of being led around by the nose, should have upset me.
Instead, I just calmly removed the wireless earbud resting over my ear and placed it in my briefcase. So it wouldn't break in a fight, I told myself.
When I walked through the entrance, I caught a specific firm layer to the scent now that the source was close. Female pheromones… intense and unmistakable. My wolf surged within because of it and my palm struck and dented the frame of the doorway as I controlled myself.
The sudden rush of primal energy caught me off guard.
I'm no stranger to the pull of attraction to the scent of a woman, much to my pack's now silent distaste - or to the intoxicating rush of beast pheromones in general.
But this... this was something else entirely. I don't react like this just because both are present… usually.
Even more wary now, I stalked through the corridor meant for employee's only. Shelves filled with miscellanea and retail stock trash stacked inside. Cardboard and plastics to be recycled. Part of the same world we live in day by day, but hidden behind the scenes.
I carefully set my belongings on an open spot.
From the next curtained opening I can see the interior of the shop. Dim and cluttered, with shelves overflowing with odd trinkets. Consignment shops are very different from high end ones. But I barely noticed any of it.
Because there waiting at the counter stood a young woman.
She was travel-worn and dirty, her clothes rumpled and her dark hair tangled in a distinctive Duskpaw braid. Beneath the grime and wary stance, I could see the proud lines of her face. Intelligence was in her startling light-grey eyes that narrowed and looked around as if she sensed my hidden gaze.
On a whim, I took in breath of her scent from this close. Everything else… faded away. It was like standing at the center of all nature, being filled by a blaze of pure moonlight. Every nerve in my body sang out with the shocking recognition of why I was behaving like this.
< Mate. >
The word seared through my mind like a brand. An apparent truth that shook me to my core. This woman, this stranger of a wolf... she was my fated mate. The one I had never dared to dream I would find.
For a moment, all I could do was stare from the shadows. All I wanted to do was drink in every detail of her, committing the beauty of her very existence to memory. Locking the silhouette of her profile and scent of her pheromones in a place inside me I didn't know actually existed.
A spot that seemed to sit as high as the pack itself.
Yet, even as my wolf howled inside in triumph for itself, and for me… my thinly remaining control remained. The only part that had kept me from pouncing past the curtain rebelled at what was occuring. This was impossible.
Fated mates were already rare enough, even looking past the biggest issue.
Werewolves accepted or made 'lesser' marks on each other all the time out of need or desire. If there always was such a thing as a perfect match for another, then each time that happened we would be stealing the chance for our mate. Robbing the future for the present.
But our numbers would die out if everyone waited for perfect signs like this.
And as a CEO as well as leader of the pack, I understood that sometimes… getting things done was more valuable than doing them perfectly. There is a difference between short-sighted gains and snow-balling failure.
Business digression aside… for someone like me - a lesbian in our hidden world? Our culture. The traditions that all but demanded heteronormative compliance... it was an impossible dream. Literally.
There are no records of anything like this. I'd lived in fear because of that for so long.
Not that I would never find one. I'd accepted that idea the moment I fully accepted myself for who I am.
I'd been afraid… always afraid that the supernatural call would happen. Some day.
That a male would wonder close enough and that I'd hate myself for whatever this reaction made me feel. For any of the submissions it might make me want to give to him. That I would want to mark 'him' or let him mark me.
Like I do wish to do to her so strongly right now. Even trying not to. I'm so used to being in control, but this just proves I was right to worry.
Right to fear that a force would try and make me betray my own convictions. My own desires. My own sexuality.
That's why… this had to be some kind of unbelievable mistake. That there is some trick of my senses. A trap or… or anything. Because if I really let myself accept that it can be true…
I took a step forward through the curtain while hardly daring to breathe. Every inch of skin on my body wanted to shift and take her. Make her mine. Initiate the mark before anyone else could dare.
The pounding blood in my ears is deafening. I had to say something first before she noticed it too. Had to find some way to bridge the topic… or just hear her voice. Once. Forever.
To memorize that part of her. A place to start. Before I find a place to finish.
"Can I help you?"
Before I could even open my salivating mouth, she spoke. She looked at me. With pleasantly narrowed eyes that made my breath hitch. If she feels it too, she is so unphased.
Her voice was glum and cautious. My mate's voice.
Mine.