The Wild Moon by Riley Storm
Chapter Three
“Out with it,” I grumbled as we made our way up the graveled laneway to Aldridge Manor.
“What do you mean?” Jo asked, keeping step with me easily, though she needed nearly two steps for every one of mine. Normally, I slowed down to meet her halfway, but today I was distracted.
I did so now, however, and tried my best not to look around. There wasn’t much to see yet anyway, though I knew what was to come.
“I can see you staring around, and I can all but hear the disbelief in your step, Jo,” I accused. “You’re my best friend, loser. You can’t hide shit from me. What is it?”
“Nothing,” she said as we walked past the line of trees that ran level-straight parallel to the road, blocking all view onto the property.
“Liar,” I muttered.
Jo shrugged, the movement visible in my right peripheral. I didn’t look at her, instead keeping my attention focused outward, away from us. We shouldn’t be in danger here at the heart of Seguin packterritory, but I was still uneasy.
Part of that would be my wolf. She knew the Wild Moon was almost here, and she longed to be set free. It had been a month since the last time. Living in a city didn’t give me much in the way of freedom to shift on my own and let her bleed off some energy.
Probably yet another reason the Wild Moon shifts are always so, well, wild. A captive freed at last is going to go wild. Why should my wolf be any different?
“Wow,” Jo said, taking in the house in front of us. “It’s beautiful.”
I lifted my eyebrows. Beautiful isn’t quite the word I would use to describe the Aldridge place, but unlike Jo, I’d been here before.
“I keep forgetting this is your first time here,” I said. “To me, it’s just a big building full of bad memories.”
“You gave all this up?”
Now I did turn to stare at my best friend. Maybe I should say I glared at her. Harshly.
“Gave it up?” I repeated. “Seriously, Jo? He was a huge asshole. Besides, we were just dating until he had his Soulshift. I made that clear from the start. I don’t know what changed in him, but he knew that going in.”
“Maybe,” Jo said with a shrug, glancing at the lamps that flanked the driveway every so often, leading all the way up to the house itself.
Mansion would probably be the more accurate term. Lars Aldridge was the latest in a long line of Aldridges to rule the Seguinpack, and somewhere back in the line, one of his ancestors had decided that a giant mansion was a necessary part of that.
“I couldn’t have kept seeing him even if I’d wanted to,” I reminded Jo. “Lars wouldn’t have let anyone do that if they were Soulbound. Not even his son.”
“I guess,” Jo said, though I could feel her soft disagreement. She had always lusted after the finer things in life more than I, so it made sense, I suppose, that she would want this sort of life.
Not me, though. No fucking way. The grand lifestyle the Aldridges tried to lead was tiring and boring. Not to mention fake as fuck. They all pretended to be polite and gracious, but in reality, they were just a bunch of assholes.
As I’d found out when I’d dated the youngest of them, who proceeded to ruin my life when I wouldn’t give him what he wanted.
We passed along the side of the house, where several darkened rooms were barely visible through the windows even with the clear skies overhead. Though the sun had set hours ago, the moon hadn’t come out. Not yet. Soon though, very soon.
I trembled at the reminder that my wolf would soon be free, and once more, we would fight for control. A battle of the minds to see who would control the body. I had thought it only happened that first night, the Soulshift, but it seemed my wolf was hellbent on escaping from me every Wild Moon.
Just something else that wants nothing to do with me. My wolf, my family, my mate, whoever they are.
I was a reject on multiple levels, and it was growing harder by the day to keep it all categorized.
But today wasn’t about me. Today I had to keep my shit together. For Jo.
“What are we doing?” Jo asked as I led her toward the back of the crowd forming at the base of a rock formation.
“Hanging out back here, away from our dear leader’s altar of bullshit,” I muttered, earning me more than a few looks from other members of our pack.
Most of them looked at me, realized who I was, and then looked away. They didn’t care about me, and I didn’t care about them. A few stared longer, however, and I fixed one of them, Derek, with a vicious glare.
“What’s his deal?” Jo asked as Derek grinned and turned away, unfazed by my look.
“He’s just one of Johnathan’s ass-kissers,” I muttered. “They take great pride in seeing how much I hate coming back here. It’s like an ongoing victory for them. I don’t know.”
“What a bunch of assholes,” Jo said.
“Forget ‘em,” I said as the crowd stilled, the low mumble of whispered conversations coming to an end.
They could feel it. As could I. The time was almost here. Soon the pale white orb would rise in the sky, and the Wild Moon would overcome us all. I inhaled sharply, feeling the groundswell of excitement rise up all around us. Three hundred different sets of pheromones filled the air.
There was something about the full moon that set a shifter free, and even now, in my eighth time through it, I was still caught off guard by the fierce exultation of eroticism that flowed through the pack.
“What’s going on?” Jo asked as the people around us began to strip.
“Lars is going to climb up there,” I said, nodding my head at the rock formation. “He’ll stand on his very own Pride Rock, make some arrogant little speech to remind us that we’re all part of the pack, then we’ll shift.”
“Oh. Okay. But why is everyone getting naked?”
“Do you really want your wolf getting stuck in your sports bra?” I said, the heady scent of sex warming my body. There were so many gorgeous people around me.
Men. Women. Couples. Blood was swirling through my veins, filling my body with warmth. I longed to join them. Skin gleamed in the light of the house, illuminating soft, supple curves and thick, powerful arms. My breath was growing shallower.
Keep it together. For Jo!
“It’s always uncomfortable the first time,” I said as Jo started to strip, looking to me for confirmation. “But it gets easier.”
“Dan? Are you okay?” Jo asked, staring at me.
“Just … a lot,” I said, trying not to stare at all the flesh around me.
Some of the pack were like me, doing their best to restrain the baser desires the Wild Moon brought to the surface. Others were far less caring and stared openly, drinking in the veritable buffet of sights in front of them.
“We are the Seguinpack,” a voice intoned over the group of nearly four hundred shifters gathered in the back of the Aldridge house.
I looked up to see Lars Aldridge, naked and strong, standing on top of his three-tiered Pride Rock formation, lording his Alpha status down over the rest of us.
My wolf basked in the Alpha’s presence.
I wanted to tear his throat out.
“We are the Seguinpack,” I repeated back, along with everyone else, even Jo, who joined in at an elbow from me.
“We look after our own,” Lars said, spreading his arms wide.
Who does this fucker think he is? Jesus? What an arrogant prick.
“We look after our own.”
I repeated it back, same as the others. Sometimes I hate myself. Why couldn’t I manage even that little bit of resistance? It’s not like Lars was using his Alpha command to force us to repeat after him. Yet here I was, swept up in the heat of the Wild Moon anyway and doing as I was told.
“We have one Soulshifter among us tonight,” Lars said, pointing to where Jo stood at my side, naked and doing her best to hide her nudity.
I stood beside her and panted like a dog in heat, ignoring the rest of Lars’ little speech about looking out for Jo. I’d never given in to the feelings before, never lowered my inhibitions enough to take part in the reckless mating that came with the Wild Moon, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t easy.
“Dan,” Jo whispered as attention turned away from her. “I’m afraid.”
“The Wild Moon is upon us,” Lars intoned. “Prepare.”
I looked down at my friend and smiled. “Me, too,” I whispered as the moon came over the horizon. “Be strong.”
Inside me, the she-bitch wolf from hell howled with sweet, sweet victory as it broke free of my grasp, the last of my mental bonds shattering as the full strength of the Wild Moon came over us.
