Claimed by the Pack

“Now you know.”

He was right — I did know. I just didn’t know how.

“What have you done to me?” I asked him, rubbing my head.

He shrugged his big Scandinavian shoulders. “We already told you.”

Damien was peering over the hill again. His body language was confident and relaxed.

“Alright, I think we’ve waited long enough.”

They stood up. Keeping their heads low, they motioned for me to follow.

“What happens,” I asked with a whisper, “if you don’t get these totems back?”

They glanced at each other again, then back at me. “It breaks the last link with our past lives,” said Broderick.

“Which means?”

I’d asked the question already knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.

“We eventually lose the ability to remain human.”

16

DAMIEN

The wind hadn’t been right all night. It was better when we rolled out, though. Maybe the best we’d get.

“Keep moving,” Broderick said needlessly. “And stay close.”

The words were more for her than for us. Serena was keeping up just fine, but we’d walked these paths a hundred times. We knew every walkway, every loose stone. Every ancient footpath of this once magnificent place, even the ones lost to time.

She was catching on fast for an outsider, even if she didn’t believe us. Already I could sense the nearness of my totem. The proximity of it was a steady thrumming in my chest. I needed it. Almost like I needed her, but in a much different way.

I was slowly coming to realize Broderick was right. Mating Serena had been a mistake. A beautiful, amazing mistake… but a mistake nonetheless.

What’s going to happen when we’re finished here?

Already I could feel the sense of loss. The ache of separation that was destined to occur once she flew back across the ocean and left us to ourselves again. I’d screwed Broderick over, totally. He hadn’t even consummated the bond yet. He’d feel it even worse than me.

And you made it bad for her, too…

Impulsiveness had always been my thing. Young, dumb, and full of come; that personality trait hadn’t really mattered all that much to me.

Until the one time it did.

I’ll never forget the day it happened. I’d been surfing the point breaks of Zuma, the southern swell for Hurricane Maria putting up fifteen to twenty-fives by the end of the day. I was both scared and exhilarated. I’d never seen twenty-five foot waves in my life.

And at sunset? It was absolutely spectacular.

Coming out of the water I felt like a god. A surf-washed, sun-bronzed conqueror. I collapsed into my little place in the sand, exhausted and sated, and fell happily asleep before last of the orange glow went out of the sky.

I slept on the beach all the time back then. Other than the occasional police officer waking me up to move me along, I’d never really been bothered. I was a long-haired surfer who slept on his board. I nothing to steal, nothing to take.

I hadn’t been sleeping long when I was shaken awake by him. The one who took me. The one who made me into what I am now. He was long and lanky; a bleach-blonde mop top hanging down over a set of dark, soulless eyes.

I’ll always remember those eyes. Sunken beneath two heavy brows. Even now, even in my dreams, I can still see them.