He started to protest but his mind reached back to those first couple of days on the open rock of the mountain. He had been angry at people, and he had thrown his money down on the ground in frustration. It was then that he had said that he would follow her. He looked at the she-wolf and back to Tasha. “I said I would follow her to wherever she was leading me but…”
Reading the shock and frustration on his face couldn’t have been hard and Tasha looked sympathetic toward him. “Will, I understand your confusion.” She shifted her attention to the wolf. “Aceso should not have accepted that as your oath of fealty.”
Aceso, who only a few minutes ago had been nothing more to him than the black furred she-wolf from his pack, his guide through the mountains, and his companion and comrade. She was his alpha? This was stupid. On the next full moon, he would either fight her and regain his status or just leave.
“Will, what good would leaving do?” Tasha asked as if she had heard his thoughts. “You still have to get to the mountain. Yes, Aceso should not have accepted your oath but right now you need her, and she needs you.”
He looked down at the she-wolf and she met his eyes with hers. The look of remorse was gone and it had been replaced with resolve. Aceso was once again the proud predator. She held his gaze as she sat down on her haunches, every bit the alpha of a pack. He couldn’t help but burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. A week ago, he was the king of his valley. He was the alpha of his pack, and he was free to do as he wished. Now he was a fugitive from the government, he was subservient to a wolf, and he was talking to a woman who could control her biochemistry. This whole thing was ridiculous. But Tasha was right about one thing, what good would it do him to leave? He would be captured by those agents following them and then what? Spend the rest of his life in a jail because he had decided to live outside of society? Even following a wolf was better than that.
He looked at the wolf. “Aceso, right? I’m William, though you probably already knew that.” He leaned forward burying his face in his hands. Was he in some kind of dream? This wasn’t so bad as far as nightmares went, but going from the freedom to do anything and everything to being a beta in a pack of two, running away from their enemies, instead of fighting was just a bit of a shift. He needed some time to process all of this.
“Aceso brought you here for help though I have to wonder why.”
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“Who are you people? What the hell was that ‘reborn on the crescent moon’ stuff and how the hell do you know her?” he jammed a finger toward the wolf. “How do you know what her name is?”
Tasha looked at him through narrowed eye lids. “We are the pack of the brotherless. I first changed forms when the crescent moon was in the sky. I know Aceso’s name because she told me, though she is not unknown to us.”
“Well, that explains everything thank you, Tasha. I appreciate you clearing things up for me.” He mopped his face with his hands and laughed into his palms.
“I know this is hard for you right now,” Tasha said. “I told you I can answer some of your questions, not all.” She stood up and looked down at him. “I can let you two rest here today. This place is safe, and no one will be able to track you inside this forest.” She walked a little way into the woods. She turned around and their eyes met. “There’s food in the cave if you’re hungry. Those agents shouldn’t be able to track you after you leave, either. My pack and I will lay down false trails of your scents so that if they are tracking you somehow, they won’t know which way you traveled and you should have a clear path to the mountain.”
She lowered her head. She looked as if she might say something more but shook her head and disappeared into the forest.
They were alone again. He looked down at the she-wolf, Aceso. That was an odd name, but he didn’t really care right then. He stood up, and as he did so, the sound of his stomach rumbling ripped through the woods and echoed off the rock formation and the surrounding trees. He rubbed at his midsection and made his way to the welcoming darkness of the cave.
The sky had brightened and he was looking forward to the darkness of the cave. It seemed safe and he needed to sleep. His steps took him inside the cool black. He let his eyes adjust and he saw several boxes lining the walls of the spacious cavity. He was pleased to find an area of soft dirt covered with various furs. The bed looked inviting, and he immediately thought of his burrow. He missed his home, one day he would return there. But for now, he had to eat.
He opened a box that was along the wall and found it to be filled to the brim with berries. They had been dried and he grabbed a handful. They were sweet and filling. He thought maybe they had been raspberries but however these people had dried them, the process had shriveled the berries to something that was almost unrecognizable. There was something slightly off about the taste and he was unable to identify the things by how they tasted.
He closed the lid and opened another box. This one was much smaller and reminded him of his own little waterproof boxes he had owned. This box contained several dried fish and other strips of dried and salted beef. He took a piece of meat and ate the tough, chewy morsel. He ate a few more pieces of the meat. He knew that these had to be the winter stores for Tasha’s group, and he didn’t want to be greedy. He closed the lid on the box.