Chapter 18

"Dammit," Derulo muttered, lifting up his shirt and sticking his dark hand through the torn seam in the arm, where it had caught on a branch during their journey.

Kelly chuckled and stuck another chuck of bread into his waiting mouth.

His stomach had been growling angrily since dusk, and it was well towards midnight at this point. He chewed and swallowed before responding to his Beta.

"Maybe you should learn to control that beast." He nodded over at the chestnut mare that was nibbling on the undergrowth near his own silver mount.

Derulo sneered at his friend and pulled the torn shirt over his head.

The white fabric stood out easily in the dark, especially with their enhanced eyesight.

He ran a hand through the course, curly black hair that covered his head and lifted his plate of cold beans into his lap.

"Not my fault the horse is nervous."

"Really? You don't think your pissy wolf had anything to do with it?" Kelly tossed Derulo a loaf of bread from the saddlebag next to him which Derulo snatched easily from the air.

Derulo shook his head.

"He's just on edge because he saw Manda talking to that other male before we left and we've been gone for so long. Plus, the full moon is so close. He wants me to just run straight home and claim her already. Be done with it and announce to world that she's mine, and kill any other male who would dare look at her."

Kelly was surprised at Derulo's wolf's bad mood; the beast was normally calm and easygoing, at least compared to kelly's. But another male sniffing around his future mate was enough to send any wolf toward the edge.

Kelly chewed his meal thoughtfully while he waited to see if his best friend and second in command would elaborate. His patience was rewarded.

"I just want it to be special, you know? When I ask her to be my mate. I don't want to just jump her and mark her like some primitive beast. He doesn't get that and sees every moment she's not claimed by me is a moment another male is going to snap her up. It's strange, we're usually so in tune. But these human customs are lost on him." Derulo turned to loaf of bread over in his hands a few times before he took a bite.

Kelly couldn't empathize with his friend, though he wanted to.

He'd never been at odds with his wolf, but mating did that to a person. He and his wolf were one soul, one body, one mind, and he couldn't imagine it any other way. Even with the full moon coming up, his beast waited patiently for his turn to be in complete control. Sure, he was more on edge than usual, but he wasn't at war with his human side.

"I'm sorry, man, but are you going to do it soon? Ask her, I mean?" Kelly wondered as he reached up to push a chunk of his shaggy brown hair out of his face.

He absently reminded himself to buy some twine or something tomorrow so he could tie it back. Derulo's finally looked up at kelly his silver eyes, the color of his wolf fur, and nodded.

A wide grin spread across his face which left his straight, white teeth to stand out against the dark brown of his skin.

"Yeah, soon," Derulo grinned wider,

"but that's all you're going to get out of me, Alpha."

"Fine, fine," kelly raised his large hands in surrender.

He'd let Derulo have his plans, Manda would say yes no matter what. He lifted a spoonful of cold beans up to his mouth.

They couldn't risk a fire, for fear of being detected.

He was tired of eating cold beans and bread, he was tired of sleeping in the middle of the wilderness with no fire, and he was tired of traveling.

Derulo and Kelly had been sent on a mission by kelly's father, the Alpha of the Western pack.

A mission that could have been accomplished by lower ranking members of the pack, in kelly's opinion.

He had better things to do than run around chasing ghosts.

A couple of wolves had disappeared from the pack and Landon wanted to know where they went.

Kelly and Derulo had somehow been recruited to figure it out. Kelly figured they'd just given themselves over to the wolf, that happened sometimes. Some people's wolves were just too powerful for the human half and they took over. They couldn't live in tandem. Landon was convinced that something happened to them, but he hadn't seen them in the weeks before they'd disappeared.

They'd been slowly going crazy, and pack members had been telling Landon that, but he wasn't convinced. So, kelly and Derulo were traipsing all across the kingdoms to see if they had decided to join the humans. Landon and the other Alphas of the pack forebode interaction with the humans unless strictly necessary, such as for trading purposes.

There was too much of a chance that the humans would discover what they really were, and they could risk that.

He and Derulo had been at it for nearly a month and they'd found squat.

The worst part was that they couldn't even shift and travel as wolves.

There were too many humans around who would likely notice two large wolves walking. The pests would mistake them for Rogues and they'd be avidly hunted.

He looked over at his silver stallion in contempt. He was tired of riding around on horseback. Horses were too slow.

He tossed his finished plate on the ground and took a swig from his canteen before laying back on the hard surface.

Damn, he couldn't even see the stars. The upper foliage was too thick.

How long did his father expect them to ride around searching for wolves who had so obviously gone to live among the rogues?

He just wanted to get home and resume his duties.

He wasn't technically Alpha yet, but he might as well have been.

Landon had been giving him more and more responsibilities and backing off.

The Alpha wasn't getting any younger, and Kelly felt ready to take on the role of the leader.

He'd been ready to be Alpha since he was just a pup.

He'd trained hard and had listened to (almost) every piece of advice his father had given him over the years while he'd groomed him to become Alpha.

He and his wolf were born to lead, there was nothing else that they wanted.

Derulo would be his Beta, he would mate with the daughter of the Alpha of the Eastern pack, and everything would fall into place.

Sure, he would never get the love that Derulo had with Manda, but his father had made an agreement to mate his oldest son with the oldest daughter of the fellow Alpha to form a stronger alliance than friendship. Samantha was a nice enough girl, even though she was only seventeen, which

was seven years younger than kelly himself.

She would make a good Alpha female for his pack, and that was all kelly looked for in a mate.

She had Alpha blood and she followed kelly's lead.

She'd give him heirs and companionship.

He didn't feel he could ever love Samantha, but love was something his grandmother told him and his little brother about in her stories, not something that Kelly saw in his future.

He was just on the edge of sleep when Derulo pulled him back from the much wanted unconsciousness.

"You hear that?"

Kelly groaned softly before he pried open a golden eye to look at the horses.

Completely at ease.

Alright, so it was something only wolves could hear.

"No. Hear what?"

Derulo rolled his eyes.

"Listen."

"Alright, alright," Kelly sat up slowly and closed his eyes.

His ears reached out into the night, picking up the smallest rustles from nocturnal creatures hunting for bugs, to the footsteps of deer and the coyotes tracking them.

And there, behind all the natural noise, the step of hooves on soft dirt and the creak of carriage wheels.

He opened his eyes again and looked over at his friend.

"The carriage?"

Kelly would forever be amazed at the extent of Derulo's hearing; he'd had to be listening for something specifically out of place, but his friend had picked up on it without trying.

"What about it."

"Well it's headed this way, and I don't feel like worrying about answering questions if someone finds us," Derulo pointed out.

"You know how nosy humans are."

Kelly lifted a broad shoulder and let it drop again.

"Point taken. But it's easy enough to lie; we do look like travelers. And a carriage that's travelling this late probably doesn't want any trouble either. I think we're good, so I'm going to go back to sleep."

Derulo sighed and rose to his impressive height.

"Well, I can't sleep so I'm going to go check it out anyway."

Kelly groaned and glared up at his friend.

"Why can't you just leave it alone?"

He gathered himself and stood up.

Derulo might have impressive height, but kelly was still an inch taller than him.

Standing well over six feet, both men were imposing in their human forms.

"Hey, I didn't ask you to come with me."

"You think I'm going to let you go alone?"

Derulo smirked and took off into the woods with Kelly close on his heels.

They left the horses as they could move faster and quieter without them.

The pair dashed through the trees without making a sound, a skill they'd both worked incredibly hard to perfect.

Their wolves were on high alert, ready to surface in a moment's notice. Kelly knew it wouldn't come to that, but they were ready anyway.

It didn't take long to reach the carriage, which looked innocent enough.

What gave it away was the lack of lights and the anxiety radiating from the four men accompanying it.

Kelly and Derulo crept forward and crouched behind one of the many bushes and brambles that lined the crude trail.

Their presence was immediately noticed by the horses, who sensed the predators and cowered.

They pranced and shook, rocking the carriage back a forth.

The mounted horses were no more relaxed, but their riders treated them with a firm hand.

The horses only became more panicked when the driver snapped the reins and growled at them.

A mounted rider smacked the side of the carriage.

"Get back, or I will give you something to look at."

Interesting that he would speak to the passenger in such a way.

Perhaps that's why they were travelling in the middle of the night; they were moving someone who they shouldn't have been.

The mounted rider trotted forward and tried to help coax the frightened horses forward.

And then the breeze shifted.

Kelly smelt it before Derulo.

A wolf.

There was a wolf nearby.

Not in the woods, but in the carriage.

Kelly shifted his gaze from the men to the dark window in the door, where his gaze collided with a pair of sky blue eyes peering at him through the opening.

They widened in fear and ducked below the edge. Kelly elbowed Derulo, possibly harder than he had intended for his friend growled softly, and pointed at the carriage.

"There's a wolf in there!"

"What?" Derulo's eyebrows shot to his hairline.

He sniffed as well and obviously caught the female's scent by the way the look on his face changed.

"She's not one of ours."

Tbc