True Pack Leader
Danny waited patiently as the warmth that had gathered in his palm diffused to the tips of his fingers and then into Anthony’s chest. A calmness that differed from anything else he had experienced in his life engulfed him, as new warmth grew inside him, coursed through his arm, and then forward into the man he was healing through the means of an inner power he had yet to become fully acquainted with.
He heard Harper crying softly, and he lifted his head. Those weren’t tears of despair; his heart turned fonder and he doubled his efforts. Calmness was now accompanied by confidence, another feeling Danny had experienced very few times in his life. This was his calling. Anthony was in his care and he would save him, because he was a healer with abilities out of this world. As much as he had enjoyed bringing down Cassandra, nothing equaled this feeling. Danny didn’t wish to be a force for destruction, but one for creation and love.
“Danny, my mate,” Ryder said tenderly. “I believe you saved my father’s life. I will forever be indebted to you.”
Danny felt rightfully embarrassed. “How could you be indebted to me?” he asked. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t give my all for your pack.”
Ryder embraced him. “It is your pack, too, now. Isn’t that so, mother?”
Harper nodded, smiling through her tears. Anthony was unconscious, but Danny believed he was well now, a belief shared by the wolfshifter’s wife and son. There was nothing else he wished for. He had these people’s hearts, and it was more than he could’ve asked for.
“I will make sure that he remembers who saved him,” Harper said. She reached out to Danny and caressed his face. “Kind and beautiful. I couldn’t have hoped for a better mate for my son.”
He had no idea what to do with his hands. He knew he was blushing like crazy now, but he couldn’t help it. Ryder came to the rescue by embracing him and kissing his cheek.
“You two should join your clairvoyant friend in his search for the others,” Harper advised them. “I will take care of my husband. And when you come back, you will be welcomed to this pack with open arms, Danny.”
To say he was moved to tears would’ve been an understatement. There was, however, no time for letting emotions overwhelm him. Jack, Vince, and Theodore needed all the help they could get. It still unsettled Danny that his best friend and the CEO of Pembroke Industries had disappeared without a trace. Something rotten and dark still existed here, rooted deep in the soil, and Danny wanted to get to the bottom of it all. The warmth lingering in his chest demanded it, and he found himself helpless to resist. Not that he wanted to.
***
Ryder loved the night breeze moving through his fur, while Danny rode him, his hands clutching at tufts of hair tightly. Because his mate was so impressed with his wolf’s appearance, he discovered he could be quite vain and more than willing to show off. It was also easier for them to scout the lands this way. Even if the other wolves of Luna’s Sentinels were searching the area as thoroughly as possible, it didn’t mean that extra help would not be needed.
He also knew more about where Cassandra must have cultivated her evil magic than the others. Since he had been her target, he had visited her a few times at her hut, hidden deep in the woods.
“The forest is so dark,” Danny whispered.
“Are you afraid, my mate?”
“No, because I’m with you,” Danny replied promptly. “Ryder, do you truly believe your father will be fine? It is my first time healing someone.”
“You healed me before. Don’t you remember?” Ryder loved how shy his mate was, but being so quick to ignore his amazing gifts had to be corrected. Danny needed to understand how special he was.
“I didn’t think much about it at the time,” Danny admitted. “But yes, my touch healed you. I had no idea it was because of me, though.”
The woods closed in around them, the crowns of the trees drawing together above their heads and blocking the moon from sending her silver gaze upon them. Wolves worshipped the moon, and she was their protector, but they had to be fearless even when she was hiding her face in the clouds or the crown of a forest prevented them from seeing her, as was the case now.
“Do you know where we are heading, or should we start shouting their names?” Danny asked.
Ryder could sense the rise of evil power around them. “No, let’s be quiet,” he advised. “We are getting close to Cassandra’s hut, and while she may be gone, some of her dark desire to ruin our pack might still linger.”
He shifted into his human, catching Danny quickly in his arms and placing him down gently.
“You feel something, don’t you?” Danny asked in a low whisper. “I think I can feel it, too, but I don’t know what it is.”
“The ground and the forest in this area must have become tainted,” Ryder said. He wrapped one hand around Danny’s smaller one to make sure his mate wouldn’t be separated from him by accident or through the evil work of a witch.
“Do you believe our friends are here?” Danny asked. “All I can sense around us is darkness and more darkness.”
“I have a bit more experience than you in dealing with such things. Wolves have strength and wisdom by their side, but not so much magic.”
“Ryder, do you believe my healing power is… some sort of magic?”
“I do. But it is the good kind of magic.”
Danny sighed in relief. “I’m glad to hear that. I want your pack to accept me, Ryder. But if I have magic, which they abhor, that might not work too well for me, right?”
“The moment my father comes to his senses, I will have him accept you in front of all of Luna’s Sentinels. No one will dare say a bad word to you.”
“I don’t want your people to accept me only because their leaders tell them to,” Danny protested. “Unless this is how you usually do things,” he added quickly.
“You always care so much about others. How could I have been so blind? From the start, you were the one for me. But I trusted Cassandra’s words and I pursued Theodore, when he was actually more my foe than my ally.”
“You didn’t know,” Danny hurried to comfort Ryder. “I thought there was just some really awesome attraction developing between us, and it felt so unfair that you were promised to someone else. I felt angry, even. And I don’t get angry. Usually.”
As they advanced through the underbrush, the darkness became absolute. Ryder held Danny tightly. As much as he loved spending time with his mate, sharing everything with him, now was the time for them to be cautious and pay attention to their surroundings.
“What was that?” Danny asked in a breathless whisper.
Could it be that a human’s ears had caught something that his more sensitive wolf ears had missed? Ryder didn’t have time to ponder over such an impossibility, because the woods seemed to wake to life all around them. The tree trunks advanced toward them as if they had been roused from a deep sleep.
Danger surrounded them. Ryder pushed Danny behind him. “Grab my shirt and hold on to it,” he whispered.
By his evaluation, they had to be close to the hut now. Although it had been the witch’s lair until only a while ago, for now it had to act as their temporary shelter against the maddened forest.
He encouraged Danny to move, guiding him through the dark. It was good that his mate didn’t need to be told twice what to do. He was also wise, not only kind and beautiful, as his mom had said about Danny.
The door to the hut opened with a whine. Ryder didn’t wait to see what the trees intended to do to them and pushed Danny inside.
Only to realize, a blink of an eye later, that he had just pushed his mate into a deep well in the ground and now he was falling. With a ferocious growl, Ryder jumped into the abyss yawning at his feet.
***
He didn’t have time to scream as he fell through what felt like molasses all around him. The hole was deep and wide enough to allow him to fall without hitting the sides, and Danny waved his arms desperately. When he tried to shout Ryder’s name, he realized that he couldn’t make a sound.
His mouth was clogged with the same stuff he was sinking through on his way down. Although it was spread all over his face, getting in his nose and ears, too, Danny didn’t feel the discomfort he had expected.
His descent was over before he could form another thought. He fell on something warm and sticky, which made his stomach lurch in an effort to get rid of whatever food was still inside it – something Danny doubted amounted to much of anything, seeing how much time had passed since he last ate.
But the sensation was short-lived. He sensed someone falling on top of him and reached out by instinct. It had to be Ryder, he thought, as his hands touched a hard chest.
“Open your eyes, mate,” Ryder said.
Danny obeyed without doubting his alpha for a moment. Gone was the sticky goo that had covered his face moments ago. He could see and hear just fine.
“What is this place?” he whispered as he took in his surroundings.
They were inside a deep cave, but the most astonishing thing was that the darkness was gone. Checking the ceiling gave no actual clues as to what made the cave appear so well lit and Danny gave up quickly trying to find the source. If they were here, there had to be a reason for it. But what was that reason?
Ryder walked toward the center of the cave, and it was then Danny noticed the tall well dominating the room. Its stones were covered with moss, which indicated that it must have been there for a long time.
“Have you ever been here before?” he asked his mate in a low whisper. There was no telling whether creatures of the dark, witches and whatnot, were hiding in the many nooks and crannies of this place. Danny had a hard time sharing his mate’s confidence when it came to exploring unknown places.
“I have not,” Ryder said. “But the water in this well is pure. That means we should be able to see what we wish to see. Join me, my mate.”
Danny hurried to Ryder’s side and stared curiously into the well. The smooth surface reflected his and Ryder’s faces like a mirror.
“All we can see is ourselves,” he noted out loud. “Oh, is there some ritual we need to follow?”
“None that I know of,” Ryder said. “And the little I do know is rooted in myths and old tales.”
“Which you believe in, though,” Danny added.
Ryder nodded. “I do, but I did not expect to find such a place in my lifetime. Not to need it. Given our present circumstances, my belief in them is only growing stronger.”
“What about what happened outside? I couldn’t see much, but I would swear the forest was moving around us. Menacingly,” he added the last word after a short hesitation.
Ryder nodded, while continuing to stare into the well. “Cassandra managed to poison these lands. We didn’t know.”
Danny came closer and took Ryder’s hand. “You couldn’t have known. You acted in good faith. How could you have known that she’s an actual witch?”
“Wolves are said to possess a keen sense of observation. When we hunt, when we enter another pack’s territory--”
“But this was different,” Danny insisted. “It was, well, magic.”
He looked into the well, admiring Ryder in the reflection. How could he be so lucky and have landed such a hunk? He blushed. Maybe having impure thoughts while looking into a magic well with pure water wasn’t a good idea.
A thought crossed his mind and he leaned over the edge to take a closer look. Was that truly water or merely a mirror? He sank one hand into the limpid surface and gaped at how his fingers seemed to disappear once inside the liquid.
“Ryder, I believe this is a portal,” he whispered. “I don’t have the guts, but if you tell me to jump in and trust you and your pack’s myths, I think I can do it.”
Ryder wrapped one arm around Danny’s waist and looked at what Danny was doing, apparently just as astonished by that revelation. “Indeed, I believe you are correct, my wise mate.”
“I wouldn’t call myself wise,” Danny protested meekly. “What do you think? Are we ready to go through the looking glass?”
Ryder didn’t seem to recognize the reference, but he patted Danny on the back and then climbed into the well, holding onto the rim with just one hand. “Come into my arms. I will make sure that nothing bad happens to you.”
Danny didn’t need to be told twice. After all, ever since he’d been a boy, he had dreamed of fantasy lands, and witches, and heroes, and, well, portals, too.
***
His mate had been right about the well inside the cave being a passage. They fell smoothly through its surface, and there was no water getting in their noses and lungs to worry about. When they landed on the other side, it was still night, but they were in the middle of a meadow, and Danny’s soft grunt made him pay attention to his mate right away.
“We’re in--”
“We’re in the middle of a strange, twisty, little tale,” Jack’s voice announced from not so far away, making them both turn to search for him with their eyes. “Yep, look for us all you want, but you won’t be able to see a thing. Whatever witchcraft that witch created, she really did a number on all of us. I had no idea it would feel so weird to have an out of body experience, but here we are.”
“Are Vince and Theodore with you?” Danny asked right away. “How can we help? Can we help at all, to begin with?”
“Oh, you can rest assured that you can,” Jack said cheerfully. “And yes, our brightest and bravest are stuck with me in… in this weird existence-non-existence. Glad you have Ryder with you, though, because only a true alpha can undo this strange curse.”
“But how?” Danny asked.
Ryder took his mate by the shoulders and kissed his cheek. “If Jack believes it is a true alpha that must save them, I am that alpha.”
He felt it in his bones and muscles, a power growing. The meadow offered a lot of empty open space, which made it the perfect terrain for a confrontation.
“Danny, hide!” he ordered as a large shadow interposed itself between them and the silver light of the moon.
“Easier said than done!” Danny shouted back.
“There’s that boulder over there,” Jack advised. “No, to the right! The other right!”
Danny was running now, and Ryder watched him worriedly, but his mate quickly found a spot to conceal himself from the evil lurking right above their heads.
He stood tall and proud like the wolf he was. “I am Ryder Asherman, the alpha of Luna’s Sentinels,” he announced. “Whatever you are, I do not fear you. Show yourself, and I will defeat you.”
The shadow trembled and stretched. “Your wretched mate deprived me of my mortal body,” the shadow hissed. “But I am thankful. I am no longer bound to the earth that keeps you all prisoners. And it is a pleasure to return the favor. Die here, alpha, unless you want your so-called friends to remain shadows forever, just as I am.”
“Ryder, don’t listen to this crappy witch,” Jack warned him. “She’s obviously losing her powers, and that is driving her mad.”
“I will defeat you,” Ryder warned. Even if he didn’t know the first thing about destroying a shadow, he had his belief by his side. And he had his mate, who was strong and kind, and who had already managed to defeat this witch once.
What sort of alpha would he be if he allowed himself to be the one saved instead of being the one who saved others?
“Mistress,” he pleaded to the moon, even if she was obscured from his view, “lend me your strength, and I will chase away this evil spirit.”
“She can’t hear you. She is weak,” the shadow hissed. “You should have waited for a full moon if you wanted her to lend you all her power. As she is now, she can barely keep hanging in the sky as she should. You are mine, alpha.”
Ryder didn’t mind the attack. He had hoped for it. All he needed was for the moon shine down on him for a mere second and no more. The witch didn’t know that; she was not aware of the myths and legends that made wolf packs so strong.
The shadow moved to one side and it was enough. Ryder shifted into his wolf and reached for the skies. The kind light of the moon caressed his head like a mother’s hand. He twisted in mid-air and landed behind the shadow. He could see the silhouette of what had been Cassandra’s body. His eyes burned inside his head, and he could see everything clearly.
His howl made forests far away shake in the night breeze. His brethren answered in kind, encouraging him to deliver the final blow. His aim was true, as his fangs and claws tore through the flimsy fabric of the shadow, making it let out a howl of its own.
TBC
Author's note:
@Derek - we're about to reach the end of this tale, and like all tales, it needs a happy end :) Theodore, Vince, and Jack will get their own story in the sequel, and that will be... well, I'll let you be the judge of it.
@DavidB - thank you for your kind words! Danny is finally understanding his role, and it's amazing :)
@Mark Mortland - it was all very confusing because it happened fast! Action scenes are not the easiest for me, especially the ones with many moving actors. But they disappeared when Cassandra attacked Ryder, and they weren't there when Danny and Jack were fighting her.
True love's kiss... ha-ha, I loved Shrek, especially the first one in the series. Good thing Danny didn't just grab Ryder and shake him to wake up.
Do you have any idea how many times I misspelled 'nonplussed'? It's not even funny... And I'm glad reading my story helped you with your writer's block :)
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