Gamma's Energy Attracts

Part 18

Julia’s POV

As soon as I accepted Erik seemed to panic, I recognized the look, I knew it well. His eyes shot wide to look at me like I was the monster who rejected him. He started hyperventilating and stumbled backwards into a small chest of drawers, clutching his hand over his heart. He looked horrible and I couldn't stand there watching him fall apart. I had my own falling-apart to do.

I wanted him out of my sight and this was his room, so I stood from the bed to leave. My body felt worn out, every movement felt heavy like a burden to make. It wasn’t just chest pain like I had expected, I hurt all over. I shuffled slowly, but my wolf urged me on.

"WAIT!" my Mate wheezed out, his smooth melted chocolate voice was gone, he sounded raspy and it grated on my last nerve. I didn’t wait or stop and I sure as hell didn't look back. This is exactly why I didn’t want to find my Mate. I knew he wouldn’t accept some part of me. I knew someone couldn’t love me for me.

As he began to panic sweat, his scent got stronger behind me even though he wasn’t moving any closer. This whole room was already flooded with the scent of what we had done, the spiciness was gone and the citrus scent wasn't as alluring as it had been an hour ago. I doubted I would ever be able to eat an orange again. He was actually sweeter than an orange, maybe it was tangerines or mandarins. Why am I still thinking about this? Stupid Mate Bond.

I opened the door and he called for me to wait again.

It was too late to wait. We should have waited to get to know each other. We should have waited to have s*x. 

He should have waited to make a decision instead of this treachery. He should have waited before he threw us away.

I didn't need to wait.

In the hallway, I didn't know which way to turn. Do I go back to the party to look for my Pack? No, I can’t run into the Hot M. Jerk in this state, he would laugh at the pathetic baby deer. I’m going to be a laughing stock tomorrow.  Do I go to the Doctor for this pain? Do I crawl into a hole and hide? I slouch against the wall to hold myself as I think. 

'We are not going to wither away! I told you, we shall find what we seek, one way or another. You would either take a Mate or have the life you seek. Things will be different for you now. Go outside,' my wolf says. 

'Why outside? How will my life be better? I just lost my Mate, the be-all and end-all, I am living the worst case scenario for a werewolf.'

'You can't just forfeit on life. It's time for me to join you, I promise I will help you. I will be there to offer my strength, you'll have better senses, better instincts. I can help with your confidence, you won't need to be fearful and worried anymore. I will be there to protect you!' I slide down the wall until I am on my hands and knees. My claws grow out again, and I watch. After all this time I might actually have a wolf. Pain does funny things sometimes.

‘Move!’ the pain in my head (and in my ass) tries to command me.

'I can't, it hurts and I don't have the energy to shift,' I whine at my wolf. Why couldn't she just protect me from him and skip the other stuff? She should have warned me.

'No more whining. We are going outside to shift even if I have to make you crawl!'

‘You finally show up and you think you can boss me around?! I can’t do this!’ I get this odd sensation of my wolf trying to press forward again, this time with more force. My claws dig into the carpet and I am pulling myself forward, crawling with my belly almost touching the ground. I reach the top of the stairs and look down, the angle making three flights of steps look impossible. I don’t know how she expects me to stand for this.

‘We will scoot like the Alpha twins.’ I remember when Mrs. Alpha’s pups wanted to be more independent, rather than carried all the time. Once they raced downs the steps by sliding on their bottoms giggling the whole way down. 

I sat at the top to catch my breath before slowly scooting down a few stairs. Atlas and Carrissa made this look fun, but my b*tt is going to be bruised by the end of all this.

‘We are heavier than toddler pups. They also distracted each other. Diaper padding also may have helped.’ 

‘Ya think?’ I snap at her. She makes me scoot down all the remaining stairs without a break for my sarcastic comment. B*tch. At the bottom, we stand and take baby steps to reach the door handle. I make my escape and feel the cold air to promptly collapse onto the ground. 

‘This dress is too tight. We should be naked.’ 

‘Are you kidding me!? Naked under the lights? What about hiding in the trees?’ Is she serious?!

‘Fine. No whining while we crawl.’ I do crawl, through the cold wet grass that I grip by the roots with my claws trying to get traction to move forward. My hands feel numb either from the cold or the supreme effort. I lay down on my belly behind the first tree. The cold feels incredible as it soaks into my dress and wets my flush cheek. I turn my head to cool the other side of my face, ignoring the grass sticking to my face. It barely takes any time for my dress to soak up all the moisture and the ground to warm up to match my body heat. Do I have a fever?

‘Um, nope, I think this is how warm we are always going to be now that you have a wolf. I’m sure you will get used to it. Okay, since you’re so hot, we get should get naked and shift.’

‘With what energy? I need coffee, a whole cake then a nap for about a week. Maybe two.’

'You might be right, I need more energy, call for the All-Mother. Her touch made me feel invincible!'

‘Why didn’t you mention that before?’ 

‘Before what?’ says my confused wolf.

‘Before this whole thing! The crawling, the stairs! Terri and Mrs. Alpha would have helped us walk down here!’ Why does my wolf insist on doing everything the hard way? First, she speaks in circles and I can’t understand a damn word and now this!

‘First steps to our new independence,’ she mutters.

‘You forgot,’ I say accusingly.

‘You forgot, too!’ She bristles back.

I scream when I suddenly feel like I’m being pulled in all different directions. This must be what a torture rack is like. My back arches uncomfortably until I am on my side, when the pain ends I collapse on my back on a fresh plot of wet grass. 

‘It’s our bones lengthening. This is more involved than I thought it would be.’ I feel her taking an inventory of our body. 

‘Do you even know what you are doing?’

‘Yes, I have instincts. It’s just I was incorporeal, a spirit before and now I have my own personality and substance. This will be great! Don’t worry about it! Ooo, smell! Wolves are coming, I can tell.’

‘I don’t know what anyone smells like, can you tell me something useful?’

‘The All-mother smells like cupcakes.’

I take another sniff of the air. I can distinctly smell Terri’s perfume and a warm vanilla scent, mixed with coffee. Mrs. Alpha!

I’m so bone-tired, I just need to sleep. I rest my eyes for a moment until I am hauled up and shaken.

*****

Caly’s POV

I sense Julia before I can see her, Terri is following her powerful nose and zooms past me with her insane werewolf speed. Theressa finds her hidden from eyes just beyond the treeline, and I hear the Tracker unleash a ferocious growl. I finally catch up and see Terri kneeling beside her,  holding Julia by the shoulders, growling and shaking with barely suppressed rage.  Julia is clawing at Terri’s hands with actual claws.

‘Where is her f*cking Mate?’ Terri roars across my mind-link. ‘He should be here helping her! Useless piece of sh….’

‘Let’s not jump to conclusions.’ Surely there is a good reason he’s not with her, right? His scent is all over her, she has clearly been intimate with him. I need to focus Terri on something other than the obvious. “Theressa, she’s trembling, please go get her a blanket. Just a blanket, and come right back.” I need to comfort Julia and figure out what led us to this and I have no time to supervise Terri while she goes on a rampage.

Julia reaches out for me and I sit on the ground beside her, pulling her upper body onto my lap. I check her temperature with the back of my hand, she’s rather warm, I doubt she needs that blanket.  “Talk to me, Julia. What’s going on with you?” She tries to speak when I notice the long fangs peeking from her raw gums. "Mind-link if it's easier."

‘My wolf…She said… one way or another. He…he…’ She screams aloud as a short series of pops, maybe four or five of them, echo in the quiet forest. Her bones are rearranging at an incredibly slow pace. Julia grips onto my arms with her claws out, I bite back the pain. Her eyes glow green, brighter than I have ever seen. I feel the energy pricking at my arms being drawn into her, she is siphoning off of me, and I am willing to let her take it. Her eyes close in exhaustion.

“What is the name, of your wolf?”

“I…I don’t know.” Julia gasps for breaths, a horrible choking sound, more of a death rattle. ‘I’m so tired Mrs. Alpha…”

“You and your wolf have been together for a long time, maybe try asking her?” How on earth does she not know something so important? This is the other half of her!

Julia shifts, straightening her legs just before they snap with a simultaneous pop. Her back legs lengthen and bend before turning forward at the hock. Her feet become paws, but look oddly gross since they are devoid of fur. 

Her mouth opens to scream as her face pushes forward to start making the muzzle before suddenly receding. Her head drops and I worry that she may have passed out.

Her head raises, “My name is Sage,” her wolf tells me, panting like - well a dog. “I was never sure if I were meant to be…”

“I’m not sure I understand.” Please Sage, I hope you can tell me how to help Julia without the riddles.

‘Sage means profound wisdom, how very fitting for a messenger of Mother Moon,’ Athena says, wolf-splaining things.

‘I know that~ that’s not the part I fail to understand!’ I swear she had better not be trying to rile me up on purpose.

Julia’s green eyes appear, the glow is gone and the only shine in them is from the tears now streaming down her face. “One way or another. Erik would accept us we are, to see us as his Mate and a gift; or as a curse and reject us.” She gasps and grunts in pain as popping signals the lengthening of her spine. “I need out of this dress.” I unzip her and help her undress to give her more room for her body to expand. I lay the dress over her body in case anyone else is nearby, Theressa hasn’t returned with that blanket yet.

“I was a spirit, I was never meant to materialize in this plane, I was to stay in the Moon realm to hear the Goddess’s words for her children. Things are never straightforward with the Goddess, she must give choices so we always have free will. Julia and I were meant to stay as one, share this mortal body. That is why I didn’t have my own name. The pain of rejection has forced me to implore Mother Moon for aid. My Julia doesn’t want to fight, she feels our Mate has used us and has retreated in our mind. I was given the choice, stay as her voice on earth or dive into Moon Lake and help my human. I was selfish, I chose Julia.”

She lets out a sorrowful howl, a real wolf one. “I knew the transition would be painful, but I had not expected this. I need your help, your gift. If I don’t shift now the rejection will kill her,” The wolf whose voice always sounds so powerful sounds tired but determined. I growl rumbles deep in her chest as fur spurts out in small patches all over her body. Julia is going to be mostly white with a thick ridge of silver-grey down her back.  “I just need a bit more from you. My apologies, my All-Mother.” She looks up at me with pleading eyes.

“I don’t think you were selfish at all. Please take whatever you need, we can both survive this,” I feel my energy being channelled into Sage’s body in great waves, but my own energy isn’t even waning. I whisper encouraging words to her, but I am biting my tongue. I hope Terri hasn’t killed Erik yet, because I would like to have a few choice words with him and Athena wants to take her own pound of flesh out of this boy’s hide.

‘I don’t even know if his unicorn bits would weigh a pound,’ my wolf snickers, a small chuffing noise she is barely trying to hide behind her paws covering her snout.

‘No more unicorns for you!’

‘He has denied the Goddess’s greatest gift, he is the very definition of a stooopid human, thus he gets no sympathy from me,’ she snarls in return, her humour lost to anger.

‘He is her Mate, not ours, any vengeance should be hers. Not our circus, not our monkey,’ I warn her.

‘You can do better, Babe: Not my forest, not our squirrel. He is at the very least an evil squirrel.’ Perhaps she’s right, he took something precious from her before he callously broke the Bond.

“How’s she doin’?” Terri finally got back with that blanket and drapes it over her.

“Sage has come forward. She is shifting slowly, but surely. She needs to feed off my energy, but I think she will be ready for one last push very soon.

“Are you okay then, Caly?” Terri rarely uses my real name, it usually only slips in when she’s too serious to be funny.

“The current is strong, but I have been given plenty for what I need to do,” I tell her. The truth is, I feel great, I still feel energized myself.

‘The night is not over, another will need our help,’ my wolf informs me. I hope that other person isn’t Erik. Bad Caly! I can’t think like that. If he needs me, he needs me. The Goddess hates when Bonds are broken, if she sends me energy to use on him, perhaps there is something in the boy worth salvaging.

‘Nah. I’m okay with letting him suffer…’ Athena’s voice trails off as Sage tries to speak. 

A long series pops and broken bones rearranging tells us that a new wolf is about to be born. “Stand…Back…I’m ready.” She releases me from her grasp, I stand and take a few steps back, giving her all the space she needs. “Arrrr-oooooo!” She howls joyfully as her facial features change and she stands on her wobbly legs at her full wolf height.

“You’re beautiful, Jules!” Terri’s eyes take in the snow-white fur of her legs and underbelly, and the pale silver that covers the top of her head and her back like a cloak draped over her. I see Terri stripping out of her clothes to take her on a run. It’s a great idea, I would love to get out of this itchy dress.

‘The dress is fine, I wouldn’t have let you pick a dress that wasn’t soft and comfortable. Your energy is picking up again, that’s why we are itchy. We need to figure out what else is going on.’

“You coming, Luna?”

“I can’t, I have to find whoever else needs me.”

“You can’t be outside by yourself during an event like this.” She’s right, as much as I hate to admit it. She stands naked as a jay-bird frowning at me with her fists on her hips.

‘Stavros? Meet us at Luna Anne’s? Wait until you see my surprise!’

‘Where have you been hiding? On my way, Little Mate.’

“Let’s walk to Luna’s house, Stav said he would meet us there,” I tell her. Terri makes a swift shift into her wolf as I gather up their dresses, shoes and blanket. I am flanked by two hairy bodyguards as we walk the short distance. I spot Stav and Tucker standing on the porch. “Look what I found in the woods!” I call out as we approach. Stav and Tuck look at the new wolf, taking her beauty in. Stav raises his nose in the air to take a sniff.

“Julia?” 

“Yep! Stav, please take a picture of us!” I sit on my knees on the grass and Julia sits so she’s pressed into my side. I wrap an arm around her, she’s so fluffy and soft. Stav captures me laughing as she is licking my face. Terri joins in the fun and starts licking me too all the while Stav’s camera app is clicking. I stand up, “One more of Julia only. I think we should send a pic to her Aunt Misty. At least one good thing came from this night.” 

I add privately to Stav. ‘I’ll explain later, right now I need to find someone who needs my energy, but I don’t think I’m going to like where it goes.’ Stav turns his head to the side and raises an eyebrow. 

“Terri, please take Julia to test her new legs,” Terri responds by booping noses with Julia and then nipping at her tail before running back the trees. Julia deserves to enjoy this freedom. Being one with your wolf for the first time is exhilarating, you feel as fast and as light as the wind rushing between your fur. You feel one with your wolf and with Mother Earth and you feel whole in a way that is hard to explain. This will be good for Julia, I can feel it.

I wait until I am sure they are out of earshot. “Tucker, I need you to send someone to do a check on Erik Canyon.”

“Is that Julia’s Mate?”

“Yes, seems he got want he wanted and then rejected her,” I say solemnly and both Alphas growl. “He is probably in a great deal of pain, that is if Terri hasn’t already killed him. I need to know if I need to have another talk with Alpha Aaron.”

I feel the painful current of energy in my arms, and scratch at my arms. Stav tries to hold me by the wrists to keep me from digging my claws down to the bone and gets a zap for his trouble but holds on anyway.

“Stav! Let go!” He looks me in the eye and he kisses my wrist on my Strong tattoo. I smile at the sweet gesture, it’s nice to know My One and Only would be here for me no matter what, but I don’t need him to hurt himself to prove it to me. “I’m okay. I just need to find whoever else needs me.” Athena is anxiously pacing inside my head, ready to take control.

“Caly, something strange is going down inside, follow me!” Tucker breaks out into a run with Stav and I hot on his tail.