Lifesong (17 page)

I squeezed her hands, able to read the fear in her eyes. “I was the one who told you to go after him,” I reminded her. “Besides, we all know what happened after that.”

“I know, but…”

“It’s okay. I kind of knew what was going to happen before I sent you away.”

“I don’t understand. I thought you’d be against it.” She bowed her head. “Before, you know…”

“I wouldn’t have been able to blame you. I appreciate how open you’ve been with me, and I only thought it was fair to offer the same in return. Letting you be together means I don’t have to worry about the pain of having you go behind my back.”

“You’re a very strange alpha,” Luna teased.

“I’m not your alpha, I’m just me.” I paused to collect my thoughts. “Tucker is very attractive, as a human and a wolf. But I can only take advantage of one part of him. I couldn’t refuse his other half, or yours—”

“We weren’t wolves,” Luna murmured, averting her eyes. “It started out that way, but…”

I placed a finger on the she-wolf’s lips. “It doesn’t bother me. That should be pretty obvious by now, don’t you think?”

She averted her eyes. I took Luna’s chin in my hands, drawing her close to my chest before kissing her on the lips.

“But I…I don’t love him. Not like that.”

“You don’t have to. You ever notice how complicated love is?” I pulled her head away just enough so that I could see her eyes.

“You mean as a guardian, or as a wolf?”

“Both.”

Luna bobbed her head. “I feel love for many things.”

“Like?”

“Well…” Luna paused to push back my hair. “Like you, my alpha.” Now it was her turn to kiss me, seizing my lips before I could say anything else.

“Mm-hmm.”

“The pack.”

I moaned, inhaling the shampoo Luna had used in her hair. How badly I wanted to just smell her hair!

Luna broke our kiss.

“Aww, don’t pull away. I wasn’t done yet.”

“The Earth…even Tucker…”

I furrowed my brow. “I thought you didn’t—”

“Neither did I.” Luna turned her gaze to the dark terrain far below the ridge, before glancing back at me. “Is it possible to love something so vast, something that cannot love you back?”

I nodded. “I think so. I don’t know if I love the Earth, but I love life, and that is what we’re fighting for, isn’t it?”

“A life for us.”

“And for the pack.”

Luna took one of my hands, but didn’t offer a reply. I’d felt so much since I got here that it was hard to know where one feeling ended and another began. Like Luna had said, there was the love I had for her and Tucker, as well as the pack. They were family, every single one of them. And if any of them were to leave, I’d never feel whole again.

“Almost there,” Luna said, urging me to join her.

I took the last handful of steps, every one of them seeming too slow, sluggish. The ridge itself felt as if it was almost as far from the ground as it was from the house. I hadn’t realised just how isolated we were out there, in the forest of the guardians. It was almost as if we lived on the edge of the Earth, a large shelf of ice and snow overlooking the rest of the universe. It was overwhelming and humbling all at once. Overwhelming because of how far and how close I was to my life before the guardians, and humbling to have been able to experience it firsthand.

Rummaging through one of my pockets, I removed a piece of paper, my eyes reading over the words Tucker had written a few days ago. My vision jumped from the paper to the dark, cracked Earth far below and back to the paper again. And as it did, the second verse ran through my head.

I retrieved a pen from the same pocket and started to write.

From where I am, I see the world fall, Our home, our haven, Isn’t one at all

“See the world fall?” Luna asked, moving the paper so she could read it. “Like in your dream?”

I shook my head and folded up the paper before putting it back in my pocket. “From where I am, I see the world fall.” I repeated the lines, turning in a circle as I did. “That could mean anywhere.”

“What about the last part? Our home isn’t one at all? Could it mean our house?”

“I don’t know, but we should probably head back. Tucker will want to know what we found.”

Luna nodded, taking my hand. “All we need now is a chorus.”

“Yeah, and I have a feeling it isn’t going to take long to figure that one out at all.”

“Come on.” Luna directed me towards the woods. “We’ll take a shortcut.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Tucker

The wood crackled as it burned, the smell of firewood filling the house. It was a comforting smell, which surprised me. Months ago, I would’ve avoided it altogether, knowing the scent of firewood meant humans, and humans weren’t fond of wolves.

But now that I’d got used to my weaker skin, the scent reminded me of home, of Emma and the pack. Sitting in front of the fire, I looked back on what Emma had said back when she’d first arrived, about how we should let the Earth die instead of sacrificing our love. At the time, I’d been loyal to our pack and the Earth, but now, I considered her words even more.

It was why I sort of didn’t want her going to the ridge at all. The storm yesterday had been a welcomed delay, and while I didn’t think she’d find anything there, I disliked the possibility of her finishing the song just as much. As soon as she finished writing it, there was nothing we could do but keep to the laws of the guardians. And I wasn’t ready to give her up. None of us were.

The likelihood of the song just coming to her today was near impossible, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen tomorrow, the next day or the day after that. Breathing around my anxiety, I stirred the fire one last time before replacing the gate and heading back upstairs. With the girls out at the ridge and the pack on another hunt, I had the house to myself, which suddenly felt empty without the two females or the five wolves running at my feet.

After closing the door to our room, I crawled under the sheets. Emma’s and Luna’s scents were all over the bed, in the sheets as well as on the pillows. Their different flavours intermingled, intoxicating my mind, as my thoughts drifted to another place in time.

Emma was lying with me, finger-combing my hair as Luna looked on. The she-wolf was uncomfortably quiet. She shared images of our run in the woods, and I groaned when Emma rested her head on my chest.

“You can have her, you know,” Emma whispered into my ear. “She’s my gift to you.”

I turned to kiss her on the forehead, opening my free arm, inviting the she-wolf into bed with us. She wore one of Emma’s thin nightgowns, the delicate fabric covering her down to her ankles.

Luna paused next to the bed, her fingertips trailing across the bedspread. Emma bit at my ear, and I stirred under the blankets. My erratic heartbeat made it hard to breathe, and I tried not to lose consciousness when Luna curled up beside me, her naked skin smooth against mine.

I had one female on either arm, their heads resting on my chest. My world began to spin. Their hands were like mirrored images, reaching down under the covers to rest on the insides of my thighs. They pulled themselves against me even more, one of them biting my neck while the other kissed me on the lips.

There were so many sensations at once, I blanked out. I thought of nothing. I heard and saw nothing. My shaft brushed against the bed sheets, completely ignored. I withdrew my arm from around Luna and placed a hand against my groin.

Both Luna and Emma glared at me, and as I moved my hand up and down my cock, Luna grabbed my hand from under the covers, holding it against the bed.

“Patience,” she growled, lowering her head to bite at one of my nipples.

I arched my back off the bed, the silken sheets cool on my skin, almost too light for me to feel. Emma placed one of her legs over mine, immobilising me from below as Luna did the same from above.

Completely lost to their will, I pleaded with Luna, sending her images of us together in the woods. Of us now in bed together.

She grinned. “I know what you want.”

I whimpered, sucking in a lungful of air when something wet closed around my cock. I couldn’t see Emma, her entire body hidden under the sheets, far out of sight. She wrapped her hands around the base of my shaft as she licked at the head.

I thrust upward against her touch and, as punishment, Emma pulled away. I willed my body to lie still. The exercise was maddening. Each time, Emma would get a little farther, bobbing her head up and down my length. And each time I moved, the seconds between encounters got a little longer.

I’d come dangerously close to finishing twice as it was, my climax mounting as I held it back. Pleased with my performance, Emma sucked on me, her tongue tracing the vein along the underside of my shaft. While she pushed me to the edge, Luna put her fingers to my lips, the digits covered in her arousing scent.

My hips bucked away from the bed, and both females vanished.

It was too late for me to stop, and, holding my breath, I took over. In my mind, Luna and Emma were still there, their hands all over my body, their sweet nectar on my lips. And as I tasted them, my body convulsed and I came onto the sheets.

Struggling for breath, I lay there, my mind reeling with pleasure. A part of me knew the females were still out, but somewhere deep down I believed they’d been there all along.

* * * *

Emma

My lungs ached as I coughed at the tightness in my chest, a metallic taste filling my mouth. The woods were darker than before, almost as if the trees had somehow moved closer together. The smell of pine accompanied every step we took, thin needles crunching under our feet.

I closed my eyes, squeezing Luna’s hand as she led me through the trees. Images of a wolf running on four paws and the guardians flashed through my mind.

“It’s still possible,” Luna said, breaking my concentration.

“What?”

“It doesn’t take much to know what you’re thinking, Emma,” Luna explained, picking up the pace. “Everything you think and feel now, all of us have experienced before.”

“But you said it was possible. What’s possible?”

“To put things into reverse, to calm the Earth. It’s never been this bad—at least, not so long as I’ve been a guardian. I’ve seen a lot, but not like this.”

“And you still think we can change it?”

“Not without scars, no. But we can stop the bleeding.”

I closed my eyes again, my thoughts settling on the noises around us. The pine needles called out to me, and like an image from Luna’s memory, the last part of our song filled my mind.

We walk on pins and needles, as the world lies awake, Pins and needles, Pins and needles

“Pins and needles.”

The paper in my pocket called to me, but I couldn’t afford to stop.
Not now.
We kept running.

* * * *

I dragged Luna up the steps towards Tucker’s room. The house was still empty, and would probably stay that way for most of the afternoon. With most of the pack gone, I considered keeping the final words to myself, but their discovery alone just about burst through my chest when I bumped into Tucker in the hallway.

“I know the rest of the song,” I blurted out, resulting in very surprised looks from both Tucker and Luna.

“But we don’t have a chorus,” Luna said, unzipping her coat.

“I do. When we were in the woods I—”

“Breathe first,” Tucker said, sitting me down on the top step leading back down to the lower levels of the house. “You have all the words?” I nodded. “And a melody?”

Luna squeezed my hand. “Leave the melody to me.”

“What now?” I stared at them. “Do we wait for the others?”

Tucker disappeared down the hall, appearing at the top of the stairs moments later with his coat. “They’ll meet us there.”

“Where?”

“The tree.”

* * * *

The pack was waiting for us, just as Tucker had promised. I wasn’t sure how they’d known, and decided it was some kind of guardian magic. The tree Tucker had spoken of wasn’t the same one he’d shown me as a child. This one was much bigger, its bark cracked to show the green energy underneath.

Streams of energy flowed from the tree to the rest of the Earth, almost as if they were the tree’s roots. Every few seconds, the light of the tree would glow, its energy pulsing away from them.

“This isn’t the same tree as before.” I glanced down at Tucker and Luna, who had changed into wolves as soon as we’d entered the new forest.

“This isn’t the only tree,” Tucker said, canting his head to one side. “You can find trees like this all over the world, so long as you know where to look.”

“Or if you have a guardian to show you the way,” Luna added.

“But I thought the tree was the heart. Isn’t that why we’re going to sing to it?” I covered my ears when the tree hummed, sending another wave of energy into the Earth.

“The heart’s deep underground. Keeping it close to the surface, within reach, would mean anyone could take it. The anger you’ve seen is nothing like what could happen if anyone ever did find it.”

“Why the trees?”

“They’re the Earth’s eyes and ears, Emma,” Tucker explained. “Messengers.”

“When we start to sing, the tree will hum, sending the song to all of the other trees,” Luna said.

“But if it only needs us to sing, why does it take the guardians away?” I crumpled in front of them, throwing my arms around Tucker’s mane.

“Emma, look at me.”

I raised my head at him.

“We don’t die. The guardians just fall into the Earth, remember? You taught me this.”

“Both of you?” My eyes jumped from Tucker to Luna.

Luna nuzzled under my chin. “None of us know. It’s up to the Earth to decide who it needs to help it grow.”

“When will I join you?”

“When you are ready,” Tucker replied, his voice hoarse. “What does the rest of the song say?”

Rummaging through one of my pockets, I tore off the first verse I’d ever written before placing the piece of paper between us.
This verse doesn’t fit.
That was before I’d met the pack. Before the fever.
Before sex.
I wasn’t just singing with Tucker anymore.