Chapter 246

Ava

I hung up the phone, blinking back tears. “Well… That’s done,” I murmured as I slipped my phone back into my pocket with a shudder.

Telling three families that their sons died in battle wasn’t easy. And what was even harder was knowing that all of this, as Elise had said… didn’t need to happen. It was my fault. If only I hadn’t been so stupid, so naive when we visited Winston. If only I had been patient—

“Luna Ava?”

I turned at the sound of a voice, and saw one of the scouts standing there with dirt and what looked like blood on the front of his shirt.

“What is it?” I asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Have you seen Alpha Chris? He shifted earlier and ran off into the woods.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “Why? Did something happen?”

The scout opened his mouth and then closed it a few times as if grappling with what to say. Finally, he gestured for me to follow, and showed me to a fresh mound of dirt at the edge of the nearby forest.

“New Moon left a… moondeer head on a spike,” he explained, gesturing to the mound. “Alpha Chris asked me to bury it, and then he just took off.”

My chest caved in at the thought—our moondeer, our precious, sacred moondeer… But I knew why Chris had gone. I would have, too, if I had seen the head. I shivered just at the thought, glad that I hadn’t seen it myself.

“Thank you for telling me,” I said, stepping over the mound. “I’ll find him.”

With that, I shifted into my wolf form and took off in the direction that the scout pointed. The forest whizzed by in a blur of greens and browns as I ran, my nose to the ground, following Chris’s scent.

It didn’t take long to find him. The sound of fists hitting wood echoed through the trees, leading me right to him. I slowed my pace, creeping closer until I could see him clearly through the underbrush.

Chris was back in his human form, shirtless and covered in a sheen of sweat. He was pummeling a large oak tree, his knuckles already bloody and raw. I watched for a moment, my heart aching with the sound of each grunt.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I padded over to him, still in my wolf form, and gently nudged his leg with my snout. Chris startled, looking down at me with wild eyes before recognition set in.

“Ava,” he breathed.

I shifted back into my human form and grabbed his bloody hand. “Chris, what the hell’s going on?” I growled, holding his hand up. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

Chris slumped against the tree and slid down to sit at its base. I sat beside him, taking his battered hands in mine, and inspected the damage. It would heal, but seeing him like this… it was disturbing.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I just... I needed to get away. Let off some steam.”

“The moondeer,” I said, then added when Chris shot me a confused look, “The scout told me.”

Chris sighed and looked down. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I couldn’t argue with that, so I simply nodded and said, “Let me bandage these for you.”

Reaching into the small medical supply bag I kept at my hip from when we surveyed the battleground, I pulled out a roll of bandages and gently began to work. Chris winced as I dabbed at the wounds with antiseptic, but didn’t pull away.

“You’re good at this stuff, you know,” he said softly, watching as I worked. “Have you ever thought of going into medicine?”

I shrugged. “I wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid.”

“Really?” Chris’s eyebrows shot up. “You never told me that. Why didn’t you?”

“Well…” I paused as I rubbed some ointment into the cuts and scrapes with my pinky finger. “I don’t know. Life got in the way, I guess. At the end of the day, it wasn’t really my calling.”

“So what is your calling?”

“Moonstone.”

Chris chuckled softly. “I can see that.” He looked away, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “You’re better at this pack business than I am. I feel like a big fuck-up.”

“Chris…” My fingers stilled in the midst of wrapping his hands. “Don’t say that.”

“But it’s true. We’re in this mess, and three kids died today, and…” He shook his head, dropping his gaze to his lap. “I don’t know. Sometimes, I just want to run away and let someone else handle it.”

“Running won’t fix anything,” I said softly.

As I continued to work, Chris sighed, muttering, “When I was a kid, shifting and running off into the woods was my escape. From my parents, from expectations... from everything. Even now, sometimes I can’t resist the urge. Like today. It’s like... it’s an escape from reality.”

I finished bandaging his hands and looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged, a wry smile touching the corners of his lips. “Sometimes I just want to shift into my wolf form and never come back. Just live out my days as a wolf, free from all this… responsibility.”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut. “You’d consider leaving?” I whispered, unable to keep the hurt from my voice. “Leave the pack? Leave... me?”

Chris’s expression softened, and he reached out to brush a stray hair away from my cheek. “I didn’t say I’d go without you.”

Despite myself, I felt a flutter in my chest at the idea. Running off into the sunset together, just the two of us, free from all our burdens, giving in to our animal sides... It was tempting. There was no denying that.

But it was just a fantasy.

“Well, even if we really wanted to, we couldn’t,” I said, stuffing the leftover bandages back into my pack. “No matter how strong the urge is, I could never leave our people behind. They need us. They need you.”

Chris nodded, unsurprised. “That’s why you’re so good at stopping me from spiraling too much. I look at you, Ava, and I see how strong and capable you are. How you never give up, not even when everything seems stacked against you. And I think... if she can do it, so can I.”

“Then Chris,” I said, cupping his rugged face in my hands, “whenever you feel the urge to run away, don’t run into the woods. Run to me instead.”

Chris leaned into my touch, his eyes closing for a moment. When he opened them again, they were clearer, more focused. “I will,” he promised.

I noticed his hand twitch toward his pocket, a movement I had seen several times before. My head cocked to the side, curious, but Chris seemed to catch himself. Instead of reaching into his pocket, he picked up his jacket from a nearby rock and laid it flat on the forest floor.

“Come here,” he said, pulling me down to lay beside him.

I didn’t fight the urge. We laid down together, and I nestled into his chest, feeling his warm arms wrap around me. His bare skin smelled like sweat and musk, and I could feel my wolf bristling in the back of my mind, the scent of him leaving us both lightheaded.

We laid like that for a few minutes in silence, just listening to the sounds of the teeming forest around us. Despite the skirmish that had taken three lives not far from here, the forest went on as if nothing had happened.

Suddenly, Chris pushed himself up on one elbow, his broad form hovering over me. He brought his bandaged knuckles up to my cheek and gently brushed them across my cheekbone, his thumb tracing along the sensitive skin beneath my eye. I trailed my fingers along his wrist and shivered.

“I love you,” he said softly. “And even if I did run, even if I lost to the urges and just took off, I’d always come back to you.”

My heart stuttered, then, as he leaned down and pressed a gentle, tentative kiss to my lips.