Guilded Moon: A Sapphic Fantasy Romance (QueerWolf Book 3), page 4
Naomi stayed to work with the drones, muttering about signal strength and weather interference. I circled the compound once more, taking note of the small changes that marked the integration of new wolves into established routines, shifting just as I stepped onto the porch.
The shift always came with a dull ache, the kind that settled in your bones like you were caught halfway between wolf and human, never quite fully one or the other. Luckily, you got used to it. The discomfort became background noise, as familiar as heartbeat or breathing.
Inside, the warmth didn't reach me, couldn't penetrate the chill that had settled in my chest. I passed Olivia in the hallway, and she murmured something about checking on the pups before moving on, her medical bag in hand and her face already focused on the tasks ahead.
The house was coming alive around me, wolves stirring and beginning their daily routines. I could hear water running in the bathrooms, quiet conversations drifting from the kitchen, the soft shuffle of feet on wooden floors. Normal sounds of normal lives, the kind I'd worked so hard to make possible.
I found Princess in the radio room, hunched over the comms desk with the focused intensity of someone trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing. Her fingers moved across the controls with practiced efficiency, adjusting frequencies and scanning channels.
The tone in the room wasn't right, there was tension in the air, sharp and metallic, like the taste of blood.
"What is it?"
She didn't look at me, just adjusted a frequency dial with more force than necessary. Static crackled through the speakers, punctuated by occasional bursts of interference that sounded almost like voices.
"Jewel's a few hours past scheduled check-in. That wouldn't usually worry me, but…" She trailed off, gesturing at the radio with frustration.
"But?"
"I just got a partial ping. Something came through about twenty minutes ago, but it was so broken up I could barely make sense of it."
The hairs on my arms rose, primitive instincts recognizing danger even when my rational mind was still processing the information.
Princess slid headphones toward me. The static changed pitch, and then, faintly, like a voice calling through fog, Jewel's familiar tone emerged.
"…repeat, this is Ghost Relay Nine. Position unknown movement near Sector Nine… not… Hunters…"
Then silence.
Full, terrifying silence that seemed to echo in the small room.
My teeth clenched. "Replay that."
She did, her fingers steady despite the tension radiating from her body.
No new details emerged, no hidden words buried in the static. Just that single, broken transmission, and then nothing.
My pulse picked up, adrenaline beginning to flood my system as the implications sank in. Sector Nine was the forest cut near one of the old fuel lines. A remote territory that served as a buffer zone between safe areas and Hunter-controlled land. Too far out for a casual raid unless they were planning something much larger, much more coordinated than their usual operations.
"What does she mean, 'not Hunters'?"
Princess shook her head, frustration evident in every line of her body. "Could be internal, maybe she was trying to say it wasn't what they expected. Could have also been 'not sure, Hunters’, the transmission was too broken to be certain. It could be Sloane, or someone else entirely."
I growled, the sound coming from somewhere deep in my chest.
"She's still out there?"
Princess shrugged, but I could see the worry she was trying to hide. "You didn't kill her either, so yeah, she's probably still causing problems somewhere."
I turned away, jaw clenched. The shift from shy captive to confident Alpha had been remarkable to watch, but Princess's newfound willingness to challenge authority, especially mine, was taking some adjustment.
"Jewel's not alone. Jess should've been nearby."
“If she's trying to stay embedded, she can't just check in whenever she wants. Radio silence might be the only thing keeping her alive."
I stared past the wall, vision unfocusing as I tried to piece together what might be happening in territory I couldn't see, couldn't protect, couldn't control.
"She's walking into it," I said quietly, the certainty settling in my gut like lead.
Footsteps behind us, quick and purposeful. Alexis's voice cut through the tension: "Did I just hear Jewel?"
She stepped into the room without waiting for an invitation, her face already shadowed with the kind of concern that came from too much experience with bad news. "Play it again."
Princess hesitated, glancing between us as if weighing the wisdom of involving more people in what might be a crisis, then activated the playback.
When the static cut out for the second time, Alexis stood there with her shoulders tight enough to snap, every line of her body broadcasting readiness for action.
"Do we go after them?"
"We can't," Princess said, though I could hear the reluctance in her voice. "Not yet. Not without more information, more certainty about what we'd be walking into."
Alexis looked at me, and I felt the weight of her expectation, her trust that I would make the right call even when there was no clearly right answer.
I didn't look away.
"Not yet," I agreed. "But we plan like we will."
The fire crackled low, throwing gold shadows that danced across the clearing like living things.
I stayed back, near the edge of the trees, where the light didn't quite reach and where I could observe without being observed. The others had gathered naturally: Ghost Pack, Mayfield, Haven, tangled together in a way that should have been awkward but wasn't. Maybe trauma sanded down the rough edges faster than time did, creating bonds forged in shared survival rather than simple proximity.
Princess sat on a low stone, her posture easy but her eyes sharp as she scanned the faces around her. The firelight made her hair blaze like copper, and there was something timeless about the scene—wolves gathering around flame, sharing stories and warmth against the darkness.
She wasn't holding court, there was no Alpha dominance in her posture. Just sharing stories, being present with her pack in the most fundamental way.
She was telling them legends about how we, as shifters, had started. Creation myths and origin stories that connected them to something larger than their individual traumas. About the first walls we built, the first packs to run under the Goddess's moonlight, the ancient covenants that bound wolf to wolf across time and distance.
The younger wolves hung on her every word, their faces reflecting the firelight and the wonder of discovering they belonged to something ancient and meaningful.
Tali and Emma sat closest, their knees brushing Princess's legs in the unconscious way of pack animals seeking comfort. Neither seemed to notice, their attention completely focused on the story unfolding.
Touch meant trust.
Touch meant home.
My chest tightened, memory and regret twisting together like thorns.
I remembered when the pups of Mayfield used to pile around my boots without fear, when being near me meant safety rather than judgment. When just my scent could settle a campfire full of restless bodies, when my presence was comfort rather than authority to be navigated carefully.
Before.
Before I'd learned that leadership meant isolation, that protecting others required keeping them at arm's length.
I shifted my stance, feeling the dampness of the earth seep through the soles of my boots. The smell of woodsmoke drifted across the clearing, curling around the edges of my jacket, but it didn't warm the cold place in my chest that seemed to grow larger every day.
Tali laughed, bright and quick, the sound of someone young enough to still find joy despite everything she'd survived. Emma leaned in, her shoulder pressing against Princess's thigh, and Princess simply smiled and let them stay like that, accepting their need for contact without making it about dominance or permission.
No command.
No ownership.
Just belonging.
I turned away before the scene could cut any deeper, before I could start cataloging all the ways I'd failed to create this kind of easy intimacy with my own pack in recent years.
Beyond the fire, the cabins stood dark and still, though I could see lights in a few windows where wolves had chosen solitude over community. Most of the younger Haven wolves were here, but some of the older ones had found excuses to be elsewhere. I couldn't blame them. Sometimes it was easier to face silence than kindness, especially when kindness felt too fragile to trust.
Maya sat apart from the others, positioned where she could see everything without being fully part of it. Not so far as to be rude, but far enough that firelight only touched her in fragments, leaving half her face in shadow.
She wasn't laughing or asking questions like the others. Just sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees, watching everything with the kind of intensity that missed nothing.
It wasn't distrust I read on her face. It was calculation, assessment, the careful evaluation of someone who'd learned that survival meant understanding the dynamics of every group before deciding how much to invest.
Maya was measuring us, weighing the authenticity of what she saw against whatever experiences had taught her to be cautious. The way any wolf would when deciding whether a new den was worth trusting, whether the pack bonds on display were real or performance.
But there was something else in her expression, something that made my breath catch. Recognition, yes, but more than that. It was a hunger for belonging that she was trying very hard to hide.
She didn't know. Not yet. But somehow… she knew.
I forced myself to look away before the old, broken bond with her mother could somehow come to life and call her attention to what I was trying to keep buried.
Princess's voice rose, carrying clearly across the clearing. "…we chose to stay. We chose to fight for something better. You're not alone anymore. You never will be again."
A ripple moved through the crowd, shoulders easing, heads lifting, the subtle physical signs of wolves allowing themselves to hope.
Pride flickered in my gut, warm and unexpected.
Princess had grown into something we needed. Not just another Alpha, but a leader who could inspire rather than simply command.
And I… I was still standing at the edge of everything I'd built, pretending the distance was my choice, pretending I didn't ache to be part of what they were creating.
I had no one touching me anymore, no easy intimacy or casual contact. And it was my own damn fault, the price I'd paid for choosing duty over connection, for believing that leadership meant isolation in order to keep them safe.
I left before the fire burned low, while the stories were still flowing and the laughter still carried hope.
Naomi's eyes followed me as I retreated into the shadows, and I caught the concerned tilt of her head before I turned away. No one tried to stop me though. The one in my pack understood, or thought they did, that sometimes Alphas needed space to think.
The woods swallowed me within a few steps, darkness closing around me like a familiar embrace. No torchlight penetrated this far, just the soft crackle of leaves underfoot and the distant rustle of small creatures going about their nocturnal business.
I didn't shift this time.
The human part of me needed to ache tonight. I wanted the bruising thud of boots against soft earth, the rough catch of breath in my lungs, the sharp bite of cold air against my skin. Something to hold on to that was real and immediate and mine.
The wolf would have dulled the pain, simplified the complex tangle of emotions into basic categories of threat and safety. But if we were going to have any chance of surviving what was coming, if we were going to see the other side of this without silver wrapped around our necks, we would have to embrace the human capacity for fear and anger and love before we could channel it through our wolves.
The old trail curved toward the southern ridge, following the path I'd walked so many times it was worn smooth under countless footsteps. The same route I used to take when the nights got too heavy, when the weight of leadership pressed down like physical force.
Back then, a second set of footsteps always followed me.
Back then, I never had to walk it alone.
I stopped near an old meeting ground from the early days of Mayfield. It was a small clearing where we'd once held pack meetings before the numbers grew too large for the small, intimate space.
Too many ghosts lived here, too many memories of decisions that had seemed so clear at the time.
I breathed in sharp pine and damp moss, letting the familiar scents settle in my lungs like armor against the chaos of my thoughts.
And then there were footsteps, soft but purposeful.
I didn't turn.
I knew that gait as well as I knew my own heartbeat, could recognize the rhythm of her movement even after all these years apart.
Alexis.
She came up beside me without announcement, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off her skin and catch the scent that still made my wolf restless with recognition.
Neither of us spoke, the silence stretching between us like a bridge we were both afraid to cross.
Firelight from camp was just a faint glow behind us, filtering through the trees in scattered patches. The woods ahead were pure darkness, vast and unknowable.
Alexis shifted, her bare soles making soft sounds against the forest floor. Her shoulder brushed mine in a contact so brief it might have been accidental, except nothing about Alexis was ever accidental.
I didn't move away.
"Old habits die hard, huh?" she said, voice low and rough with something I couldn't quite identify.
I stared straight ahead, not trusting myself to look at her. "Some don't die at all.”
I felt her smile rather than saw it, a subtle shift in her breathing that I remembered from a thousand other nights.
Silence stretched between us, taut, heavy, alive with everything we weren't saying and all the things we'd said before that couldn't be taken back.
She exhaled, breath visible in the cool air like a small ghost. "I saw how you looked at her."
I didn't pretend not to understand.
Maya.
The name sat between us like a stone thrown into still water, creating ripples that spread in all directions.
I closed my eyes briefly, trying to center myself in the present moment rather than the complicated web of past and future that Maya represented.
"If she asks me the truth," I said quietly, "I don't know what I'll say."
Alexis didn't flinch, didn't offer platitudes or easy answers. Just stood there beside me, solid and present, both of us facing the woods like we were waiting for answers to emerge from the darkness.
"Then say what you couldn't before," she said, voice steady like a lifeline thrown across dangerous water. "This time, no one can stop you. The bond isn't in the way, there's no pack politics or territorial disputes to navigate. Just truth."
The laugh died in my chest before it could form, crumbling into something brittle and sharp.
I turned just enough to catch her profile in the weak moonlight that filtered through the canopy. Her face was thinner than I remembered, carved into something harder by years of survival and loss. But the basic architecture was the same, the strong line of her jaw, the way her hair caught light even in darkness, the stubborn set of her mouth that had always meant she was thinking about something she didn't want to share.
She must have felt me looking as her gaze flicked to meet mine with the same magnetic pull that had always existed between us.
And for a second, just a second, I saw it.
Gold overlaid with emotion, vulnerability bleeding through the careful control she usually maintained. The flicker of the woman who had once pressed her forehead to mine in the dark and promised me forever, who had believed we could build something that would last.
I jerked my gaze away, the contact too intense to sustain.
"It's not that simple.”
"Nothing ever is," Alexis replied, and there was resignation in her voice along with something that might have been regret. "It never really was, even when we pretended everything was okay, even when we thought love was enough to overcome everything else."
We stood there until the chill crept under my jacket and settled in my bones, until I could feel winter reasserting itself despite spring's earlier promises.
I wondered how she wasn't shivering. But Alexis had always run warm, could walk barefoot through snow and emerge with pink cheeks instead of frostbite. It was one of the things that had made sharing a bed with her so appealing, her body heat seeping through blankets and skin to warm places I didn't even know were cold.
Finally, Alexis straightened, the movement subtle but decisive, brushing her hand lightly against my arm in a gesture that was goodbye and promise all at once.
"I'll see you in the morning.”
Not a question asking for permission.
Not a threat demanding compliance.
A promise offered freely, the kind that could be broken without consequences but wouldn't be.
I didn't answer, couldn't trust my voice to remain steady.
Just watched the shadows swallow her as she made her way back toward the lights and warmth of home.
I stayed long after her footsteps faded, long enough for the cold to seep through my jacket and settle in my bones, wishing I didn't still know how she smelled after a long patrol, like pine and effort and the wild spaces between safety and danger. Wishing I didn't remember the weight of her hand against my spine when nightmares made sleep impossible and only touch could chase away the darkness.
Wishing I didn't still want things I had no right to want, didn't still need someone I'd already lost once and couldn't afford to lose again.
CHAPTER 4
The pre-dawn cold bit deep as I crossed the eastern field, boots crunching over dew-slick grass. The moisture had frozen overnight, leaving each blade coated in a thin shell of ice that cracked underfoot with tiny, crystalline sounds. The sky was still iron-gray, the first slices of light barely bleeding over the horizon. Dawn came reluctantly this time of year, as if even the sun was hesitant to witness what the day might bring, as the weather was a cruel mistress in this area. Summer and shorts one moment, power lines down from ice the next. I remembered once standing in a field with hail to one side and sun on the other.
