Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,46

read auras. To sense things about a person from that alone. We’d mated her, claimed her, bound her to us, and with each passing moment, her powers had morphed as only a true omega’s could.

I scrubbed a hand over my face, wondering if all women with such gifts were omegas in the making, if Lara’s destiny was also tied to a pack’s, but before I could utter a word in question, the wolves started howling around the house.

Tension pounded my question into dust as I carefully untangled myself from the hold I had my mate in, and I listened, my head cocked to the side as I registered what the choral song of so many distinct voices meant.

I knew Sabina didn’t understand what each howl signified, but I could. I knew who was singing for me, knew if they were natural or supernatural too.

Then I heard her, and my heart pounded.

Merinda.

Mother.

Berry.

So many names, but…she was still here.

I wasn’t sure if she’d left, if, like Sabina had suggested, that glimpse of her after Lara first arrived was the last I’d ever see of her.

I’d followed her path for years, listened to her advice, forced myself to rule this pack in my father’s image because of her, and I knew I was a prime candidate for a shrink telling me I had mommy issues, but beyond that? I knew if she was howling, then I had to take note.

“What is it? What’s happening?” Lara rasped, her shoulders tense with strain as her gaze flickered around the room.

My nostrils flared as I surged onto my feet and strode toward the wall of windows.

Austin’s voice was surprisingly calm as he told her, “Someone’s here.”

Someone we’d been expecting for a good long while, even if now was the most inconvenient moment for a confrontation.

I heard thudding outside, small feet rapping against the tiled corridor as they made it to our door. And when it flew open and I saw Daniel standing there, panting, I turned away from the window and took in the sight of his terrified eyes, of the skin that was sprouting fur in a way that beckoned a half-shift, as he whimpered, “They’ve come for me.” And he flashed into a wolf, piddled on the floor, before retreating to a half-shift once more.

Nine

Lara

His terror was pure.

His terror was ancient.

It wasn’t the fear of a small child. It wasn’t the worries of a boy who’d barely hit, what, ten?

It was real, so real that I could feel the weight of it in him, in his soul. I sensed his expectation, not that he was looking forward to this moment, but that he’d known it would come.

Worse still, I sensed it in all of Sabina’s men.

The desire to soothe them was a new one, and it didn’t help because I wasn’t the person who could ease them. I could read someone, but I couldn’t act on it. Sabina had always had that gift. It wasn’t a metaphysical trait. Wasn’t something that could be considered a gift. But by nature, she’d been gentle. Always willing to help. Generous with herself.

As for me, I’d only been able to sense something odd, before I’d learned how to lock myself inside the cage I’d spent a lifetime forging.

My gifts made me selfish. Made me run and hide away.

Sabina was different, but then, she’d had a different life to me. A different passage…

My gifts made me think I was going crazy. Hers made her seem like she could read people as if they were an open book.

“What’s going on?” I demanded, staring at the boy as he seemed to transition in a way that belonged in a horror movie.

I’d seen the hyena transform from man to beast, and this was like that but so much slower. It was only now that I recognized how I hadn’t expected this to happen. How I hadn’t expected this to be possible.

Children could shift too.

It was a revelation that made me feel dumb.

I should have figured it out sooner, but it wasn’t as if I’d had a lot of time to come to terms with this hybrid of man and beast. I’d barely stopped being attacked by one kind before I’d been brought here, into the home of a different type of… what were they? Different species?

Different races within their kind?

Gnawing on the inside of my cheek to withhold the scream that throbbed in my throat, I stared a little blindly at the child.

Hair popped out of tiny pores, his eyes were flashing