You Should Come

Kaleem’s [POV]

It didn’t snow often in Wolfcreek. Even during winter, we’d get snow for a week max, and then it would melt, but for a few days now, the temperature kept dropping. Even during the bonfire party three days ago, it had been cold, although wolves were unbothered by a bit of chill.

Throughout the town, species who couldn’t handle the cold were in layers, trying to keep warm, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it started snowing soon.

The last time it had snowed, the forest had been a frosty paradise. The trees were covered in white, and the crunch of the snow beneath my feet had been tranquil. Of course, after a while, I missed the greenery and smell of the earth, but a change was good sometimes.

Since the sun was setting, the cold was being invited in more than during the daytime, and I decided to take a walk through the town with my groceries in hand.

Wolfcreek was a place of unity, and I’d never felt the need to leave. The streets were lined with tall trees, now leafless but still beautiful. I understood others wanted to branch out and see the rest of the world, and I’d done that multiple times. I even encouraged my pack members to see the world, but nowhere could compare to Wolfcreek, not to me.

There was a sense of peace here, like a paranormal force spreading only peace through the town. It wasn’t perfect here, and we’ve had our fair share of accidents and fights, but those were few compared to the number of good days.

“Kaleem!” Someone yelled from across the street.

I stopped and turned to find a Gorgon waving at me, the snakes atop her head hidden under a scarf, but there were patches of scales on her cheeks and arms.

“Hey, Julie,” I called back and waved.

“We’re having a party tomorrow night,” she pointed at the café she owned behind her. “You should come!”

A bus drove by, blocking my view of her, and when it passed, I gave her a thumbs up. “I’ll be there! I’ll tell the rest of the pack!”

“Thanks! See you!” She waved and made her way inside the café, and I continued walking.

Here people understood that there was no point in fighting each other for a slice of the world that was more than big enough to hold us all. That was the beauty of this remote town. Everyone cared for each other, helped each other, and offered support when needed.

The joy of peace was far greater than the aches of war.

Ever since I spoke to Nazanin about Diana and I got that strange phone call, I hadn’t been able to get Diana off my mind. I usually thought of her daily, and I’d been doing so since she left, but now, I couldn’t think of anything but her.

There were moments we’d spent together that I’d pushed so far down I forgot them, and now I was remembering them. Like the glances we’d stolen during joint pack meetings and whenever we saw each other in town.

Our secret mate bond had been hard to keep from others but also exhilarating.

When the wind blew by me, I stopped in my tracks, and my nostrils flared. A familiar scent that I hadn’t smelt in years was perfuming the air. It was faint, but it was there and not something I was imagining.

I took two steps back, and it grew stronger, so I turned to walk back the way I’d come.

The scent was the strongest before an alleyway darkening by the second while the sun continued to leave us. Moving my bag of groceries from one hand to the next, I tried to ignore my wolf howling in my head for me to enter the alley.

When I did so, within seconds, I came face to face with Diana as if she was waiting for me. I’d known it was her, but a part of me hadn’t wanted it to be.

I held my breath in an attempt to ground myself. If she was here, her pack was too, and so was Colin, if he was still their alpha. Neither of us spoke nor looked away from each other for a second.

Memories from our past came flooding back, and my wolf whimpered. There was a time when I’d feel our mate bond snap like a whip the very second I saw her. Now there was only pain and a black hole where we were once connected.

“Diana,” I said low, and she combed her hair back from her face.

It was longer than the last time I’d seen her, and she was also a lot smaller, too small, in fact. But her cold stare was all I could focus on, I deserved it. I earned the hatred I could see in her gaze.

“Kaleem,” she replied drily, and I placed my groceries on the ground by my feet.

“Is Colin here?” I asked, and she looked away, the skin between her brows creasing. “If the pack has returned this time, being chased from the town won’t be the resolve. Colin and anyone that follows him will be killed.”

I was being cold by not even asking how she was doing, but I couldn’t think of myself right now and the joy of seeing her… my beautiful mate. Her pack was problematic and a problem Wolfcreek didn’t need. Diana wasn’t the issue. Colin was.

“He’s not here,” she growled. “He sent me to speak with you.”

“Speak to me about what?” I asked. “Colin has nothing to say that I want to hear.”

Diana growled while removing a hand from her jacket pocket to point at me. “I’m not enjoying this little reunion either, and I’m not a fan of Colin, you know that, so I’m not here on his behalf alone. My pack’s in danger.”

“What danger?” I asked without hesitation, which was strange.

I’d gone years not knowing what had happened to her, and now, hearing her pack was in danger and, in extension, her, I couldn’t help feeling concerned.

“Anti-supers,” she replied, and I leaned back. That was a threat I knew all about, as did everyone. “We’ve lost three members to them over the years, and now they’re in the new town we’re living in. We don’t have a territory, we haven’t found one since we left years ago.”

She’d been moving from place to place all this time? I gritted my teeth at that and forced myself not to imagine the life she’d been living on the run, no wonder she looked so small and fragile. Werewolves, even the women, tended to be more robust than other species.

But she’d decided to side with Colin, and I made mine to protect my pack and this town.

“I see,” I grumbled, and her nose crinkled with annoyance.

“Anti-supers are the enemy to us all. Children are in danger, Kaleem, and we want to return to Wolfcreek. I wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t important. Colin challenged you and lost, and for over a decade, we’ve all been punished for his actions.”

“His actions?” I shot back. “The way I remember it, your entire pack attacked mine, not just Colin.”

“And most of those wolves are dead now,” she rebutted. “The ones who took part in the attack and survived are either dead or left our pack and became rogues because no pack will accept Bluemoon members. No one is interested in repeating the past.”

She closed her eyes and took a breath. “I don’t want to argue. I didn’t come here for that. We only want to return home. Colin learned his lesson, and we’re a pack of nineteen. We’re not a threat to anyone, but we are. There are young pups among us that are scared, that don’t have a forest to run in freely or even proper food.”

She looked away, her emotions getting the best of her.

I didn’t say anything, and neither did she. I didn’t want to argue either, and I wasn’t heartless enough to not understand what she was saying. A pack without a territory was the perfect prey for the anti-super menace.

“Colin wants to meet with you,” she said after a while. “He said the decision will be yours for us to return or not, so he wants to meet so you can lay out your terms.”

She walked by me, our conversation apparently over, and it took everything in me to not stop her, to not beg her to stay and give me a chance to apologize for what happened between us.

“Was it you?” I asked instead. “Was it you that called three days ago?”

When I turned around, her back was facing me. She remained silent, and when I stepped forward to approach her, she glanced over her shoulder, her eyes glowing, eyes that had once made me feel indescribable things.

“I’ll find you tomorrow to get your answer,” she growled, then continued walking.

I watched her leave, just as I had before, and the cold air began to seep into my skin, chilling me to my bones.

Diana’s back.

The Bluemoon Pack separated from mine many decades ago. A new bloodline hadn’t been created in centuries and one sprang up out of nowhere, Colin’s bloodline, and that was where everything went downhill. As that bloodline grew within my pack, a shift started to happen, and soon after an inevitable divide happened, forcing Colin’s family to leave and create the Bluemoon Pack that became the enemy.

At first, there was peace until they began to state a claim to our territory, being unsatisfied with the one they had outside of Wolfcreek. The conflict had stretched on for years until Colin took it upon himself to attack my pack.

“You’re not considering meeting with him, are you?” Odulf, an elderly wolf, inquired pulling me back to the present.

I was at the packhouse, and after calling the pack’s elders together, I told them about my meeting with Diana and that Colin was interested in returning. Odulf, Nazanin, Killian, and Conner were present, and so far, Odulf and Conner were against meeting with Colin.

I couldn’t blame them. Like me, they could easily remember the night our pack was attacked without warning.

When I glanced at Killian, he was staring at me, his brow arched, which was a look I understood all too well because he knew what Diana was to me. He knew what she had meant to me, so he knew what seeing her after all this time was doing to me.

I couldn’t stop seeing her face.

I was reminded of her intoxicating scent, and every inhale I took was like she was standing beside me. He looked worried but had no reason to be. I was this pack’s alpha above all else, as much as that forced me to make decisions that left me broken.

“There are young pups at risk,” Nazanin spoke up. “They are the next generation and weren’t the ones that wronged us over a decade ago.”

“And how do we know these pups aren’t being used as an excuse for Colin to weasel his way back into town?” Adult countered, his grey beard long enough to be braided. “We can’t trust Colin.”

“And we don’t,” I said and drew everyone’s attention to me. I wasn’t in the mental space to deal with an argument. “Trusting Colin is off the table, but I won’t be the alpha that handed pups over to anti-supers to be killed or worse. It’s one thing to welcome the Bluemoon Pack and find out that Colin still hasn’t learned his lesson compared to not welcoming them when he has. The death of those children will be on our hands, Odulf, because we turned them away. I’d banished Colin and his older members, not these innocent pups.”

Odulf’s lips pulled into a thin line, but he said nothing further.

I’d known pups would come along after I banished the Bluemoon Pack, but I’d expected Colin to find his people a new territory. Instead, they were being dragged from place to place all this time.

Having a territory meant being considered a genuine pack by law, which came with benefits and protection.

“I’ll meet with him,” I said after some time. “I’ll hear what he has to say and tell him my terms that all his pack members will have to follow to be welcomed back into the town. I have no intention of welcoming them blindly.”

Conner, who was yet to speak, stood up. “We trust your judgment, Alpha Kaleem, but we’ll never welcome anyone from that pack in our hearts.”

Conner had no idea how much hearing those words was like a vampire’s fangs sinking into my heart. One of the many things Diana and I had feared was that she might not be welcomed by my pack.

Back then, I’d reassured her that my people were kind and any mate of mine wouldn’t be turned away. The bond between us was broken, but now, even if we were to rekindle our mate bond by marking each other, I feared my pack wouldn’t accept her.

“Agreed,” I practically growled and avoided looking at Killian.

I wanted her to be safe, but could I handle living in this town with her again? Could I handle seeing her with other potential mates? The thought alone made me want to rip everything in this damn room to shreds.

But I’d given her up, and likewise, she chose her pack, and I couldn’t let our past affect my decision. I couldn’t afford to be biased.

“You won’t be going alone to meet him?” Nazanin asked, and Killian shook his head.

“Of course not,” he told her. “I’ll be going with him, and we’ll decide on the location for the meeting, right, brother?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

There was nothing more to say after that, and everyone left until only Killian and him remained. When he sat down across from me and sighed, I pinned him with a glare.

“Don’t, brother,” I growled, and he held his hands up.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” he mumbled, which I knew was a lie. He wasn’t capable of not voicing his opinions, but right now, I just couldn’t handle that. “But, how is she?”

I took a breath. “Not okay,” I replied. “And she hates me.”

I started removing my shirt, my wolf clawing at my insides to be freed. I left without saying a word and was halfway through my shift before making it out of the house.

I needed to run, to be free and feel the earth beneath my paws, or I’d lose it.

Black fur burst forth from beneath my skin, and my bones broke and rearranged until I was charging through the forest, weaving through the trees, and even when it started snowing, the white droplets contrasting to my midnight black fur, I kept running, wishing I could run to the only woman I’d ever loved and the only woman I ever will.