Page 13 of Wolf's Providence

“I didn’t ask you to come.”

He tilted his head as he considered me with his milky white eyes. “Good thing I don’t answer to you.” He pointed upwards, where the moon was just appearing. “Someone Idoanswer to asked me to come.” He looked over his shoulder as he walked away. “Not freezing on this mountain for you, Caleb. You’re not too far gone you’ll disobey the wish of your Goddess.”

He shifted into his wolf, and while his words irked me, I had no choice but to follow. He was right, Luna was my Goddess, and you didn’t mess with the Goddess…or her shaman.

We descended the peak together. The shaman was surefooted, and had I not known better, I would have said he was familiar with this peak, but I did know better, and despite myself, I kept looking up warily at the moon.

At the heart of my packlands, I kept to the trees, but he refused to shift until I made my way across to him. I didn’t look at where her blood had spilled. The shaman shifted. Picking up asmall pack, he pulled out some clothes, and with a gesture to the fire, he drilled me with a look.

“Won’t light itself,” he grumbled.

“Wasn’t sure if it was your next trick,” I snarked back at him as I looked around. My last pair of jeans were gone. When I turned back, the shaman was holding out a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt.

“They should fit. They’re crumpled but clean.”

Taking them from him, I didn’t ask where he got them, and when a pair of thick socks were tossed at my feet, I pulled them on also.

With the fire going, he stood close to it. “Been a while since I climbed this peak alone,” he told me. “Ten years,” he mused. “I was too late then. Am I too late again?”

“Depends on what you’re hoping to be here for,” I answered flatly. “If it was to stop me harming Willow, you’re too late.”

“Do you grow tired of running?” he asked as he held his hands over the fire.

“I’m not running,” I bit back, hearing how hollow the words sounded to my own ears.

The shaman chortled. “Of course not.” He smiled as he faced the fire, rubbing his hands together. “So…what do you call this? Hiding here in the middle of a graveyard, skulking in the forest, while the woman you love is healing in someone else’s pack?”

I heard her words in my head.“I would have loved you…” Would haveanddidwere two different things.Love. It was a word I hadn’t thought of in a long time and did not deserve to think of it now.

“I have no choice,” I said instead. “You know what I did. I could have killed her.”

“But you didn’t,” the shaman shot back. “You saved her, that’s what matters.”

“She wouldn’t haveneededsaving if I hadn’t hurt her!” Anger laced my tone, making my words harsher.

“Semantics.”

I gaped at him. “Are you serious?”

The shaman turned to look at me. “Are you?”

Clenching my jaw to stop my anger from pouring out, I averted my gaze and tried to focus on something else before I said something I shouldn’t to a vessel of Luna.

“Look at you, biting back your words,” he chuckled in amusement. “And you’re trying to tell me you have no control,” he mocked.

“You don’t understand.” My jaw was so tight my words hardly made it out. “You weren’t there. Ifeltthem. I felt them all around me, they’re everywhere. If I hadn’t pulled back when I did…”

“But youdidpull back. And you know it was notyouractions that dug your claws into Willow. It wasyouwho withdrew your claws. It wasyouthat saved her.” The shaman sighed softly. “I know you are scared of becoming something you cannot control. But leaving her? It’s not the answer. Especially now.”

Watching him carefully, I mulled over his words. What was the plan here? “I thought you were concerned I was rogue?”

“I am.” His answer was simple, no hidden weight. It made me wary. “The Goddess is too. The more you stay in your wolf form, the more the humanity inside you dies. Your darkness is unforgiving, Caleb. You need to come back into the light.”

“There’s no light left for me, old one.”

The truth was harsh, but it was the truth nonetheless. I knew the danger of turning rogue. I’d seen it in others. I’d seen the madness in their eyes, the pure animalistic rage that consumed them when the beast within was untamed. I used to think it was a fate worse than death. But I knew, little by little, inching closer every day, it had been creeping up on me.

And I had let it.

---