Page 2 of Ravish
She took a breath and tried to relax her posture. She hated coming into the small town, even though she did have her best friend and her twin to keep her company, making her feel less isolated at times, but having to sit and be amongst the people of Moonshadow, who feared and disliked her, had always put her on edge.
She never knew what she would get from the clan, whether they would be hostile or civil to her when she encountered them. She couldn’t blame them, but she was not like her father and would not harm anyone willingly.
Today, they were preoccupied with the new announcement, and they didn’t mind her being amongst them, not even the heir to Moonshadow. The guilt she felt when in Roland’s presence for what her father had done to his mother and the way his eyes would watch her coldly, with anger, distaste, and something else that she couldn’t describe. She tried to stay out of Roland's vicinity as much as possible.
For Shea growing up in Moonshadow, Roland had always been a force to reckon with and had all the young female hearts racing, including hers, but all that ended the day he came back from a hunt to find his mother dead. She had no business thinking of him romantically anymore and buried her childish crush on him. Shea settled into a life of solitude that she told herself she didn’t mind. It helped that she did love living on the piece of land her parents had bought when they mated, away from everyone else.
The property was fruitful with the best soil for her mother’s garden and plants, and it was close to the forest where her mother would forage for healing plants and herbs to add to the ones she was able to grow on her own.
Her mother loved helping and treating people in the community who needed her help, and she’d taken up that mantle that her mother had worn, helping those in need like her mother before and her mother before that. She would send the medicine by Emiyah or Adanya, or as a last resort, herself, if they were busy.
His silver-blue gaze panned over the faces of the people living and working in the Moonshadow community that was part of the many different shapeshifter bands living in the Mackenzie Mountains, away from human civilization. Humans a long time ago had discovered that there were shapeshifters as well as other paranormal beings walking amongst them. Some lived amongst the humans, and crossbreeding happened, or others preferred to live with their own kind, enjoying living in the wild away from the hustle and bustle of city life.
Fantasy had been one of the shifters that lived with the humans and came back after finishing her degree. She’d met and married a human, and then he’d passed away from an illness; she’d returned home closed off and cold, not wanting to become mated to anyone else. Fantasy was still a very sexually active woman, and while one-night stands with the single men in the community suited her, she did not have to worry about getting emotionally involved with someone.
That was all about to change because the lupin procreation cycle was soon to be upon them again. The Lycan women would go into insatiable, intense heat and be open to bonding and mating with another eligible mate. This usually started with their clan when the women hit twenty-five and would occur every two years. There have been instances where some women had a heat as early as twenty-one or it hadn’t happened at all for a few others, but that was very rare. Shea had prayed she would be one of the latter women, but then she wassuddenly awash in sweat and could feel a warmth building inside her, signalling the beginning of the heat. She knew she was living in a fool's paradise, and when they began to come on, she could not deny that she was one of the lucky ones to not have the heat cycle. Shea had gone to desperate measures to ensure she would not be bred or mated on her first year of the cycle.
But a fated mate was coveted above all else, and it was a particular scent that the female gave off during the heat season that would trigger her fated mate’s eyes to turn a golden color. When they coupled, the female's eye color would change as well. Fated mates had a special bond between them and were thought to be predestined. It was a gift to be together through this eternity and the next, and from just their copulation, the female would become pregnant.
Shea took after her mother, but she was also very accomplished in science and chemistry and had been taught everything she knew by her father. She modified her father’s drug and turned it into a blocker that would deactivate the specific heat-breeding gene in the female shifter. It had been a risky attempt on herself, but she had Emiyah looking over her, and Adanya had built a fortifying room that she couldn’t break out of, or anyone get in, with a mechanism that locked and remained locked until a code was put in to enter or exit. The only one that knew the exit code was Adanya, and the one to lock herself in Shea created and told Emiyah as a backup.
No one in the village, including the king, was supposed to know what she was doing. She put these safety protocols in place so as not to harm anyone while she was experimenting on the drug that caused her father to go berserk.
Shea took a small sample and mixed it with a blend of the herbs her mother had taught her about. These herbs helped witheasing the heavy flow of the menstrual cycle and shortened the length of the bleed.
She’d sworn the girls to secrecy with the promise that if it worked, she would allow them to use it on the next cycle with her. And the trial testing did work, with the only side effect being a headache after. She’d given herself injections for the three days that the cycle would last for and documented everything. She was going to keep using it until she was no longer able to have children, and everyone would just believe she was one of those who didn’t go into heat.
Emiyah wanted it for her first cycle, her argument being that she knew in her heart that Mack was her fated mate, but he was being stubborn and wasn’t ready yet to be a parent. Shea thought it was really because Emiyah didn’t want to take the chance that she and Mack were not a match and be only mated to someone else that she was not in love with.
Shea didn’t agree and wanted her friend happy and mated to anyone else but Mack. She still listened to her best friend tell her, her deepest thoughts. Emiyah believed she belonged to the tall, silent brute, just like she knew that Shea would become her best friend.
She’d hoped Emiyah was wrong about Mack because that way would only lead to a sad end for her friend. Even though they went into mating heat, the male could refuse to bond with the female and mark her, and without it, a female would be left as a shell of herself without the connection to her mate. The same with a male if he lost his fated mate or she didn’t want him.
Adanya's excuse was she felt she was too young and didn’t want to become a mother right away; she wanted to have different male sexual relations just like Fantasy and would eventually stop taking it when she was ready.
They had all sworn to keep it a secret, but Emiyah, when confronted, was the weakest link out of all of them, and she ended up telling Fantasy what was going on.
Fantasy found out when she went out one day for a run, coming upon Emiyah talking to herself on one of the trails. Emiyah's feelings were hurt after Mack had ignored her and walked away, and Fantasy found her muttering to herself about reconsidering taking the drug to stop herself from being mated.
Fantasy was now a part of their group after discovering their secret, proclaiming that she didn’t want to be tied to anyone and would keep their secret if they made her a part of the plan.
Shea had pointed out in exasperation that with that many of them not having a cycle, they would now become under suspicion. Fantasy had come up with an idea for her and the twins.
Fantasy would make plans to be away during the heat cycle, as she would tell people she needed to tend to some of her late husband’s affairs and was going to go on a solo trip during that time. As a widow, she had privileges that the single women in the clan did not, and no one had ever expired from the heating cycle. But the heat cycle could be painful and make the woman crazy during that three-day period, until it was over. The heat made you desperately want to assuage the need to mate.
Fantasy then pointed out for Emiyah and Adanya that them not getting into heat could be explained as easily as them being twins and their heat cycles being out of sync. They could go into heat a year later, as this had happened before in another clan.
Shea pondered; now with this new dilemma too, the whole village was preoccupied with Roland’s announcement, and it would make it easier for them to get away with their plan.
She glanced at her watch, hoping the meeting would end soon, as she needed to get home and finish the serum for the four of them. She only had a day or two to get it finished in time before the cycle hit, especially when it could come on differently for all of them.
Her thoughts scattered when Roland continued, “We will be adding extra patrols until we figure out what it is that they are looking for with Mack leading them. Any man or woman who would like to volunteer to patrol, there will be a sign-up sheet waiting for you outside; just know you will follow Mack’s commands until I say otherwise.”
There were murmurs again, and a few men and women shook their heads in agreement.
“Do you think it will affect the mating heat coming up soon?” A male voice piped up.
“I am not sure, but I see no threat at the moment, and if so, we will join the other clans to root them out.” His handsome face was now set in a cold, determined mask.
