Page 17 of Beneath His Alpha's Wings
He was going to leave me unsupervised? Knash had done it before, but always with stern warnings and locked doors. And since I knew the wardens didn’t fully trust me not to run or try and contact Knash, it seemed like a strange decision. In a way, it made me feel more willing to trust them, if they were going to trust me.
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
“Give my best to Kessel.” Tagger narrowed his eyes in thought. “I’ll probably see you again soon, I need to start making some time for friends again. Take care.”
“Uh, you too?”
Tagger headed down the stairs and I heard the front door close. I crossed the dining room to some curtains that I thought might over look the boat ramp. To my surprise, they opened onto a large balcony! I went out and sure enough, I could see Tagger walking down the path. He untied the boat and pushed it down the ramp.
It wasn’t until he was nearly out of sight when I realized he had just taken the boat we used. I looked around the island for another boat. Were we trapped here? I swallowed hard, feeling a bit like a prisoner again.
The wind coming off the ocean was chilly, so I went in and helped myself to a cup of coffee. I didn’t want to stay in though, I was enjoying the fresh air after too many weeks stuck inside Knash’s house. Even if I was stuck here, I couldn’t say the accommodations weren’t better.
I spotted a distant ship on the horizon and soon found myself actually enjoying the view. A beautiful sunset came and went. I could feel my inner bear getting antsy. It seemed he liked the sunset, even when it wasn’t a full moon.
Once the sky was dark, I could see the distant lights of the mainland. And, off too one side, I could clearly see the rotating beam of a working lighthouse. I wondered if it was the one on Eclipse Island, the larger barrier island that sheltered Half Moon from the ocean. If that was right, then those lights there were Half Moon, which put my house… I squinted at some distant lights, wondering if they were from my town.
My coffee was long gone and I headed back inside, feeling hungry again. I had just finished off a bowl of chips, when Kessel came down the stairs.
Our eyes met and a brief look of embarrassment flashed over his face and he cleared his throat.
“Ah, Lucas… Hello.” He turned away as he hurried across the kitchen, almost like he didn’t want to meet my gaze, and started rummaging through his refrigerator. “Did Tagger head out?”
“Yeah… he took the boat,” I couldn’t resist saying.
“I’m sorry.” Kessel looked at me this time, and I could tell he really was. “That is the only boat, if that’s what you’re getting at. I know that probably makes you uncomfortable.”
It did, then again, it wasn’t as if I knew how to drive a boat or find land easily anyway. “Well, I knew I was uh… staying here.”
“Putting it mildly, I know,” Kessel said. He smiled at me and I couldn’t resist returning it.
“What happens if we need to leave? Does Tagger have to come back?”
“As long as it’s night, I can fly to land from here and bring the boat back.”
“Oh.” I envied the fact he could shift whenever he wanted to, “Must be nice,” I muttered.
“Flying?” he guessed. He winced. “Or do you mean being able to leave the island?”
“Neither. Just… shifting in general, I guess.”
Kessel spread his arms “You’re welcome to, if you like. I’m not sure how surefooted a pregnant bear will be on all of these rocks, but you’re more than welcome to shift and prowl around. There are some mice and rats, if you feel like some tiny prey. Hell, seals come up sometimes, you could try your luck with one of those.” He paused and looked around the room. “You can shift in here too, if you want. Not much room to move around, but if you just want the practice.”
I blinked at him, stunned. He made it sound like I could shift too. Not just on the full moon!
“Er… um… shift like… tonight?” I stammered.
Kessel shrugged. “If you want. I said make yourself at home, and that includes shifting.”
“I’m… I’m an omega.”
He looked at me in confusion, then nodded toward my stomach. “I noticed. I can sense it too, even without seeing.”
“You can?”
He nodded. “You’ll be able to tell alphas from betas and omegas eventually. And shifters from humans.”
“But… I can shift?”
