The Bite (Book 1)

Original Edition - Chapter 30: Across the Line

"Morning Char!" Remi yelled from the bottom of the porch stairs.

"Morning future first beta," I replied back as I jogged down the stairs. I quickly hugged Remi who was still beaming with pride and excitement. "I'm so happy for you."

"Thanks," he said as we pulled away. "It feels right. I don't know, I thought being a tracker was what I was meant to do, but I guess not."

"You'll be great, you already do a good job keeping Liam in line now." He sighed and nodded tiredly. "Speaking of, where is he?"

"Almost here, he got a late start this morning. He and Lyanna were up late playing Mario Cart and he slept through his alarm by like thirty minutes."

I rolled my eyes. "Lazy asshole."

"You're telling me," Remi muttered under his breath.

I could smell him coming before the door even opened. Evan walked through with a pair of basketball shorts on and a loose t-shirt. "Remi this is Evan. He's the second beta over at Mangata."

Remi eyed him curiously before looking back at me. Something flashed in his eyes, but it was gone by the time he looked back at Evan again. "Nice to meet you, sorry about yesterday, Liam can be a dick when it comes to Char."

Evan shrugged and shook Remi's hand. "It happens, don't worry about it."

We walked out across the lawn and towards the usual route north of the house. "Should we wait for Liam?"

Remi paused and looked over his shoulder for a minute before look back at me and shaking his head. "He said to go on, he's going to meet us on the way."

"Morning everyone." Elliot zipped next to me and kissed my forehead. His red hair was still damp from his shower and his eyes were already full of mischief this morning. "You sleep ok Evan?"

"That fold out isn't bad, kind of squeaky, but pretty nice. Super warm near that fire too."

"Good, are we waiting for Liam?"

"Nah," Remi called out over his shoulder. "He's going to meet us."

"Alright, Char I got you a dress by the way." I let out a long breath of relief as I realized that I totally didn't bring one with me.

"You're the best Elliot."

"Obviously."

"Alright, let's go," Remi called out.

I didn't need to be told twice. My wolf had been itching all morning for this run and hunt. She was driving me damned crazy, like a toddler given way too much sugar; but I couldn't blame her, hunting and running did help to tame the incessant itch in the back of our brain.

I shook my fur out as I landed on the ground and sat back as she pressed forward. She stretched lazily then walked towards Remi who was waiting in his fur for the group up head.

She saw him out of the corner of her eye. Evan had shifted into a coppery-colored wolf that was intriguingly assessing us over and over. The male snapped his eyes to ours and held our stare for a moment longer than my beast was comfortable with. She let a low rumble vibrate through her chest and over to him, warning him not to test her.

He cocked his head and broke our gazed then walked slowly up to us; eventually, his belly dropped to the floor and he crawled closer. He was trying to make himself non-threatening to us, and I would be lying if I said it wasn't working.

My wolf wasn't really threatened by him to begin with, she actually quite liked Evan, but she liked him even more, when she saw how hard he was trying to win her approval.