Chapter 19

Winnie had been hyper-sensitive about the sounds of the fight. Being that she was an omega, it wasn’t very surprising. She and several children needed longer to recover than even Mila.

The unicorn allowed Winnie and the children to stroke it, helping their spirits immensely, only to back off as soon as an adult males approached.

“Why can’t I pet it?” Dillon sulked.

Jed chuckled. “Don’t you know? They prefer pure maidens.”

No one had to be told that the still newly wed couple were impure. Even with her slightly weaker hearing, Mila knew that the couple were very much enjoying their cabin. Still, unicorns weren’t exactly picky about that. It was simply that she didn’t give off a powerful aura.

All of the high ranking wolves were more threatening to the beast whose intelligence wasn’t exactly on par with common dogs.

“Unicorns are a bit like very proud cats,” Mila explained. “They like who they like.”

Dillon made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. Wolf or not, he was definitely not a cat person.

Winnie returned to their group, her face blissful for the moment. She leaned her head against DIllon’s shoulder, sitting in the soft grass.

“If you could fight like that, why didn’t you show off from the start?” Dillon asked, trying a little too hard to sound casual.

Mila shrugged, leaning back to look up at the fading sky. Not long now before the moon was full. “That’s not exactly what I’m here for.”

Winnie sighed softly. “Still, it would have gotten Kiara off your back sooner.”

Mila didn’t respond. She didn’t really feel that Kiara was off her back yet. The she-wolf had looked livid after she and Jed had finished sparring. Kiara might have given up on head-on attacks, but she probably hadn’t gotten in her last lick.

The fight had merely shown Kiara that Mila was capable. That Mila had allowed Kiara’s childish antics to go on because the packs were at peace. If she were going to come at Mila seriously, it was going to have to take more than just knocking things out of her hands.

“Where did you learn to fight like that? With that staff? You balanced on it like it was nothing.” Dillon pushed on with a hint of enthusiasm.

Jed nodded. “Yeah, I was wondering about that myself.”

“I have lived for a long time. I’ve traveled to many places and learned many kinds of art. Shaolin was a favorite of mine.” Mila said it wistfully.

Despite the current desolation she felt from being separated from her kin, Mila had many fond memories of the surface world. It hadn’t always been kind to her, be it because of the excluding nature of being part of a hive mind or the fairness of the human flesh she wore. There were some things she wouldn’t have traded though.

The continents had risen and fallen within her life span. She had seen a great variety of fauna and flora. Nothing had ever quite been like the human race. The humans that had been so imaginative. They had created so many different wonders, ranging from the way they moved their bodies, to transforming the land to make things like the pyramids.

She had fought her own kind for the honor of guarding the first-born and it really had been an honor. If she was now meant to spend the rest of her years in solitude, she wasn’t sure she could deny its worth.



A howl began taking up the woods. Mila had helped decorate for the occasion of the harvest moon. Torches had been arranged around the entire meadow, a circle carved out for the mock battles. A massive feast was being cooked, filling the air with mouth-watering scents.

There were games for kids and the atmosphere was light. The wolves treated the harvest moon like a festival.

Even Jed looked excited, though vampires didn’t exactly have any particular rituals. They were generally a very private species, preferring to remain in small numbers to avoid detection and conflict. They almost never gathered together the way the wolves did.

Mila watched him setting up his own circle of fire. His blond hair was tied back and he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Compared to the other males in the area, he was extremely lean. It wouldn’t have stood out among humans, but among wolves, the difference was almost laughable. The only reason no one did laugh was because Mila was the only one present that could’ve taken him in a fight – a topic that was still actively being chatted about.

Mila, meanwhile, had gotten her own small stage. Her insinuation that the wolves needed a history lesson was being taken surprisingly seriously. The eldest alpha female had thought it was a good idea to have the wolves learn about mermaids if she was to be helpful to them in the coming days.

Mila’s knowledge of the world could be invaluable... though Mila could still sense the trend of discomfort around her. Her fight had been both exciting and terrifying. They had allowed her, an unknown, and a vampire into their camp for supposed help. Was it worth the danger?

Mila had considered it carefully, deciding to provide a visual aid to her lesson as she performed her ritual. She’d had to warn Winnie that it was going to be quite graphic.

“Will it be loud again?” Winnie asked uncomfortably.

“It might be a little?” Mila frowned, not knowing just how sensitive Winnie could be.

Mila had attempted to explain to the unicorn why it was important for it to remain calm next to Winnie. Its ears twitched and it bleated belligerently in her face. She wasn’t sure if it had understood even a little.

Mila gave a little wave toward Winnie when she came out of her cabin for the wolves’ run. Winnie’s wolf form was smaller than most of the others, a little red wolf in a sea of dire wolves. Winnie gave a little bark of greeting, following after Dillon to join the packs.

“What do you have planned?” Mila called to Jed.

He offered up a lopsided smile. “You’ll see, cheri. Don’t get too impatient.”