Claiming My Wolf
Chapter 24

~~Logan’s PoV~~

There’s a moment of shocked silence at the party when Laurel calls out to Ava as her mate.

Aaron looks devastated, Ava and Laurel are confused, and my eyes immediately meet my dad’s and he nods at me, agreeing with my unspoken conclusion.

Whatever is going on at the other packs must be affecting us too.

“Everyone please excuse us for a minute,” my dad announces, his strong Alpha voice carrying across all the gathered guests. “We’ll be back shortly for Ava and Aaron’s first shift.”

Then he gathers Ava, Aaron, their parents, and Laurel and her parents, and leads them all away from the party. I follow after them and so does Beta Aldric, Micah, and Sadie. I don’t know if Sadie should necessarily be a part of this, but as soon as the Beta turns and orders her to go, I can’t stop myself from standing up for her.

“They’re her cousins,” I point out to him. “And it’s fine with me if she stays.”

His lips tighten in disagreement but he doesn’t directly contradict me. He turns his attention back to my dad instead as the Alpha starts to speak to the whole group.

“I believe this mating bond might be in error,” he tells everyone. “Unless, Ava and Laurel, you disagree?”

The girls look at each other awkwardly. “I’m pretty sure I’m straight,” Ava says almost apologetically. “And even if I wasn’t, Laurel’s been dating Aaron so long, she’s like my own sister. I’m definitely not attracted to her. Sorry, Laurel.”

Laurel almost laughs in relief. “Trust me, I feel the same way, Ava.” Then she turns back to my dad. “But Alpha, how can it be wrong? I don’t understand. My wolf is telling me that Ava’s my mate. She’s sure of it.”

My dad sighs. “I don’t know, but it’s not the first time it’s happened lately, though it’s the first time here in our pack. I didn’t want anyone to panic so I haven’t shared it with the pack yet, but maybe we’ll need to. We might need to put all mating on hold until we figure out what’s behind it.”

“How long will that be?” Aaron asks, and I can hear the desperation in his voice. I really feel bad for him, he was so certain that Laurel is his mate and now he’ll have to wait even longer to replace out for sure. If we are ever even able to figure it out, I can’t help adding in my head. What happens if we can’t?

“I don’t know, Aaron,” my dad says sympathetically. “I wish I had the answers, but I don’t. For now, let’s go back to the party and you can do your shift. In the morning, I’ll make an announcement to the pack about the temporary hold on mating.”

His words are an order rather than a suggestion so everyone bows their heads and most of them head back to the party. My dad and Aldric move away to speak to each other, and Micah and Sadie both stay with me, both of them looking at me as if I might know more than what they just heard.

“So let me get this straight,” Sadie says slowly. “Not only do you have to marry whoever your wolf tells you to, but they might not even be right?”

I wince. I know she’s got issues with a lot of pack life, we talked about it a bit today, and I admit this really doesn’t help my case.

After we talked at her aunt and uncle’s house, I took her to the shooting range at the pack house like I’d promised. We walked over there together. The weather had started to turn warmer now, there was hardly any snow left and soon flowers would be starting to grow. I hadn’t thought about flowers in a while. It seemed I was remembering a lot of things I hadn’t thought about for a while recently.

At the range, I handed Sadie a small handgun. “This is the safety,” I pointed out to her. “Keep that on at all times until you’re ready to shoot.”

“Like this?” she asked, holding the gun out with one hand like they do in the movies.

“Only if you want to knock yourself over with the kickback,” I replied drily. “So, no. Use both hands, like this.”

I placed my hands on top of hers to guide them into the proper position, and just like it had at her house, my skin tingled a little at the contact.

What did that mean? It had taken me completely by surprise when it first happened. Neither of us had our wolves yet, we shouldn’t be feeling mating sparks yet even if she was my mate, which there was no way of knowing yet. Did it have something to do with the strange things that were happening with mates in the surrounding packs? I had no idea, so I decided it was safer to ignore it for now. She didn’t say anything about it either, so maybe she wasn’t even feeling anything. Maybe it was all in my head.

When I got her positioned correctly, I showed her how to remove the safety and aim. “Then, when you’re ready, just pull the trigger towards you.”

She began to, her eyes closing in anticipation of the discharge, and I quickly called out again.

“Wait. Keep your eyes open, keep aiming until it fires. Look at that target down there like it’s the thing you hate most in the world, the thing that makes you the angriest. Then stare it down as you take the shot.”

Sadie looked over at me curiously, the gun still aiming towards the target. “What do you imagine it is?”

That was an easy one. “The wolves that attacked us last year.”

I saw them in front of me every time I pulled the trigger. The face of the one in charge was seared into my memory like a brand. If I ever saw him again, one of us was ending up dead, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be me.

Sadie nodded and looked back at the target. “Nobody killed my parents,” she said quietly. “There’s nobody to blame. It was just a stupid accident.”

“Then pretend that target is the road,” I suggested. “Or the car they were driving. Whatever caused the accident to happen.”

She nodded again and straightened her stance. Her face set in concentration as she stared the target down and pulled the trigger.

I can almost hear the gunshot again as I look over at her now, next to the lake along with Micah.

“Nobody’s getting forced to be with anyone they don’t want to be with,” I point out. “We’ll figure out what’s happening and we’ll fix it.”

I sound a lot more confident about that than I am. The truth is I’m nervous, not only for Aaron and Ava and Laurel and the rest of the pack, but for myself too. After all my 18th birthday is coming up too. What if my mate is right in front of me and I never know it?