Chapter 3. Don’t Change

The people treat me with respect and love, and I’m growing as a mother to all. By the side of my born leader, him showing me how to command without fear because he’s nothing like his father as alpha. He listens to his people and walks among them as though he’s never been any different from them. He’s hands-on and involved with the building works, overseeing every detail and waking day. We join patrols, make sure we know everything there is to know about the sick, the school, and the community’s problems, and rectify them as best we can.

His mother is a good mentor, but she grows restless here, and now she’s recovering well from her time asleep and regaining her gifts slowly. She’s made it clear she wishes to return to the lab where the doctor returned and continue her work with him. She feels lost here, like she has no one to focus her time and energy on. Not that I blame her. Her life isn’t what she left behind when she fell to slumber.

The lab became ours after the Santo pack abandoned it and returned to the mountain under the command of their alpha. With Sierra out, they had no use or interest in it and knew that Colton would send some of his own to claim it to keep all his mother’s and the doctor’s work safe. Which Colton did, and Doc could go back with a new, stronger, kinder pack as protection to continue his work into our species. He visits periodically to discuss his needs and findings and keep Sierra updated. Who knew we would have human allies in this new world in which we live?

Waking to find her son grown and mated, her husband a betrayer who still holds her home captive and defends it fiercely. No longer Luna of the pack and no longer required to raise a child. She has no real mate to have another, even though she’s capable enough and still in her prime. She’s at odds with the modern advances of our world, and she finds the noisy, chaotic business of the pack hard to bear. She stays alone in her room most of the time and rarely ventures to see anyone except Colton or me or the maids Colton assigned her to meet her every need. Doc comes and goes to see her, but she is almost a hermit, living in the west corner of the homestead.

This used to be her ancestral home, someplace she visited from time to time, and thanks to her, we found the secret tunnels under the estate that led to the apothecary that belonged to her long-forgotten relatives. The library of grimoires and books that contained histories we had never known. It opened our knowledge of many things, and the Shaman was excited to be given more insight into details he always longed to know.

The homestead had been for generations of witches, but with her father mating with a wolf, he was an outcast to live far away with his wife and half-breed child. Near the pack of his mate, who also rejected her. His ancestors had no other heirs, and this place fell to emptiness when the last of his blood was killed in the vampire wars of old.

This was never truly her home, although she did inherit it and come here over the years. She kept it a secret from Juan and used the protection placed on the land to keep it free from invasion. Those spells work in our favor now. They are still held in place as applied in the ground for generations to keep nonblood out without invitation, which goes for vampires too. Our safe haven is protected in so many ways.

Colton could walk in and invite his pack because he was blood, and the house became his. No one can cross the inner perimeter unless the heir welcomes them. Colton being a witch means, without even knowing it, he keeps the inner sanctum safe by merely refusing non-pack in. He set the spell when he first entered the house.

Later his mother renewed the spell to cover all the runaways from the mountain who found their way to us, but it means vampires can get close but never in. And his mother assures us it should work for any other being that we don’t welcome to our abode. It’s unbreakable magic. Only the Santo pack of our inviting can cross the inner threshold of the boundary lines now Sierra has adjusted the spell to be more precise.

Hey, earth calling Lori.

Colton breaks into my mind, and I come out of my thoughtful daze to see the opening door ahead of us at the main entrance as we are welcomed home by the guards of the pack.

Sorry was just thinking.

I exhale heavily and sigh that we can soon go to bed. It’s been a long patrol tonight and too much running. I’m exhausted, filthy, and looking forward to lying down.

Yeah, well, less thinking, more action. You were practically motionless with the slow pace you were pulling.

He jests and nudges me with his side and sends me reeling a little.

Sorry.

I follow him in, nodding at the human form guards as we pass and still get that warm tingle as they lower their eyes, showing respect for their Alpha and Luna. I quickly trail Colton to the main stair and our floor at hyper speed. I can’t get used to this where no males look me in the eye except those worthy: the sub pack, my chosen femme companions, Sierra, and my alpha mate. I guess the same goes for Colton, too, as only his select few can, while everyone else lowers to the ground as a sign of submission. It’s an old tradition wordlessly passed down, and we never question it.

Since the village was finished, we got the whole upper west floor of the homestead to ourselves. Only the leading pack, us, Sierra, some single warriors who walk the house perimeter at night, and a few of the housekeepers live inside the homestead now. Guards swap every few hours outside, so we always have different faces coming and going. We have a school room in the main hall while an outbuilding to become the education center is being built, and the hospital wing still operates from the first floor. So, there is motion and movement in this vast place at all hours, yet it still seems so eerily quiet compared to the months before the village started to get filled out.

Colton swiftly gets ahead of me first, and when I catch up and follow him into the bedroom, he’s already alone in the inner suite and nakedly walking around in human form, dusting off the muck and debris from the forest. As soon as I see him, I transform into human, and he floors me with that gorgeous, dimpled grin, his eyes back to deep dark brown, his hair ruffled messily on top of that head. My handsome, tanned Latino lover stands proudly in front of me in all his perfection with that devilish look in his eye and runs a hand across his abs absent-mindedly. That body weakens me at the knees in his tall, muscular glory.

Shower?

The cheeky smile makes me smile because I know it’s not an invite but more of a command.

Just like that, you forget about the troublesome witches out there in the forest, and your mind is straight to shower? We both know that isn’t exactly what you mean.

I stroll past him as though I have no intention of getting in there with him and squeal when he grabs me from behind and hoists me up princess fashion into his arms.

Worries will keep for a while. Urges will drive me insane. You know how hot for you I get after we turn and go chasing vampires in the forest.

He plants a kiss on my temple, and I know struggling is futile. Besides, I’m not refusing because I too am hot for what my mate does to me.

Colton, I swear, you have about five hundred reasons for being hot for me daily. Yesterday it was because we had ribs for dinner… and the sun came out after lunch… and before breakfast, you woke up hot for me because it was Tuesday morning.

I sigh indulgently and slide my arms around him as I try to get comfier in this grip he has me in.

Baby, is it wrong to want to get naked with my mate as much as possible? We’re only young for like maybe eighty years, give or take.

I laugh and bounce him on top of his head with a soft fist and curl my arms around his neck, savoring the unique feel of his skin against mine. Pushing my face into the crook of his throat to inhale everything good about him.

Hmmm… don’t change.

It’s an impulsive lovesick adoration as he carries me to the bathroom, but I mean it. I have never known happiness or this sense of home before him, and being his mate these past months has been every wish and dream I never knew I had.

I wasn’t planning on it. You love me this way… so, this way I stay. Got to keep my Luna happy.

He smirks, always cheeky, always grinning, and hauls me into the shower unit to get clean while being anything but.