Flight 118: A Woman’s Future

~ Jonah ~

I sighed as I laid on the wet grass with my head propped up on my arms, staring up at the moon. The fresh smell of wet grass surrounded me and the night air had a foreboding bite to it I hadn’t felt before, my arm hair raising. The normal sound of nature was nonexistent, the only sound in the air was the crackling of the nearby fire.

Something was coming. I just knew it.

I must have been the only one to feel the change in the air around us, though.

Half of my pack members congregated around the fire nearby, laughing and talking. I did not know why they bothered. The chill in the air was unignorable, but it had to be much colder for us to actually need jackets or fire. Our natural body heat ensured we ran hotter than normal people.

Perks of being a shifter.

Granted, one of the said perks led to this very moment; me laying on the ground feeling hopeless.

I and half of my pack had been traveling for two months this time around. Every six to nine months I took half of my unmated, and of mating age, pack members on a trip. We traveled to different states, cities, and human towns. Any place we had not been before or had not been to in a while, we went to, looking for our fated mates. In recent years, despite my hatred for the establishment, we had succumbed to even traveling to The Gathering when one was available.

We could not leave the pack territory long, but we had zero members mated now, who were not older, and if we did not search for our mates then we may not be a pack for much longer.

My eyes closed, pain filling me at the possibility of my pack not finding any new mates. Of me not finding my mate. Each time we headed out I struggled to keep the hopeless feeling away, at least in front of them. Even though every one of us desperately needed and wanted our other halves, I was the Alpha. I was supposed to be selfless.

Footsteps approaching made me shove my thoughts away. I hated the thought of appearing weak. Though every time we went back home without anything to show for it, I felt a part of me break.

“Jonah, come join us.”

I growled low in my throat, warning him. But, still, my eyes remained closed. This was a common occurrence between us.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. My almighty Alpha, will you please move from your self-pity party to grace us, your faithful servants, with your presence on this chilly southern night? Better?”

This time my growl rumbled louder and my eyes opened in slits.

“Marcus,” I snarled his name. “Are you trying to get me to end up tearing your throat out and having to go through the trouble of finding a new Beta this far into our tenures?”

Marcus winced slightly but chuckled, brushing off my irritation. He crouched down beside me. “Come on, man. I may be your Beta but I’m also your best friend. Don’t you understand this is hard for all of us? We all understand. But being together helps us. We still need something to keep going, and that’s this pack; this family.”

A small smile tilted my lips as I sighed. He was right. Rolling up into a sitting position, I shoved him lightly, laughing when he fell onto his butt.

“Hey! We were having a moment!”

Rolling my eyes and shaking my head, “That’s for calling me by my name. You know how I feel about that.”

Shaking his head and rolling into a standing position, he growled slightly as he tilted his head back and ran a hand over the back of his pants. “Dang it. Now I’m all wet.”

The laugh escaped my throat before I could stop it as the pack members all laughed with me. At the reminder they could hear us, my brow raised at Marcus as I joined him standing. I did allow him to call me by name whenever we were alone and it was us just hanging out. Well, not so much as allowed as it was me not biting his head off. But they were neither alone nor hanging out right now.

At my brow, and the implication behind it, he smiled sheepishly. But there was a silent apology in his eyes and he raised his hands in the air. “Okay, okay. Yeah, I got it. You’re right. I deserved it.”

Slapping him lightly on the shoulder, I smiled. “It’s okay, you were right too. I shouldn’t be over here wallowing. Besides, we have one more stop before heading home! No need to lose hope just yet!”

“Let’s go party! Our last nights where all of us are mateless!”

I gave him a side-eye, wondering if he had finally snapped.

“What?” Marcus threw his hands up in the air in a fist bump with a giant grin spread across his face. “I’m believing it and speaking it into existence! This time in two nights at least one of us is going to be on our knees thanking anyone and everyone who is listening because one or more of us will have mates. Watch! You’ll see!”

I shook my head at his craziness but hoped he was true. It had been years of us searching and having no luck. We needed something to change if our pack was going to stay sane or survive another generation. Part of me didn’t want to get my hopes up but most of me wanted to believe like he was.

Marcus and I headed towards the others with smiles on our faces, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I had felt earlier. Something was about to change, and I just hoped that was not a bad thing.

***

Two nights later we arrived in Houston.

I once heard Houston, before the Pandemic, had been almost three times smaller than it is now. The main cities in Old Texas essentially ended up the only names to be remembered, their borders spreading as people moved further out and still considered it close enough to be the same place.

So, we spent yesterday running through Houston itself, trying to get to the location The Gathering was currently being held. It took us longer since they were running in our wolf forms.

The closer we got, the more the tightness grew in my chest, making my breath come shorter and my heart beat faster. I had never felt this way before and did not know why I was feeling it now.

A mile away from the location, I padded to a stop. Dropping the bag in my mouth, I shifted and began pulling clothes on. My pack members quickly followed suit. Even though shifters were no longer a secret, it was still best to shift where human eyes couldn’t see. Better to not risk any chance at any confrontations. Not now.

Marcus headed over, looking like he also felt the thick tension in the air of the pack who were anxiously hoping today would be different.

“So, what’s the plan this time, Boss? Same as usual?”

This time I wasn’t the only one to roll my eyes at Marcus and his attempt to keep the situation light. “Of course. We go in, stay back long enough to know if anyone there is any of our mates. And leave as soon as possible.”

“Got it. The less time we have to stand there in that Goddess forsaken place, squashed in this pit of ripe and greasy bodies, the better.”

It was times like this I felt very grateful shifters were especially attuned to our other halves. Every time we decided who was going to try and find their mates, we tended to have feelings if we were meant to go or stay behind. I liked to think it was the Goddess’s gift to us in the difficult times we live in. Of course, many times it didn’t matter. No one really had that feeling anymore. This time was different for me. But I had pushed that aside.

I didn’t even want to imagine the possibility of us missing potential mates because a shifter wasn’t here.

After we walked the mile to the random and worn-down warehouse The Gathering was at this time, I paid the entry fee for all of us. Money still worked in the new world we lived in, but it was different. Things were able to be bought or bartered for, mostly, depending on what you were trying to buy and where. The Gathering was only money, though. You had to pay to get in, pay to fight, and pay to get a woman. I made sure our pack saved the money for only the necessary things, which unfortunately ended up being the stupid auction people decided was the answer to our problems; kidnapping women and selling them.

I really despised the institution human men decided to invent and call The Gathering. As if it was a wonderful place for everyone to congregate in peace and happiness. But, it was a necessary evil. It wasn’t something we could dismantle. The locations always moved and happened in many different states. No one knew when they would pop up or where, or who was behind it.

To add to it, we couldn’t lose the chance that one of our mates was there and being sold off. If I could buy them all, I would. But the world didn’t work that way. So, I shoved my feelings on the event aside and did what I needed to do for the best of my pack.

The second I stepped through the opening of the building, where doors once were before time destroyed them, I froze.

“Alpha? What’s wrong?”

I didn’t respond. Tingles were racing down my body as a rushing sound filled my ears, turning quickly into the loud and racing sound of my rapid heartbeat.

“Jonah.” Marcus put a hand on my shoulder and began looking around, tense. If he was in wolf form his hackles would be raised.

Vaguely Jonah knew the other members of the pack were just as tense, becoming aware of their surroundings and trying to figure out why their Alpha was suddenly frozen in place.

“I-I don’t know.”

Marcus relaxed a little when he realized that if there was something bad going on, I would have actually known about it.

“What do you feel like?”

“I-I really don’t know. It’s…it’s like my head’s foggy and I can’t think.” I took a deep breath, letting the intoxicating scent filter into my lungs, cutting through the stench of many dirty male bodies in one place. I couldn’t really tell where it was coming from.

“If your head isn’t making any sense then think with your heart, bro. What’s your heart saying?”

“I can’t hear what my heart’s trying to say over the sound of it pounding so loud.”

He laughed. “Geez, man. Really? Sounds like one of those things our moms used to talk about, where the man tried to say things to make women love him.”

I huffed out a laugh as my cheeks heated. “Hey, you’re the one who asked what my heart was saying.” My smile slowly fell. “I don’t know, though. I...I think it may be her.”

I didn’t need to say anything more. He and all of the shifters around us knew who I was talking about. It was obvious in how they all stilled and focused on me. Not that I was looking at them. I felt their eyes; their hope. But, I was too busy staring straight ahead, breathing in the scents and filtering them out to keep her scent in my mind, and searching for her.

Hope and happiness began to spread through me, something I had not felt in a very long time. Yet, at the same time, I was filled with terror. Terror that I was wrong. That this feeling filling my body wasn’t what I thought it was. Fear that it would be her and I wouldn’t be a good mate. Or that she wouldn’t want me.

“Are you sure?” Excitement tinged Marcus’s voice.

“Yeah, I think I am,” I whispered breathlessly.

I began moving further into the crowd, not really seeing anyone around me as I bumped into people. The longer I stood there the more certain I became that it was finally happening. It was her. Somewhere in this filthy place and most definitely being held against her will. No man would have a woman and take her to a place so many men were.

I had finally found my mate, my other half, my one true love; and I would have to fight for her now and every day for the rest of our lives. But I would, and I would do it with a smile.

They brought the women out and I growled, torn between wanting to tear the throats from every man here for daring to touch my mate.

The host of the event did this whole speech I did not listen to at all. I had been to enough Gathering’s to get the gist of what needed to be done, but that wasn’t why I didn’t listen. My world had narrowed on one of the women on stage.

When a shifter found his mate many parts came into play. Scent, sight, and touch were all equally important. You could tell someone was your mate by any one of them, technically. But, with how unlikely it was these days and the possibility they could always share one of those aspects with someone else, we tended to wait to do each part. It had been known that close relatives could have similar scents, or if you were near a relative you may be slightly attracted to them because they would ultimately lead you to your mate. Not necessarily physically or sexually attracted to them, but where you knew they were important to you somehow.

The moment they pulled her mask off and I laid my eyes on her, though, I knew. My world would never be the same and that was a good thing. I could finally breathe once more.

eve that would happen.