She didn’t want that cub to be without its mom, and now? It wasn’t.

It was wherever the fuck that cougar had been.

My shift took less than three seconds, and while my body was torn apart by the magic, I heard Austin hiss, “For fuck’s sake.”

I almost knew what I’d find the second I was back on two legs.

Even if I wasn’t happy about it.

They were here, but they weren’t.

Just like the first time.

I rubbed a hand over my face, prepared for Austin’s demand of, “What the fuck happened?”

Though his tone pissed me off, I got it. I’d been with our mate. It was my duty to protect her.

Just as he had.

From a pack of eight goddamn wolves.

Me? I couldn’t keep her safe from a fucking cougar.

I shoved my fingers through my hair as mortification and horror filled me. “We were exploring the woods,” I rasped. “We ambled onto a cougar’s territory.”

Austin winced. “Shit. I thought I scented them.”

“You did?” I arched a brow. “Did Sabina?”

He shook his head. “No. That last morning…” His brows wiggled, rising and falling as I saw him trying to process what had happened. From scent alone, I could tell he was still injured, even if he was mostly better. “I headed out to take a piss, and when I did, I knew something was watching me. I went off to try and find it, because that scent—”

My nose curled because we both knew what the scent was like.

Carrion eaters always smelled the same fucking way.

Natural wolves had the odor too, but it was different. On our kind, it wasn’t alien, but it was on others.

“Then, out of nowhere, I heard Sabina scream.” He ran a hand over his head and down to the back of his neck.

When he rubbed it, I just muttered, “You fought them off well.”

He shrugged. “Almost lost. Would have if she hadn’t pulled the goddamn gun out of nowhere.”

I nodded. “That place, fucking weird, right?”

“Yeah. Fucking weird.” He slouched over, his elbows stacking on top of his knees. “Once she’s claimed Ethan, maybe things will be a bit more normal.”

My nose wrinkled at that. When I thought about what had just happened, and what had gone down with Austin, I could only imagine what lesson Ethan would have to learn. I knew, for our mate and him, it didn’t bode well.

I just prayed to the Mother that by the end of it, they were both in one piece.

Ethan

I’d expected the place because Austin had warned me.

They’d only been gone a handful of minutes, far longer than the first time, even though it was relatively still no time at all, before he’d shifted and clued me in.

I appreciated that, even as I eyed my new surroundings warily.

I was in a copse of trees, only they were like no trees I’d ever seen before, coming in rich verdant greens that were beyond the color spectrum back home.

I’d say they were glowing, or glittering, but that felt impossible, even for this place.

Of course, that was denying just how odd this new realm was.

In all the books I’d read, in all the shit I’d learned, from our culture and from the human’s, I’d never picked up on this before.

On an alternate space where the Mother brought an alpha to claim his omega.

Truth was, you’d think it would be widely discussed.

Things like that cemented a leader’s power. Not only was he granted an omega, a mate, he was also granted a unique glimpse into the Mother’s world.

A touch that was unlike any other.

That it wasn’t discussed made no sense to me, but also, I got it.

This wasn’t exactly how I’d expected to claim my mate. Yet here I was. In a clearing with cougar blood polluting the area, as well as my mate’s.

I picked up on what had happened from scent alone.

Eli had been close to killing the cougar—maybe he even had, though she’d clearly run away. Not before she’d taken a lick at our woman who, somehow, had decimated the hold Eli had on her to leap into the fight.

How she’d done that still perplexed me a little. Especially as the scent of his dominance polluted the space as much as the cougar’s scent did.

She was a newly transformed she-wolf, even if she was the omega.

It should make no difference.

Yet she’d done so, managed to injure herself in the process, and here we were again.

I stroked a hand over her dozing body, trying to soothe both of us, but it didn’t work. I hated the lack of a voice in my head, and I had to admit, I was disconcerted.

Austin was always there, but he wasn’t here. And my mate, my connection to her, was somehow muted.

I couldn’t get through, even if I wanted to, not without a headache exploding behind my eyes every time I tried, so I figured I needed to stop doing that and move the fuck on.

She was still bleeding, and the sight of that told me if I didn’t do something to stop it, she might die.

On my watch.

Damn.

Heart in my throat, fear in my veins, I jumped to my feet in this strange world.

The copse of trees was filled with a rocky terrain that was covered in a deep moss. The rocks were there because I could feel them underfoot, even if the moss was slippery against my bare heels.

I peered around the place, scenting out danger, but also trying to see if there were leaves I could use as a poultice.

When I peered around the twilight-strewn area, the sight of one particular tree had me freezing in place.

It was odd.

Unlike the others.

The leaves were thick, and from this distance, I could see they had a strange texture. There was fruit on it, too, and around them, there were a thousand little lights.

Fireflies?

Were they eating the fruit?

Because it caught my eye, I couldn’t seem to stop staring at the tree or the fruit that had light dancing around them.

That was the glitter I’d seen earlier, I realized, but it didn’t come from a light or from the sun overhead, since there didn’t seem to be any sunlight. It came from insects.

I strolled toward it, something in my gut telling me I was being drawn to a path that I needed to take. As I approached, I could hear the buzz of the insects, and the lights seemed to alternate between dimming and growing brighter, like they were beckoning me toward the tree.

When I reached it and peered up at it, I saw how massive it was, and the fruits were all hanging high on the branches.

With an ease that came from a childhood doused in mischief, I started to climb the branches, hauling myself up the bark, uncaring that I was nude, that my body was scraped with the tree’s hard outer armor.

I knew my strengths and my weaknesses.

I had a certain single-mindedness that was akin to tunnel vision. But that was nothing compared to how I moved then.

I felt almost like a zombie, under another’s will as I strove to reach the fruit that hung over eighty feet in the air.

I moved until I was there, and I saw the flies were dining on the fruit as I expected, but there was one that had only a few around it.

I wasn’t sure if they’d bite me or not, and while I didn’t care if it hurt, I cared about them somehow incapacitating me and never being able to return to my woman.