Mated To The Alpha: A Standalone Wolf Shifter Romance, стр. 45
"How is that even possible?"
"I don't know, the pack connection, I guess. I saw a lot after that. Things you couldn't have known about. I saw Reine and Thomas's Alpha Challenge. I saw Ziva growing up, getting raped. I saw her order Kate to kill you, and Kate refuse. I saw everything."
"So you know that Ziva..."
"Is my real mother? Yes. And that she doesn't know who my father is, except for seeing him materialize out of nowhere? Yes. I'd imagine that he was a shape shifter, like me. Our history's stories don't often have anything nice to say about their kind. About my kind."
"But I still don't understand how...Oh! I got all of those images from my mother. She must have thrown them at you, to get you to come help us. Or from Ziva, when she touched me."
"However they came, I am grateful. We never would have known what happened, or where to find you, otherwise."
"I thought you were angry, finding us like you did. You two were growling so fiercely. I shifted to tell you, to explain, but that is all I remember."
"We were growling to threaten Ziva since she held our mates in danger. I passed what I could onto Galen, with our pack connection in our wolf forms. He just followed me, he had some idea what we'd be walking in on inside that cave, just not every detail about everything. You shouldn't have shifted into human form. That was why you passed out."
"Does Galen understand? That I was protecting his mate, not attacking his mother?"
"Yes, Galen knows everything. Between my connection and Kate, he had no real chance to misunderstand. He is grateful to you, for saving Kate. I'm sure he will be by once you have fully recovered to tell you so himself."
"Why don't I feel worse? I'm sore, but I don't feel anything like I'd imagine someone who's been shot should feel. You said I passed out because I shifted?"
"Shifting from wolf to human compresses everything you are. When you shifted all that wounded wolfness into your smaller, less capable human form, it was like squeezing out a sponge. When you squeezed yourself like a sponge, so to speak, you lost a lot of blood, very quickly. So you lost consciousness. Your wolf blood helps you to heal, though. That is why you don't feel as badly as you think you should. Plus Ziva was only carrying a .22 derringer. It only held two small bullets, although you took both of them."
"How long was I out?"
"A couple of days."
"Mom showed me why she left. She left for me. Did she send you those visions, too? While I was unconscious?"
"I saw some of them. When I checked in with our bond to make sure you were all right."
"Ziva attacked her. Did you see that part? Way back when they were both pregnant. Reine with me, and Ziva with Galen. Reine almost killed Ziva back then, but she saw those future possibilities, and she left instead. Ziva accused my mother of carrying the shapeshifter's child, too. Or of being one of his 'spawn' herself. Ziva was already crazy, even back then. She saw Ziva killing me, and dividing the pack. She also saw that by taking me away, by raising me human, that everything would work out, but that she wasn't in that future. My future. She saw a future where she survived and I didn't, and she chose the future where she didn't exist, but I did. She saved me, before I was even born. And then she saved me by sending you to me."
"You saved yourself that time, Emma. You saved yourself, and Kate. You saved me, too. If anything had happened to you, if Ziva had killed you instead of the other way around... Ziva was right about that. Losing you would have killed me. I know we've just started, and I know our bond is still young, but I love you more than anything, Emma. I've loved you since the moment you crested that cliff with your dad and Kate, and tried to protect them from Galen's wolf by putting yourself between them and ordering them not to run.
I loved you even then, before the first time we touched at that bonfire and I watched images of us, together, flit across your face. I couldn't see what you 'saw' back then, but I knew it had to be good. Your eyes glowed with heat, and you blushed red hot. I wanted to claim you as my mate right there. When Galen and Kate mated so quickly, I was jealous. I wanted that to be us."
"I wasn't ready then. I was still getting used to finding out werewolves were real. But I will admit that those flashes at the bon fire were hot."
"Oh yeah?" Elam teased her, leaning in and kissing her lips. "How hot?"
Emma smiled against his lips, enjoying the pressure of his kiss. She deepened the kiss, running her tongue softly over his bottom lip and pressing inside.
He kissed her back, softly, opening his mouth to hers.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, and tugged him closer to her, opening her mouth wider. All of the danger and emotion from her adventure needed to be released, her body barely hurt at all and she found herself wanting Elam, needing him to make her forget everything she'd been through, everything she'd learned, just for a little while.
She needed to reconnect, to him, to life. The more they kissed, the