Free Keeper (Matefinder Next Generation Book 1) by Leia Stone

know it meant a challenge, but I could see my mother’s wolf bristle.
    “You’re going to meet a very dear friend of mine, someone like you,” she told him.
    Gavin looked away then and I could see my mother’s wolf settle. That’s when I smelled him, Nahuel. He smelled like sage and lavender, and I heard it was impossible not to like the guy even though my mother said he spoke in metaphors. I had never met him, but I grew up hearing stories of his power, his heroic nature and gentle spirit. My mother loved him, considered him family, and so would I.
    Out of the woods, behind a thick tree, Nahuel began to trek toward us. He was tall, mid-forties with a sharpened bone hanging from a thread on his neck and he had a tattoo of a jaguar on his arm. His wrists were wrapped in leather cuffs and adorned with turquoise. The air hummed with some sort of tangible power and I instinctively knew this guy would be an Alpha if he were a werewolf. A long, thick brown braid, threaded with silver hairs, hung half-way down his back.
    My mother quickly leaned into me and whispered in my ear. “Remember, Anya, the future can always change.” Her voice was worrying and it gave me goosebumps as she crossed the gap between her and Nahuel and gave him a long hug.
    Why did she just say that? What else did she see in her vision? Oh God, the unknown made me sick. I was a control freak and I wanted to know everything. I knew then my mother was hiding something. I wanted to interrogate her and know everything about her vision but Nahuel stood before her, the slightest hint of a smile, eyes twinkling.
    “Hello, Sister,” he greeted her.
    My mother’s face lit up. “Do you age?”
    Nahuel simply quirked his head to the side. “Do you?”
    My mother laughed. “I’ve missed your guidance, friend. I have someone that I think you can help.”
    Stepping to the side, she motioned to Gavin who stood there awkwardly behind her with his hands in his pockets.
    The second his gaze fell on Gavin, Nahuel looked alarmed. Tipping his nose up, he smelled the air. His features hardened and his mouth curled upside down.
    “You’re a dead man walking.”
    His words slammed into me and I growled, taking up a protective stance next to Gavin.
    Nahuel put his hands out to me, looking me up and down. “Calm down, pup. I won’t hurt him, but his sickness will kill you if you don’t find a way to stop it.”
    The air was charged with his prophecy and I felt so helpless. His sickness will kill me? Is that what he just said? I glanced at my mother and saw that she looked defeated, like she expected him to say that. Is that what she saw in her vision? How would his sickness affect me? Gavin looked shocked, mouth hanging open.
    Gavin stepped forward then, standing tall, brave. “What sickness? What’s wrong with me?”
    Nahuel pulled out a sage bundle and holding it to his palm, he ignited it. What the? I didn’t even see him get a lighter.
    Walking closer, I tensed as he fanned Gavin with the smoke. I was about to ask this asshat what he was doing when I saw the smoke curl around Gavin’s body and reveal a wolf shape. Where Gavin’s normally short nose was, the smoke showed a long snout. Gavin held his hands in front of his face and the smoky shape of a wolf’s paw formed in his palm like a 3D sculpture.
    “Holy shit.” Gavin’s voice sounded in awe but his face showed relief.
    I gasped.
    “I thought I was going crazy, having this fur on my arms, the fevers, the dreams.” He looked over at me and I blushed. The dreams? Did he have them, too?
    Nahuel nodded. “When our kind are born, we train them their entire lives to go on a spirit walk when they are thirteen to identify their power animal. For shamans, we have the ability to shift into that animal after the spirit walk.”
    My mother stepped closer to Nahuel, taking in every word.
    He continued, “But … you were cast aside, neglected, brought up in a white man’s world and did not go on your spirit