by Laura Ryles
She ran into the living room to find that Ander was already there and had just finished untying them both. Mr. Forburg walked in from the back yard and looked at Tala. Ander had been kind enough to give him Dag’s boxers. She squinted her eyes at him in disapproval, and he immediately lowered his head in capitulation. “I’m going to leave now, if that’s okay with you, Alpha.”
When Tala realized that he was talking to her, she stepped forward and nodded. “Yes, I think that’s best.” After Mr. Forburg took two very long strides to reach the door as quickly as possible, Tala raised her head and said, “Oh, and Mr. Forburg...?”
“Yes, ma’am?” Mr. Forburg stopped just inside the doorway to listen.
“Remember who spared you tonight. I would leave town immediately if I were you.” Harmonizing with her usually melodic soprano tone was a deeper, richer alto voice.
“Yes, I will. Consider me gone, Alpha,” Mr. Forburg said. He ran out of the door before he could be stopped again.
She turned to look at Ander, “What was that?” She asked him in astonishment.
Ander laughed at her, “That is the voice of an Alpha. It helps give you more authority over the other wolves. It’s a beautiful sound when it comes from your lips, though.”
“So, does that mean you have to do what I say now?” she asked playfully.
“Technically, yeah. You’re the Alpha of my pack now, so I am at your command,” he answered as he moved closer to her and made a little bow before putting his arm around her waist. “But I’d do anything you asked, anyway.” He smiled down at her and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. Tala leaned into his embrace, placing her head on his chest. Then she closed her eyes and breathed in his scent.
Ander bowed his head, and she could tell that he was breathing in the smell of her hair now. “Why do you smell so good?” He asked quietly.
She closed her eyes and smiled quietly in his arms and then shrugged even though she already knew the answer to that question. Maybe she would wait and let him figure it out for himself. She opened her eyes to see her mom and Drew, staring at the pair of them as they held one another in the middle of the living room. “Mom!” she cried, immediately letting go of Ander and running to her mother. “I’m so sorry I was mean to you. I’ve been acting like such a prima donna since Dad’s been gone. We can have as many parties as you want.”
“No, I’m sorry. I should have told you that you were half wolf when your Dad passed away, but I figured the only way you wouldn’t think I was crazy was if I let you turn for the first time before I told you. I didn’t know that people were going to come looking for you. I would have warned you if I’d known. I’m so sorry.” Her mother took her into her arms, and they hugged and cried and hugged some more. When they were done crying, her mother stepped back. Debra held Tala out at arm’s length and with a crooked grin she said, “Happy Birthday, Sweetie.” She laughed and then loosened her hold.
Tala turned to see Drew standing nearby with a wide-eyed, goofy, bewildered look on his face. She gave him a shy smile. Will he still want to be my friend, or will he be terrified to come near me now? Tala closed the gap between them. When she was right in front of him, she opened her mouth to speak, but Drew beat her to it.
“Dude! You’re a wolf!”
“Yeah, I guess so. Is that okay?”
“Are you freaking kidding me? This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me! My best friend is a big, furry animal.” Then he started talking in a deep, mocking, male voice, “Don’t mess with me or my best friend will rip your face off… You don’t want to backtalk me, sir, my best friend eats quarterbacks for breakfast.” Drew laughed, and Tala couldn’t help but laugh with him.
“You’re such a dork!” She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he hugged her back.
Now that all the excitement was over and she had hugged everyone that needed to be hugged, she walked back over to Ander and took his hand.
“So, who is this?” Tala’s mom asked.
“Oh, right. Mom, this is Ander,” Tala said.
“It’s nice to meet you, Ander. Thank you for coming to help my daughter.”
“It’s nice to meet you as well,” Ander replied. “I’m just sorry I kidnapped her in the first place.”
“You’re the one who took her?” Debra stared at him in disbelief.
She grabbed Tala’s arm and was about to pull her away from him, when Tala blurted out, “No, Mom, he did take me, but then he was the one that let me go.”
“I don’t care. Who kidnaps an 18-year-old girl? I’ll tell you who! Crazy people! Dangerous people! I think you need to leave,” her mom spewed toward Ander.
“Yes, I understand, I’m sorry, I’ll go.” Ander hung his head and let go of Tala’s hand. As Tala watched him turn to leave, there was a gut-wrenching feeling in the pit of her stomach. It got stronger with every step Ander took toward the door. Tala looked at her mother with pleading eyes, but she could tell that she was not going to budge on this matter. As Ander reached for the doorknob, she couldn’t take it anymore.
“No, Mom, he can’t leave, he’s my mate.”
Chapter 18
The entire living room went quiet except for the old grandfather clock ticking in the foyer.
“Your what?” Asked Debra.
“Your what?” Echoed Drew.
“Your what?” Ander said as he turned around on the spot.
“That’s right. There, I said it. Now you know. That’s why I smell so good to you, and you smell so good to me. That’s how you knew exactly where I was on the mountain without having to follow my scent. You could sense me. I could see you coming tonight, before you ever got here, and before I heard your voice. You’re my mate. I’m yours.”
They were all staring at Tala, dumbfounded.
“Ander, you’re a wolf. Why do you look like this is such unbelievable news?” Tala asked. Ander regained his senses, then.
“True Mate Bonds are really rare, Tala. It just doesn’t happen anymore. Wolves get married and become mates in that way, but I’ve only ever heard stories about wolves sharing a real Mate Bond.” He smiled and walked over to Tala and took her into his arms. He held her close to him.
“What exactly does this mean?” Her mom asked, looking back and forth between the two of them. “I swear, if you touched my daughter, I’ll...”
“No, Mom, it’s not like that,” Tala said. “It means we’re a pair. We’re meant to be together. Or maybe we’ll get married someday. I’m not exactly sure yet. It’s like we’re a set. Two of a kind. Now that I’ve turned, I don’t feel whole without him. That’s only what I can feel by instinct so far. Other than that, I don’t know. I do know it means I want him to be here with me. Close to me. I don’t want him to go.”
“And I want to be with you,” Ander answered, smiling. Tala looked at her mother. Ander wrapped his arms around her and held his hands together in front of her. She leaned back into him, letting his strength support her as well. Debra was staring at the two of them with her mouth slightly open, about to argue, but then she pursed her lips and shook her head. Poor Mom, Tala thought, she’s been through so much. She watched with empathy as her mother finally went and sat down in one of the chairs and laid her head down in her hand.
Tala then turned to look at Drew, who had taken a seat on the sofa next to the dining room. “Well, what do you think about it?”
“Ha!” Drew shouted. “I think I got two werewolves!” Tala and Ander burst with laughter at the look of absolute joy that came over Drew’s face. Even Debra smiled a bit. “What?” Drew looked confused. “What? It’s like living in a real-life comic book or something. It’s the coolest thing ever.” The more excited he got, the more they all laughed.
“Technically, we’re shapeshifters. Werewolves turn on a full moon, we can turn when we want. Werewolves have no control, we do. We just shift into wolves. Just regular, old wolves,” Ander said.
“You don’t look like regular old wolves,” Drew said
, “You guys are huge.”
Ander laughed, “Okay, so we shift into much bigger, regular, old wolves.”
Ander leaned down to whisper in Tala’s ear, “Does this mean you’ll be accompanying me back to Canada, back to the pack?”
“Whoa, I don’t know about that. What about high school? I thought that maybe you could stay with me here,” Tala said hopefully.
“What about the pack? They need you. They need their Alpha. A pack has to have a leader.” Ander replied.
“Okay. Well, what about my pack? What about the Timber Pack? I’ve never even met them, and I’m supposed to be their Alpha, too, right? Am I supposed to just run off to Canada and forget all about them before I’ve even met them?”
“No one is running off to anywhere until high school is over,” Debra chimed in in the background.
“What do you think we should do?” Tala asked Ander.
“Technically, I think it’s up to you, what do you want to do?”
“I think I should finish high school here first, for sure. Before we do anything else,” Tala said. Debra let out a sigh of relief.
“I definitely think that’s the right decision. You should finish high school before anything else and even go on to college if that’s what you want. The pack will be there when you’re finished,” Ander said. “But they are going to need some kind of leadership while you do what you need to do.”
“What about my pack, though? The Timber Pack,” Tala said.
“I think I have an idea about that,” Drew said from across the room.
“Really? What’s your idea?” Tala asked.
“Senior Road Trip! After graduation we should all take a road trip and go looking for your pack. Me, you, and Ander.”
“That is an idea, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin to look.” Tala answered.
“I might be able to help with that,” Ander looked at Tala, “The last I heard, the Timber Pack were living around Montana and Idaho. They were supposed to have a pretty good spread of land up that way. I’m not sure exactly where but once you get there you could probably sniff them out.”
“Me? Aren’t you going to come with us?”
“I’m thinking that one of us should return to the Tundra pack after graduation. Someone will need to be there for the day to day pack matters by then. I can probably put them off till graduation, but they will need some sort of leader eventually and if you and Drew are going to look for your pack then you may want to send me back to the Tundras.
Tala moved closer to Ander and wrapped her arms around him a little tighter. She didn’t like the idea of them being apart, but she nodded and conceded that someone should be overseeing the Tundra pack if she was going to be searching for her own pack for who knew how long.
“Will you send word to your pack that you’ll return after graduation, and that I’ll follow, as soon as I can?” Tala asked. Ander nodded his head and rubbed her shoulders.
After they had finished discussing their plans for the near future, Debra told everyone that it was time to go, since they all had school tomorrow. At the door Ander bent down and kissed her forehead and Drew gave her a soft punch in the shoulder as he followed Ander out. Closing the door behind them she turned and climbed the stairs to her bedroom.
A few minutes later, Tala was sitting on her bed when there was a soft knock on the door.
“Come in.”
“Hi honey,” Debra stuck her head in the door. “Do you mind if we talk?”
“Sure mom, come on in.” Tala moved over so that her mother could sit beside her on the bed.
“What a couple of days you’ve had,” Debra said as she put her arm around Tala’s shoulders and kissed her hair.
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“So, what do you think of all of this?”
“I don’t really know yet. Some of it fits, I guess. I’ve always felt a little different, but I guess I just thought that everybody felt that way. But when I shifted, I could feel it. It just felt right.”
“Your dad always said that it was the best feeling, being a wolf. He said it was like the whole time he was human, his body was fighting to stay in a form that it didn’t really want to be in, and then when he turned, he found his true self.”
“Yeah. I guess that’s a good way to explain it. It feels like the wolf is who I’m supposed to be.”
“Are you okay with that though? It means that there is a whole side of yourself that you don’t know yet. You haven’t even begun to explore what this means for you. I’m not sure if you and Ander should get close yet, if you know what I mean. I’m not even sure about this whole Alpha thing. That’s a lot of responsibility on your very young and very inexperienced shoulders.”
“You don’t think I can do it?” Tala asked, looking down at her own fingernails. A sense of dread was building in her stomach, that her mother might say that she didn’t think she could.
“I didn’t say that. I know you’re more than capable of doing whatever you put your mind to. I just want this to be your choice, not an obligation that you think you must fulfil. If you want to finish school and move to Canada, then you can. I can’t stop you. But I want you to make that choice for yourself. Don’t let some boy, or some pack, make the decision for you.”
“I don’t think Ander is just some boy, Mom. You can’t feel the bond like I can. It’s incredible. Even right now, I can tell that he’s outside in the woods somewhere nearby. He is close enough to hear me if I yell his name. He doesn’t want to leave, and I don’t want him to.”
“He’s outside in the woods right now? And you don’t think that’s a little odd?” Debra asked. Tala noticed her mother's eyes move toward the window like she was trying to see Ander through the darkness that rested on the other side of the paned glass.
“If I was still just human, then yeah, I might say that was a little strange.” Tala noticed her mother scoffing when she said this. “Okay, okay, a couple of days ago, I probably would’ve called the cops if I knew he was hiding in the woods somewhere outside of our house,” Tala laughed, “but now that I can feel my wolf instincts, I know that there is nothing wrong or sinister in what he’s doing. He’s there for my protection and out of loyalty to me, his mate, and his Alpha. He can feel that I don’t want him to go, and so he won’t go until I ask him to. It feels wrong for him to be very far away, for him and for me.”
“Okay, well, you’re right, I don’t understand that. Your dad and I were in love, but we weren’t bonded or mated or whatever you say you and Ander share. If you say it’s real, then I believe you. You’ve always been a level-headed girl. Much more mature than other girls your age. I trust you if you say this is what you want.”
“It is.”
“Well, I would like to get to know him better so you should start bringing him over after school so I can learn a little more about him and his pack. If you’re going to go live with them eventually, I think I should know more about them.”
“Okay, Mom. I promise, I will.”
“Alright. Well, get some sleep. School tomorrow.” Debra kissed Tala on the head and headed for the door.
“Mom?”
“Yes.” Debra turned to face her again.
“It was nice, this talk. I’ve missed talking to you since Dad’s been gone. I know that you’re worried for me. I can sense your fear. I think I proved that I could take care of myself tonight. Don’t you?”
“I guess that much is true.” Debra smiled at Tala from the doorway. “I’ve missed talking to you too, Honey. I hope we never stop again. I love you, Tala. Goodnight.”
“Night, Mom. I love you too.”
Chapter 19
The next morning, Tala was happy to find that Drew and Ander were both waiting for her outside of the school building. As she approached, she looked them over carefully. Her best friend and her new friend. Wait, is he my new friend, or is he my boyfriend now? Tala closed the last few steps between herself and the two young men. Ander reached his arm out to w
rap it around her shoulder.
“I can be whichever you want.” Ander answered the question she had asked in her head.
“What?” Tala looked at him with her face reddening.
“You asked ‘am I your friend or your boyfriend?’ I can be whichever you want. We can go as slow as you like.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t ask that, I thought it. You can hear what I’m thinking? Even when I’m human?”
“Huh, I guess maybe I can. I don’t think I can hear you all the time, but I definitely heard you just then.” Ander smiled at her.
“Wait, what?” Drew said. Finally catching on to what their exchange was about. “No way, you guys can hear each other's thoughts?”
“Just hang on, Drew,” Tala said. Turning back to Ander, she said, “So you’re my boyfriend then?”
“If that’s what you want.” Ander answered.
“I’m asking if you want to be.” Tala asked.
“Of course.” Ander reached down and took her hand, putting it to his lips to kiss it.
“Okay,” Tala gulped as his lips grazed the skin on the top of her hand. “You’re my boyfriend then.”
