by Jenny Tia
I’d had enough. I launched myself off the stool and pushed through a group of alphas who were crowding the bar, and then I went to search out Stef. I spotted him leaning against a table, his lips pursed as he eyed off a group of betas. Out of nowhere, an incredibly handsome alpha locked eyes with Stef. My heart lurched, and my wolf let out a soft whimper. The alpha had the posture of a soldier—I clocked him as an Everglow protector, and a hot one, at that. The guy was tall, broad, and definitely well-muscled. My stomach churned as I watched Stefan start up a conversation, and jealousy gripped me.
Good for him. Stefan deserved some luck in the love department, especially after he’d been dumped by his chosen mate, Justin, who found his fated mate. Me on the other hand… I knew I’d never find anyone, and I’d come here with a bitter outlook. I deserved all the disappointment I was getting, and I was prepared to call it a night.
As I stepped up beside Stefan to tell him I was leaving, I instantly felt faint.
I was losing my mind. I mean it—my mind was no longer functioning. My wolf practically launched itself at the man Stef was talking to, and I felt its urgency through every inch of my body. My mouth suddenly went dry and I heard a whine coming from the back of my throat; a sound I didn’t even mean to make all because I’d just walked into the musk of the most handsome alpha I’d ever seen. He smelled like earthy sage and bay leaf with a hint of something sharp like water in a crystal-clear spring. It almost brought me to my knees, and I grabbed Stefan’s shoulder to steady myself.
“Oh my moon,” I whispered under my breath as my gaze darted over the alpha’s face. His lips were parted in shock, but his intense gaze never left mine. He inhaled deeply, and the color of his eyes changed from a warm hazel to a glowing alpha red. His wolf was clearly at the surface and ready to burst forth—and mine wasn’t far behind. A primal instinct was taking over, and all I could feel was animal lust.
A low growl came from his belly, and it tugged right at mine. It was like a rope was lassoed between us and pulled taut so there was no way I could move without him moving too. I tried—I stepped back, and sure enough, he stepped forward, even closer.
Stefan glanced between us and asked, “Uh, what’s happening here?” But his words floated off into the ether. All I could hear was the sound of my raspy and desperate breathing. I wet my lips as my cock swelled. I wanted this alpha. Bad.
And he sure wanted me. More than anyone had ever wanted me before.
In a low growl, he declared, “Mate.”
Mate? He had to be joking. The only thing more powerful than my instincts was the power of my insecurities. I threw up my hands and shook my head. “Just a moment, just take it easy.”
He either wasn’t listening or didn’t care. He stepped closer and his scent overwhelmed me. The guy was built like a log, and his frame towered over me. I dragged my eyes over his tight silver protector uniform, the curve of his pectoral muscles straining his shirt, and I desperately wanted to press my face against that chest and breathe him in. I’d never felt so turned on in my life, and my cheeks burned red from it, more than they’d burned from the arak.
“What’s your name?” he asked. His voice was husky, deep and melodic, and my whole body trembled. I wet my lips.
“Julian.”
“Julian. That’s a beautiful name for a beautiful man.”
“And you are?” I managed to ask.
“Supreme Alpha Select Casius Burrows.”
My heart raced. My eyes finally flicked away from the muscled form in front of me and I caught Stef’s look. This couldn’t be right. An alpha being interested in me and he was in line to become the Supreme Alpha? Not just the Alpha for a small town like ours, but for Everglow and the entire state of Colorado? Unlikely. Outrageously unlikely.
“Uh. Supreme Alpha Select? Are you serious?” Stef put a hand on his hip and leaned close in an attempt to attract Casius’s attention. I raised my eyebrows and looked the alpha over. He sure seemed nice for a lackey of the state. His gaze was still on me, and he simply nodded to Stefan’s question. Casius stepped forward again, and his scent intensified. I let out a soft moan as my body tingled from head to toe. My wolf rushed forward, again and again, pacing the perimeter of my heart, eager to get closer to him and his wolf.
Our eyes met once more, and suddenly, I understood. This was more than physical attraction… The lust remained, but a wash of pure, innocent love flowed through me and tempered it. I felt safe for the first damn time in my life. I bit my bottom lip, unable to wrench my eyes away from his, then quivered as he touched my cheek.
The edges of his plump lips tugged into a grin. “Wow, you’re a blessing.”
I choked on my breath. A blessing? I’d been called an oddball, a black wolf, a barren curse… But never a blessing. My insecurities melted a little as this alpha smoothed his hand over my cheek, down my neck, and squeezed my shoulder. A blessing, huh? But despite my body yearning for this guy to touch me everywhere, and my wolf pining to run with him, I knew intellectually that he must have the wrong guy. If I had a fated mate, there was no way he was as beautiful as this alpha… And no way he was part of the government.
“Well, look what we have here!” Alpha Truitt said from behind me. I inwardly groaned.
Casius didn’t flick his eyes away from me for an instant. He licked his lips and kept smiling.
“Hello, Alpha Truitt,” Stefan said cheerily, his eyes going wide.
“You two are clearly hitting it off,” our Alpha said with a strong slur in his voice, slapping me on the back as he saw Casius touching me.
“Us? Oh, I think Casius has the wrong guy—”
Casius let out a laugh of disbelief. “No, Julian. I’ve found you,” he said.
“Brilliant, what a wonderful match for mates! The Supreme Alpha Select with our very own Julian…” Alpha Truitt’s voice seemed to fade off into a sad mumble as he looked me over.
“Fated mates,” Casius said, and I just about threw up my arak. Alpha Truitt seemed to look relieved because he gently swayed from side-to-side.
“Excuse me?” I shook my head.
“You feel it,” Casius said confidently.
He was right. I did. The headiness, the trembling in my heart, the urge to be with him. And that scent… Everything was exactly what everyone had said finding your fated mate was like.
“Oh my moon, I can’t believe this is happening,” Stefan murmured. He leaned on me for support, even though my legs were jelly.
“I—um, yeah I do feel it, but I’m…” I shook my head again, hating that I was stammering and couldn’t seem to think clearly.
Alpha Truitt let out a deep sigh of relief, looking like the weight of the world was just lifted from his shoulders. He drunkenly held up his near-empty glass of arak. “We have a pair of fated mates here!” he announced to the room, and a roar of applause sounded from the crowd.
I glanced around and noted that most of the people who were cheering were from Everglow. The Goldleaf locals, including my friends and relatives, were quietly looking us over with a mixture of judgment and disbelief on their faces.
As if reading my mind, Stefan held up his hands and called for quiet. “Let’s give them some space to get to know each other, okay?” He turned back to me. “Shoo, go, get out of here.” He urged us through the crowd and even pushed Alpha Truitt back with a hard elbow as Casius and I made our way through the room. Casius kept his hand on my shoulder, and I was surprised at how much comfort it gave me.
Stefan disappeared, but Casius and I kept making our way out to the courtyard where the lights of Goldleaf shone brightly over the rise. Worry gnawed at my stomach, which overshadowed the backflips my heart was doing, and the loud happy yaps my wolf was making. Why was Alpha Truitt so damn excited? Sure, I got it. It was a big deal. Finding your fated mate was a life-changing event, but it wasn’t like we’d consummated it. There was still an element of choice. And this Casius guy had no idea what he was getting himself into with me.
> “You seem nervous,” Casius said next to my ear.
“Well, yeah,” I said, shaking him off. “I uh… I know nothing about you, for one.”
Noise poured out into the courtyard as Stefan pushed through the door, carrying a bottle of arak in one hand and three glasses in the other. My shoulders relaxed when I saw my best friend, and he gave me a reassuring smile. It would be easier to navigate this with him by my side.
“What would you like to know about me?” Casius was still grinning at me like he’d won the lottery.
“Everything. Like, uh, what do you do in Everglow?” I asked, scratching my arm nervously.
“I’m in the Supreme Alpha’s Inner Guard. And, as I said before, I’ll be taking over as Supreme Alpha so long as I…” He finally broke eye contact with me and looked nearly as nervous as I felt.
“So long as what?” Stefan asked, holding out a glass of arak for Casius.
The alpha took it with a gracious nod, then he held the glass to his nose and took a quick sniff. His nose wrinkled adorably, and I found myself smiling at his distaste for our local drink when normally I would have knocked it out of any other snob’s hand and told them to get the hell out of here.
Damn. This fated mate business is serious.
“I’ll be Supreme Alpha, as long as I meet all of the requirements,” Casius explained, then he knocked the shot back before gasping. “Whoo, that’s…powerful.”
Stef and I laughed and raised our glasses at each other as we leaned against a tall table.
Casius wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then licked his lips as he looked at me. His eyes had faded from glowing alpha red, back to hazel, and they felt like they were warming me up from the inside.
“I’ll be remaining in Goldleaf for a few more days. I’ll speak to Alpha Truitt, once he sobers up, and I’ll seek out your parents for their blessing before I begin our courtship.”
My breath caught. “Courtship? Don’t you think that’s too soon? I still don’t know you.”
“That’s what courtships are for, but you’re my fated mate, and I doubt the moon goddess would have mated me with someone I wasn’t compatible with.”
Compatible? Right, but I doubted my parents would think like that. Maybe if I got to them before Casius, I could warn them that a beautiful man was coming to ask them something they thought they’d never be asked. Maybe they’d take it well, and then wouldn’t take it out on me.
5
Casius
When I got back to my hotel room, I had to lie down right away. I covered my face with my hands and laughed into them. My head was still spinning. The drama of finally meeting my fated mate was somehow even more overwhelming than I had imagined!
And he was so beautiful. His dark curls framed his sweet features perfectly. As soon as I had touched his face, I hadn’t wanted to let him out of my sight. But we had to do things according to tradition, which meant going to meet his parents before we could move forward with anything. I wanted to rush forward into the beautiful life I knew we would have together, but for now, all I could do was try to figure out how to live with a constant buzzing in my head and my chest.
I said his name out loud. “Julian.” It poured over my tongue like honey. I wanted to drink it. Bathe in it. But all my fantasies would have to wait.
When I came to my senses enough to figure out my next move, I grabbed my phone from my pocket and dialed Alpha Truitt’s number. It was late, but maybe he was still up. It was worth a shot.
“Casius!”
“Alpha Truitt, how soon can—”
“I am over the moon about you and Julian,” he said, his words slurring. He must have gotten deep into the arak after I left the party.
“Thank you,” I said politely, and couldn’t help but grin as I remembered my incredible fortune.
“He is such a good guy, our Julian…”
“Listen, I need you to set up a meeting with his parents, as soon as possible.”
“Of course, of course,” he said. I heard voices and a few barks in the background, and I realized he was still at the Golden Dome, and the event was still kicking. Damn, Goldleafians knew how to party.
“I can stay in Goldleaf until Tuesday. But I’d preferably like to meet them tomorrow. I want to start to get to know Julian right away.”
“I understand completely. Leave it with me, Casius.”
I found it difficult to trust he would follow through on his drunken promise, but there was nothing I could do about it now. “Thank you. Enjoy the rest of the party.”
“I will, it’s a great party! Smashing success!”
I heard a glass break, and someone howled on the other end of the line.
“Hey, one last thing—I have a lot of energy buzzing around in my head. Would you mind if I went for a run in the woods near the hotel?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, permission granted.”
“Thank you.”
“No, my pleasure, Cas, mine, all mine…”
“Alright, take—” I sighed when I realized he’d already hung up.
I twirled my phone in my hand and tried, again, to get a grip on the situation. Even having taken action in my courtship of Julian, I still felt restless. I hoped it would all go to my schedule. But there were other people to consider, of course. I didn’t even know if Julian’s parents would be in town the next day.
To be honest, I didn’t even know if Julian would want to move ahead with me. Yes, we were fated mates, but he didn’t have to be with me. He could choose not to if he wished. I hoped that wasn’t what he wished…
It felt great to stretch my muscles as I bounded over a fallen tree in the forest near the hotel. I ran as fast as I could, faster than I ever had before, my chest heaving and my wet nostrils flaring as I took in oxygen and the smells of the woods.
The leaf litter smelled different here. There were fewer pine needles than in Everglow. The oak and maple leaves, once crisp in autumn, had deteriorated into a brown sludge with the spring rains. I felt light as a feather as I jumped over a stream and scrambled across some rocks up a hillside. My feet barely touched the ground before I took off again, propelled by the seemingly endless source of energy finding Julian had unleashed in me.
I had found my fated mate! Mission accomplished. A lifelong mission at that—not only had I followed my Alpha’s orders, but I’d managed to fall into a dream I’d been having since I was a cub. Fated love! I let out a long howl of elation, then two more, just because it felt so good to express my love for Julian into the night. I heard a few other wolves answer my call from the southern end of the woods—they were happy for me, and their glee only fed my own.
Eventually, after running for a while longer, I headed back. When I got to my hotel room, I put on my pajamas and flopped into bed, completely calm.
But as soon as I closed my eyes, Julian’s face filled my vision. His pouting lips seemed to pull me in like a vortex. I thought I was spent after my run, but my cock started to grow, so I snaked my hand under the waistband of my pants to release some tension. My cock throbbed as soon as I wrapped my fingers around it, and I groaned softly.
It was so easy to imagine kissing Julian’s lips, sucking his bottom one between mine and licking at it before pulling him in close so our bodies were pressed together. I thought about taking him home to Everglow, laying him out on my bed and kissing my way down his chest. The thought of pleasuring him drove me wild. I wanted to suck on his nipples and feel the palm of his hand against the back of my neck, and I wondered what his voice would sound like moaning my name. My aching cock dripped precum onto my fingers as I stroked it, my rhythm getting a little faster as my fantasy heated up.
I visualized sliding my hands down his torso, pulling down his pants to reveal his swollen dick, and then grinding against him. Groaning, I tightened my grip on my cock and felt my balls pull up as I got closer to orgasm. In my head, Julian spread his legs and I buried myself inside him, and I could almost feel him tilting his h
ips while I thrust in and out of him. I pictured his hole pulsating around me, and in reaction, my cock thickened. My breath caught as I pushed my cock into my clenched fist, imagining filling Julian’s hole with my spunk.
I moaned loudly, so loudly there was no doubt everyone in the hotel heard me. My cock bucked in my hand, and I sprayed my torso with cum. My climax was short, sharp and sweet, leaving me with a heavy buzz that followed me into a deep, dreamless sleep.
I let Nic grab some breakfast from the buffet at the hotel before I broke the news. He had already picked up a croissant and had opened his mouth to take a bite when I dropped the bomb as casually as possible.
“So, I met my fated mate last night.” I took a sip of coffee. Nic paused with the croissant an inch from his open lips. He froze there for a few seconds and blinked at me. Then he put the croissant down.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I haven’t had any coffee yet and I have a banging headache. I didn’t quite understand what you just said.”
I grinned this time, unable to contain my excitement. “I met my fated mate at the party last night.”
“What the fuck?” Nic leaned back in his chair as his eyes bugged out of his head. “Oh my god, man. This is huge! Are you serious? I can’t believe it. No way. How did it happen?”
“I noticed his scent. I followed it to a guy, but I was confused because I didn’t feel anything for him, but then his friend walked up, who turned out to be his best friend, and it was like… Bam!” I punched my left palm with my right fist. “Like I got punched in the gut and someone was pulling on my heart with a tug rope. Undeniable.”
“Shit. Congrats, man. I’m so happy for you!”
“Thank you.” I took a bite of my buttered bagel then I smiled into the distance as I thought about Julian again.
“Oh my god, look at you. This is serious. I mean, of course it is. But you already seem different. It’s wild,” Nic said. He took a sip of his coffee and it seemed to steady him. “So. What’s his name? What does he do? Tell me everything.”
