His Forever Mate

by Jenny Tia

  “Julian,” I stated, enjoying the roll of his name off my tongue again.

  “He’s from Goldleaf?”

  “Yep. He’s so incredibly beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. I was only able to part ways with him because of courtship traditions. It wouldn’t look good for a Supreme Alpha Select to try and dodge the rules, right? But man, it pained me to let him out of my sight.”

  “Wow,” said Nic, chewing his croissant now. “So when are you going to meet his parents? This weekend?”

  “Ah, hopefully today… Alpha Truitt said he would arrange it, but he sounded like he was wasted as fuck when I called him last night to request the meeting. I don’t know if he even remembers our conversation.”

  “Damn. I’m sorry I missed your big moment. I was so busy chatting to Sam about volleyball. We’re gonna set up a scrimmage between Goldleaf and Everglow.”

  “Hey, it’s cool. I don’t mind that. But I’m curious, how did you miss Alpha Truitt announcing it to the room? He went wild when he saw us together and made everyone toast us. Little awkward for Julian, I think.”

  “Sam and I went to another room to talk. It was so loud in there.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Oh! Anything happen with you and him?”

  “No, he’s mated. But you! Man, after all these years. Cas, your fated mate was only two hours away from Everglow this whole time…”

  “Shit. I know. Isn’t it crazy? I still kind of can’t believe it. It was just the way my parents described meeting each other.”

  “Just the way you always wanted it to happen.” Nic pointed to me and took another sip of coffee.

  “To tell you the truth, I was starting to doubt it would ever happen, especially if I was going to have to settle down with someone just to become Supreme Alpha. I would have had to stop looking for him.” The thought pained my heart, like someone had wrapped it in barbed wire. I placed my hand on my chest to soothe myself.

  “Really? You’ve always said to me that you were sure your other half was out there. It wouldn’t be like you to give up.”

  “Yeah, but I’m thirty-four. How long could I have waited?”

  “I guess we’ll never need to know,” Nic said with a smile, raising his cup to me. “To fated love.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” I said, my grin wide. I gulped some coffee then sighed. “God, I really need to rehydrate. Those arak cocktails went down a little too easily.”

  “Tell me about it,” Nic said. “Did you bring any headache relief?”

  “Hey, a Supreme Alpha Select is always prepared.” I tossed a packet of painkillers onto the table. Just then I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. “Oh shit, it’s Alpha Truitt,” I said to Nic. He held his palms together in a silent gesture of gratitude.

  I answered the call and held the phone to my ear.

  “Good morning, Alpha Truitt,” I said into the phone in my most professional tone.

  “Oh, good morning, Casius,” he said distractedly. He sounded like only a fraction of the man he was last night. “I just spoke to the Reigns and they can see you today.”

  “That’s perfect. Thank you so much.”

  “The only thing is, they’re only free in the morning. So we’ll have to go over there, basically right now.” He let out a pained groan.

  “No problem. I just finished breakfast. If you text me the address, I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  “Great. It’s on the outskirts of town but it should only take ten minutes to drive. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Thanks again, Alpha Truitt.”

  “No problem, Casius. See you soon.”

  “What’d he say?” Nic asked, wiping crumbs off his mouth with a napkin.

  “Julian’s parents can meet me today, but I have to go now. Like, right now.” I grabbed my keys from the table and stood up, wiping down my shirt with a napkin.

  “Oh shit, okay. Do you need me to come with you?”

  “No, it should be fine. Alpha Truitt will be there. Thanks, though.”

  “Of course,” Nic said. “I’ll just chill in town. Or like…bed. If you need me, I’m just a call away.”

  When I arrived at the Reign house, I could immediately sense that something wasn’t right. Alpha Truitt was standing outside a bland-looking rectangular building with a sad rose bush to the left of the front door. He had his lips tucked inside his mouth and his hands stuffed in his pockets. He still had the erect posture of a pack Alpha, but I could tell something was bothering him. Something besides his raging hangover.

  “Hey, Casius,” Alpha Truitt said with a weak smile when I walked up to the house. “Let’s go inside.”

  I eyed him with concern but followed him. I knew Julian wouldn’t be here, and I was itching to see him again, so as much as I wanted this meeting to go well, I also wanted it to go quickly.

  As we walked through the creaky metal front door with its chipped white paint, I heard a screeching voice say, “Alpha Truitt, so nice to see you!”

  “Stephanie, so good to see you. Mitchell, how are you?”

  “Fine, just fine,” Mitchell said in reply, his voice gravelly.

  Alpha Truitt stepped out of the way to present me.

  “Stephanie, Mitchell, this is Casius Burrows, Julian’s fated mate and”—he cleared his throat—“the Supreme Alpha Select for Colorado. He’s visiting from Everglow.”

  I looked his parents over, as they did the same to me. Their hair was yellow like Goldleaf’s famed foliage and their eyes were bright blue like Julian’s. They were smiling at Alpha Truitt, but there was something cold behind their friendly expressions. I noticed a family photo hanging crookedly on the wall. Julian stuck out like a gorgeous dark-haired heartthrob amongst his fair-haired relatives.

  “Nice to meet you, Casius,” Mitchell said curtly.

  “Nice to meet you both,” I said, with a nod of respect.

  “Please sit down, I’ll bring you some tea.” Stephanie hurried off to the kitchen.

  “That would be lovely, thank you,” I said, and took a seat on the couch next to Alpha Truitt.

  Mitchell sat down in a large green armchair facing us and smiled at me.

  “So, has Julian told you much about us?” His voice sounded weary.

  “No, not yet. We really just met—literally twelve hours ago. I thought it best to meet you in person before I learned more about Julian.”

  Mitchell held his smile and nodded at me. My wolf growled with the instinct that something was wrong.

  I cleared my throat. “So, would tell me about yourselves?”

  He took a deep breath, as though preparing to read lines from a play. “Well, I’ve been an accountant for thirty years now, and Stephanie has been busy raising our three children. She also volunteers with her knitting circle to make blankets and beanies for the local maternity ward. She’s known as a bit of a saint around these parts. What about yourself?”

  Stephanie came in and placed a steaming teacup in front of me as I answered him.

  “Well, I’m trained as an architect, but as a member of Supreme Alpha Hughes’s Inner Guard, I only take on a few projects a year since most of my time is spent on government business. Being Supreme Alpha Select, it’s especially important I stay abreast of all state matters and support Alpha Hughes in whatever way is needed.”

  Stephanie looked me over. “Very impressive. What about your family?”

  “Well, I’m an only child, and I’m still close with my parents. I see them quite often. What about Julian? Anything you’d like me to know about him?”

  “He’s a…good boy,” Stephanie said. “He does well at work, and he has nice friends.”

  She sounded too cold, too clinical. It was bizarre. I glanced at Alpha Truitt. He had the same pained expression he had on earlier when I met him outside the house. Something was definitely wrong, and I started to worry about Julian.

  “I have a feeling I’m missing something here,” I said. “Is Julian alright? He seems wonderful to me
and I’m committed to courting him, but I want to know. I won’t tolerate secrecy.”

  Mitchell and Stephanie glanced at each other.

  “Julian is…different,” Mitchell said, looking down at his teacup and sighing.

  My wolf snarled defensively on Julian’s behalf. “Okay. Being different isn’t always a bad thing.”

  Stephanie looked me in the eye. “He’s defective.”

  “What do you mean defective?” I asked, shocked that Julian’s own parents were speaking of him like this. Like he had no value.

  Michell cleared his throat. “He’s twenty-six years old and he’s never gone into heat. And there’s no reason to believe he ever will.”

  I turned to Alpha Truitt who nodded. “It’s true, the poor lad. But I personally wouldn’t go as far as to say he’s defective.”

  “What would you call it then?” Stephanie asked. “I’m so sorry, Casius, and with you being Supreme Alpha Select, well… I don’t see why you would want to mate with an infertile man. Julian should have told you this himself before you got your hopes up about him. It’s a real shame.”

  I frowned and considered this new information. Why wouldn’t he have gone into heat? And more importantly—did it matter to me? I sure didn’t think of him as defective.

  I took a gulp of tea and stared at my shoes. Would Alpha Hughes be as understanding? Julian might not be able to breed. Did I care?

  I wanted him. I wanted him so badly I could have jumped up off the couch and stormed out of that house and gone to him, right that second. But I composed myself as best I could, placed my half-finished tea on the table, and met his parents’ gaze once more.

  “Well, I want Julian. That’s what I came here to say and I’m not going to change my mind. He’s my mate. There’s no denying it. I would like your permission to formally court him.”

  Stephanie looked like she was going into cardiac arrest. She clutched her chest and gasped as if I’d just slapped her across the face.

  “Seriously? Julian?”

  Mitchell put a hand on her back and gave me an apologetic look.

  “You don’t know what you’re getting into,” Stephanie warned.

  “Didn’t you just tell me? Or is there more I need to know about your son?”

  Stephanie looked at Mitchell, who simply shrugged. “Well, we don’t really have a reason to say no, I guess.”

  “Is that a ‘yes’?” Alpha Truitt asked hopefully.

  Stephanie took in a sharp breath. “Sure. It’s a yes. Dig your own grave.”

  She stood, lowered her head briefly to Alpha Truitt, and stormed out of the room. Awkward tension descended over the three of us, and Mitchell continued to sit perfectly still with an embarrassed, apologetic expression.

  “Well then!” Alpha Truitt slapped the top of my tap. “That’s a yes! Great success! Let’s get you and Julian together.”

  6

  Julian

  “You pathetic wimp!” my mother yelled as she brought the kitchen broom above her head. I was old enough and big enough that I could have grabbed it and taken it from her, but I wasn’t brave enough. I didn’t dare. Instead, I lowered my head and she brought it down against my back.

  The scene played out over and over. She yelled, the broom came up, I exposed my neck, and she brought it down again. And again. And again.

  Exhausted, she collapsed in a heap, crying with desperation and sobbing with such ferocity it was as though I were the one who had been beating her. I curled up around her and begged her to forgive me. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”

  She didn’t even look at me.

  I woke up in a cold sweat before dawn.

  I stumbled into the kitchen and threw open the blinds, searching for a sign of life or light. From my loft apartment in the Old Town of Goldleaf, I had a view of the forests to the east where the sun was gaining height over the horizon. I pressed my forearms against the cold granite benchtop and let out a sigh of relief as the light turned from amber to pink to bright white, spreading through the sky and showing off the canopy’s brilliant new spring growth.

  “It was just a dream,” I said as I put my kettle on the stove then threw open my tea pantry. With shaking hands, I found a dark glass jar with a ratty old label that read Reishi Mushroom. The kettle whistled and I jumped, dropping a spoon.

  “Get it together.” I bent down to pick up the spoon, hit my head on the counter on the way back up and jumped again when my phone started buzzing. Casius? Probably calling to tell me he’d canceled his plans and was heading back to Goldleaf. Nice to meet you, there’s been a terrible mistake, bye now.

  “Hello?” My voice was shaking with nerves.

  “Oh! You’re up early.” Stefan seemed genuinely shocked. “I was expecting your voicemail.”

  “Bad dream,” I mumbled, spooning out a double dose of reishi powder into my cup. “Are you at the hospital?”

  “Yeah, just starting my shift, but I kind of wanted to tell you something about Casius… There was something weird about him.”

  I concentrated on pouring boiling water into my cup. “Weird? Like how he thinks I’m his fated mate and worth courting?”

  “Uh, no. It was his smell…”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I was intoxicated by it.”

  “Hm. I just… There was something about it… I don’t know. Just… Never mind. “What was your dream about?”

  I sloshed water onto the counter and hissed when steam hit my fingers. “What dream? Anyway, what time do you get off work today?”

  “The bad dream you just told me you had. Don’t you dare try to change the subject.”

  I grunted and mopped up the spilled water then grabbed my cup and wandered out onto my balcony. “It was about my mom. Nothing to analyze, thanks. Casius is going to meet my parents today to ask for courtship permission, so it’s on my mind.”

  Stefan let out a whistle then dropped his voice in genuine concern. “How are you feeling about all of that?”

  “About as well as you’d expect.” I sighed and leaned on my balcony railing, closing my eyes and welcoming the morning sun’s warmth on my face.

  “So, not good,” Stef said, with a chuckle.

  “It’s just all happening kind of fast, isn’t it? With Casius and me? We literally met for five minutes and now he’s ready to court me.”

  “Seems like the usual speed. Remember how quickly things went with your brothers and their mates?”

  I grunted again as I opened my eyes and took a sip of the reishi brew I was holding. I did remember. Things had happened at warp speed after my parents had given my brothers’ mates permission to court them, and that was the problem—I knew things were just going to get even faster if they gave Casius permission… But that was a big if.

  “Well, I have no idea how my parents are going to react. They might just blow him off and say no, just to spite me. Sorry, to protect me. Oh, or they might just laugh. I can easily imagine them thinking it’s some kind of prank or joke.”

  “They’d think it’d be a joke that their last omega son would find a mate?” I could hear Stefan’s eyebrows go up with skepticism.

  “Uh, yeah. They’ve told me outright that they don’t believe I’ll ever find a mate, especially when they started hearing how many times I’ve been rejected because of my heat situation.”

  “Pity party at sunrise? Oh, where’s my invitation?” Stefan asked. I let out a frustrated sigh before he went on. “Listen, your parents have been truly awful to you. So don’t worry about what they think or what they’re going to say or do. Let Casius do his alpha thing. Worst case scenario, he’s weirded out by them and he’ll run out of there, then you’ll get a chance to explain to him you are nothing like them. Best case, he sees them for what they are and goes through the motions without getting tangled up in their mess. But listen—if anything is going to impress your parents, having the Supreme Alpha Select court you would be it.”

  Stefan truly was
the voice of reason that I needed to hear.

  “Yeah, maybe he’ll impress them. Oh, what am I thinking? He works for the Supreme Alpha. He’s going to be the next Supreme Alpha. He’s part of the kind of authority I hate! How is he my fated mate?”

  Stefan laughed. “Yeah, someone like him is not who I would have picked for you, my conspiracy-nut friend. But sadly, it’s not my job. The moon goddess has a sense of humor. She loves the drama of matchmaking odd pairs. Oh shit, I have to run, my rounds are starting literally right now. Call me later!”

  “Call me later.”

  “Okay, bye! Bye! Bye, bye, bye.”

  I downed the last of my tea and gazed out at the city that was waking up below me. I could hear the clatter of feet on cobblestone streets, and my shoulders relaxed. Maybe it was the medicinal mushroom brew or maybe it was the words of comfort from my friend, but I felt like I could handle whatever happened between Casius and my parents. If they liked him, great. Maybe it would improve their attitude toward me somehow. If they ruined his opinion of me and he went running, fine. I’d met him yesterday. I was alone before, and I would be fine returning to that lifestyle tomorrow.

  So why did I still feel nervous dread?

  To keep my mind off it, I returned to the one thing that never failed to give me relief from the stressors of my personal life: work.

  I got set up for the day in my home office, with a plate of baklava pastries, a pot of hibiscus tea, and a chewing gum infused with cordyceps mushroom powder for mental clarity and acuity. I was a trained accountant—numbers and balancing out books was fun for me. I liked staying in my head most of the day, far from the unpleasantness of my body and all of the shame it had brought on me in my life.

  Unfortunately, my work also gave me a lot of insight into government spending, especially since my largest client was the town of Goldleaf itself. Alpha Truitt, in classic pity for me, had assigned me as the bookkeeper for the town, and his own businesses. I saw clearly how much we sold our flax and cotton to Everglow for, and how little our workers were being paid as a result of that underpriced exchange.