by Jenny Tia
Hey. Calm down. I don’t even know if I like him. This ‘fated mate’ business means nothing to me. It’s alright for Julian, but I know I don’t have to be with Nic just because we have some so-called fated connection.
I shook my head as I realized I was having a conversation with my wolf. Blinking against the sparkling glare reflected off the glass door, I slid it open. Across the room was Nic.
He was just as tall and handsome as I remembered. But his scent was stronger, and his energy was more intense than I’d noticed at the café. I hadn’t had time to take in much about him. I’d been too preoccupied with my guts doing an elaborate gymnastics routine.
Now, my heart was still pounding from my run, or so I chose to believe. I felt warm all over, and the heat seemed to be growing as I looked at him.
“Stefan, this is Nic.” I barely heard Julian’s introduction, but I didn’t really need it.
Nic walked toward me with slow steps. His eyes were soft. He was looking at me with awe, like he had discovered a precious gem after a dark trip through a filthy mine. Frankly, it was enthralling to be the object of that kind of attention. I felt my wolf’s excitement, but I just stood in place and held my poker face. I watched Nic and wondered how the hell I was going to deal with this situation. I guess I did want to meet him, but I didn’t want him to think that was a promise to give the rest of my life away to him. I didn’t know him and certainly didn’t have any reason to trust him.
“Stefan. I’m so happy to finally meet you.” He held out his hand, his warm smile growing and making adorable crinkles form at the outside edges of his eyes.
My fingers trembled until I reached out my hand and placed it in his. His touch brought me immediate comfort, like being wrapped in the soft blanket I had as a baby, decorated with teddy bears and bows. The intimacy of it sent me into a reeling panic. I pulled my hand away.
“Always nice to meet a fan.” I suddenly took on the tone of a jaded diva begrudgingly completing a stipulation in her contract for meet and greets—which I did realize was an absurd way to speak, but only after I had done it.
Nic just looked at me with the same grin, undeterred. His teeth were strikingly white and perfectly straight. The lines around his mouth made him look like the lead actor in a romantic comedy. It all seemed staged. It seemed very suspicious.
“I think you know why I’m here.” His voice was soft and sultry.
I maintained the air of someone meeting a crazed fan. “Listen, I don’t know who you think I am, but let’s get one thing straight: you don’t know me, and I don’t know you.”
“I know. Isn’t it amazing?” He laughed, never dropping his adoring gaze.
I wrinkled my nose at him.
“I don’t think you get it. You might be looking for someone to fill the role of your life partner, but I’m not auditioning.” I crossed my arms. My wolf whined and tried to urge me closer to him, but I stood my ground.
Nic just laughed. “This isn’t a movie. And trust me, if it was, I wouldn’t have cast someone who looks at me with as much disdain as you are right now.”
Julian burst out laughing. He clapped a hand over his mouth and rested the other on his belly while he tried to get himself under control, but it didn’t seem to be working. His laughter just kept coming, interspersed with desperate inhales as he tried to get a grip on himself.
“Looks like you met your match, Stef,” Julian managed to choke out before he started giggling again. I narrowed my eyes at him and tried to send him a telepathic message.
Whose side are you on here, anyway?
5
Nicolas
Light shone through the oversized windows from the garden and gathered around the angel standing in the middle of the living room. His blond hair lit up with the light, and his eyes sparkled like stars. I felt completely drawn to him. My knees went weak and I almost fell over. I brought my hand to my chest to ease my wolf as it jumped forward, again and again, desperate to mark him with my scent.
And then he handed me a full platter of sass.
But honestly, my whole body was alight with tingles while that beautiful man gave me his quick comebacks and nasty glares. His sass had just magnified those feelings. I wet my lips as I imagined how else that snarky attitude might express itself if his mouth was full of something. My tongue… My cock… Speaking of which, my dick was raging hard and I let out a frustrated but pleased growl as I realized how long it might take to get this sassy omega to the bedroom. He wasn’t like some omegas from Everglow who were ready to submit and eager to please. Stefan was going to make me work for it. I liked it. A lot.
“Stay for lunch?” Julian’s voice cut through my trance. Stefan squinted his eyes and snarled at his best friend, and the sincerity of his disdain at the idea made me laugh.
I smiled brightly and said straight to Stef, “Sure, I think I’ll stick around.”
Stefan groaned. “Good moon, what on earth would you do that for?”
Julian cackled loudly as he shuffled toward the kitchen.
I clicked my tongue. “I’m worried he’s going to go into early labor if he keeps laughing like that.”
“Mm, yeah, you should go, for everybody’s sake…” Stefan moved around me, but not before he caught my eye.
I gave him a quick wink, and he gave me a stink eye before he strutted out to the table on Casius’s back porch, leaving a strong scent in his wake. He smelled of ginger and cinnamon, and I even thought I could smell a hint of his slick… My mouth flooded with saliva and I gave my cock a quick, relieving squeeze through my pants before I followed him outside.
The exhaustion I felt from my observation duty was completely gone. I’d never felt more alive in my life. He sat at the table with his sunglasses on and proceeded to ignore me.
I was still salivating when Julian served up a dish of freshwater Everglow muscles in a herbaceous sour broth full of spices from Julian and Stefan’s hometown of Goldleaf. It smelled incredible.
“You ever collect muscles in the lakes?” Julian asked as he cracked one open and spooned it into his mouth.
“Yeah, it’s easy in the lakes here because the water is so clear. You can just dive down and grab them. The four of us should go sometime.”
Stefan grunted and poured himself a shot of clear liquor, and then he immediately knocked it back before pouring himself another.
I sniffed and caught a familiar scent of aniseed. “Hey is that…arad? I remember that smell from the singles mixer in Goldleaf where Casius met Julian.”
“It’s called arak,” Stefan said haughtily.
Julian grabbed the bottle and poured me a glass. “You were at that mixer? So was Stef. I’m surprised you didn’t meet.”
“Oh, you were there?” I looked Stef over, but he was nursing his glass of arak and gazing out across the garden.
I took the glass from Julian, who gave me a sympathetic look. But he didn’t need to—I wasn’t even close to letting Stefan’s silence turn me off. My wolf was pawing at my chest and bouncing around with excitement, way too much to ignore. It gave me some comfort. My wolf’s intuition was faultless, so as far as I was concerned, there was no way it would have been that excited if Stefan’s own wolf hadn’t been eager to meet me too.
So I pushed on. “I don’t know how we missed each other at the mixer. A lot of scents flying around that night, I guess. I ended up getting caught up in a conversation with an old volleyball friend of mine.”
“Volleyball?” Stefan laughed, then let out an agonized sigh and looked at Julian over the top of his sunglasses.
“What? You don’t like playing with big balls?” I asked with a smirk.
Despite himself, Stefan laughed again before quickly snapping his jaws shut and inhaling sharply. He leaned his head back and then craned his neck as he looked back inside through the glass doors. “Did anyone hear that? The front door opening?”
Julian nodded and cracked open another muscle with his hands. “It’s Cas.”
“Certain.”
“They practically know where the other one is at all times.” Stefan wrinkled his nose.
“Sounds fun.” I grinned, and he let out a disgusted groan.
“It’s creepy.”
“It’s both,” Julian said while he set a place for Cas then turned as his mate walked through the open doors. “Hey, sweetheart.”
“Hey, baby.” Casius made a beeline for Julian.
I sat back down into my seat and smiled through the painful yearning that tugged at my heart. It was sweet how Cas and Julian became each other’s whole worlds when they were together, how they fell into kissing and nuzzling each other like they’d been apart for years when it had only been hours.
“Disgusting, isn’t it?” Stefan grumbled as he stirred his stew.
It wasn’t the warmest invitation for conversation, but I’d take what I could get. “Hey, they seem to like it. There must be something nice about it.”
Stefan slurped up a spoonful of broth and rolled his eyes at me. I couldn’t help but stare as his lips, parted and plump, as he sucked up the liquid. He darted his tongue out and lapped up the few drops that hung on his bottom lip while I bit mine, resisting the urge to let out a hungry moan.
“So you two finally met, huh? How’s it going?” Casius smiled at us as he sat down beside Julian.
“How’s what going?” Stefan peered over his glasses at Cas.
“The uh, fated mate thing?” Cas gestured to the two of us until Julian placed his hand on top of Cas’s and forced him to lower it.
“It isn’t a thing. Can we just eat, please?” Stefan dropped his gaze and dug into his stew.
Cas gave me a worried look, but I returned it with an optimistic grin and followed Stef’s request to focus on the food. Julian, Cas and I chatted through lunch while Stef didn’t make a peep. It thrilled me every time I caught him staring at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. But I was always paying attention. I was so acutely aware of his presence I could feel his gaze on me. It was like a warm, prickling sensation that kissed my cheeks and ran down the side of my neck. When I turned in an effort to catch him, he was always looking right where I felt the warmth then he’d immediately snapped his gaze back to his food. He pouted a little, and I could almost hear him grumbling to himself, chastising himself for looking at me… To be completely honest, it was hot.
“Nic? Can I chat with you?” Casius asked.
“Huh? Yeah, of course.”
“It’s sensitive information.”
Stefan looked at Julian, who gave him a pleading look not to say anything. But as I got up to follow Cas back into the house, I heard Stef mutter, “Conspirators.”
“You doing alright?” Casius asked as he closed the door to his office behind us and I took a seat at his desk.
“Me? What do you mean? I’m amazing.”
Casius peered at me. “Stef doesn’t seem very…warm toward you.”
“I know. God. I love it.”
Casius laughed and ran a hand over his face. “You love it? What do you mean?”
“I don’t know!” I laughed as well. “I just love it. I can’t get enough of it. Can’t get enough of him. He could be cursing me out for an hour nonstop and I’d just sit there and soak it up. Wow. Damn. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and I didn’t even know it.”
Casius grinned at me like we shared a secret. “Fated love, huh?”
“Fated love… It’s real!” I let out a deep sigh and glanced over my shoulder at the shut door, wondering what Stef was doing right then.
“Well, you’ve got a few days to work on him. He’s stuck in Everglow until the roads open up again.”
I winced on his behalf. “Damn, he must hate that.”
“That’s an understatement. Hey, you want to stay over? I’m sure Stef will warm up to you the more you’re around?”
I let out a loud laugh and matched the playful grin he was giving me. “You think? Nah, I don’t want to crowd him. Thanks, man. I’ll come over tomorrow, though. Early.”
“Suit yourself. He’ll be here until those roads open up. Which I’d guess won’t happen until we get some info out of these prisoners…”
“Any progress at the station?” My posture improved as soon as we started talking about work, and so did Casius’s. He sat up straight and shook his head a little.
“No. Nothing. The same words from both of them. Eli ate a little more, but not much. The older guy is still refusing water.”
“Shit. That’s not good, right?”
“I don’t know about humans, but a wolf shifter couldn’t last more than four days without water.”
“Well, based on what Alpha Hughes was saying, we don’t know for sure that Eli is a human.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Any ideas about that theory of his?”
I sighed and thought back to my short experiences with the two humans. “I don’t know. Eli seems different to the older guy, but that could be age. Exposure to whatever hardcore brainwashing they’ve both obviously gone through to make them hate wolf shifters so much. Doesn’t mean he’s a different species, though.”
“Did you notice a different smell on him, like Alpha Hughes did?”
I frowned and strained my memory. “Nah. Maybe? Nah. He just smelled normal. Like, you or me.”
“Maybe he is like you or me.”
I raised my eyebrows and Casius raised his back. “You serious? You think he’s a shifter?”
“Do you?”
“I mean, it’s definitely possible. But then what the hell is he doing with the humans?”
“I don’t know. It’s crazy. I don’t know. Maybe you’re right, and it’s just his age that makes him susceptible to Alpha energy.”
I shrugged and crossed my arms over my chest. “Hm. Or maybe he’s faking it. Maybe it’s a tactic.”
Casius chuckled. “You sound like Julian with his conspiracy theories. I wish I could tell him about the human prisoners. He’d have some ideas for sure.”
“Man…” I let out a heavy sigh as sleepiness spilled over me again. It was like all the thrill of meeting Stefan had drained out of me, and all that remained in my blood was exhaustion. “I’m beat. I gotta get home.”
“Yeah, you look terrible.”
I laughed and stood up before opening the door and heading out.
“I’m serious. You do, you look like shit. No wonder your fated mate doesn’t want anything to do with you.”
“Hey!”
“Too real?” Cas grimaced at the prospect of hurting my feelings, but I just laughed.
“Nah, I like that I have a fated mate for you to joke about.”
“Who’s joking?” Julian’s voice floated in through the sliding glass doors.
I poked my head outside and beamed at the two omegas still sitting at the table. Stefan did a double-take, then looked away when I smiled at him. “I’m heading off. But I’ll be back tomorrow, Stef. I’ll see you then.”
He waved me off with a single flick of his wrist, but it just made me chuckle. Julian smiled, and I returned it with a nod.
“Bye, everyone. Until tomorrow.” I retreated inside where Casius wrapped an arm around my shoulder and showed me out. As he opened the front door, he gave me a supportive squeeze. “You’re a braver man than I.”
I just laughed and shook my head. “Nothing brave about it, Cas. I’ve never been more certain about something in my life. That’s my mate in there. We’re going to be together. That’s just how it is.”
Casius offered me a broad, bright smile, like I was telling some deep, honest truth. “I know how you feel, man. And I’m happy for you.”
“Well, who knows? Maybe I’m delirious. I got to get home to sleep. Can you do me a favor though? I want to take a run, my wolf is seriously yapping to get out. Can you get someone to drop off my car?”
“Yea
h. No problem. See you tomorrow.”
With my paws in the dirt and my human brain switched down to a low volume, my instincts were howling loud and clear, and my wolf was truly ecstatic. I felt like a pup on my first run. My back legs kicked up dirt behind me as I bounced through the now-guarded woods between Casius’s house and the Supreme Mansion.
Stefan, Stefan, Stefan!
I couldn’t wait to meet his wolf. Happiness flooded every part of me. My fated mate was beautiful, smart, sassy, and here. I could still detect the lingering wafts of his scent in my memory, and I was barely able to keep from rushing back to Casius’s yard, to leap into my mate’s lap, and to rub my snout all over him.
Instead, I broke through the forest and took a deep sniff of the summer-warmed grass that surrounded the Supreme Mansion gardens, and then I pranced across the lawn at the back of the Mansion itself. Two of the Inner Guard wolves stationed there raised their heads to check me out. I gave them a happy yap to identify myself, and they lowered their heads in acknowledgment.
My house was on the other side of the Mansion, through a thicket of brambles I loved to leap or burrow through, and that day I chose to dig my way in. My toes spread and dirt caked in between my paw pads as I sank my front claws into the soil, lowered my nose to the ground, and dug with all my energy. Sod and clay flew out from between my spread back legs, and dust rained all over the underside of my belly. Not to worry—it was about to get much worse.
It didn’t take long for me to dig a shallow trench into the loose dirt the roots of the blackberry brambles and young pine trees grew into. I dropped into the ditch and shuffled forward on my tummy as my front legs pulled me and my back legs pushed me. I squeezed through the gap under the thorny brambles without a scratch and bounded out the other side, completely refreshed and filthy from head-to-tail.
I panted happily and shook off the bigger clumps of dirt clinging to my fur. A short run through the grove, and I was in my yard. I padded across the lawn, bounded up the porch steps, and then shifted back into my human form at the front door. The sun was setting, but the summer air was still hot against my naked skin. I let out a relaxed sigh as I punched in the code for my front door. My own scent hit me as it swung open, and a happy smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. My home smelled like me, but damn, I still had the memory of that ginger and cinnamon my mate carried. Our scents combined, and my stomach flipped at how they complimented each other perfectly.
