by Paige Taylor
“Great idea, let’s go running, beautiful,” Dylan says with a smirk growing on his face. Damn, that smirk is sexy.
The guys all stand up simultaneously and wait for me to walk around the bar. Once I’m near them, though, I suddenly find myself encased in a six-foot alpha triangle. Well, looks like their protective instincts are coming in hot. Although, considering they only just met their mate, and then found out she does cage fighting, I guess I can sympathise with the protectiveness. We walk back out of the loungeroom and towards that beautiful front door, our feet thumping on the hardwood flooring. Somehow, we make it through the door seamlessly and down the front porch steps like one very well-oiled machine. The tree line is illuminated by just the light of the bonfire, the shadows of the trees flickering and moving as the flame does. We all take a few steps towards the woods then we’re stopped by a soft, feminine voice.
“Alpha, Is everything okay? I could feel the emotions coming from the house in waves, it was so strong,” the voice says softly. The only wolf who can feel specific emotions like that other than the Alpha and Beta is the Omega. The Omegas in werewolf packs aren’t like the Omegas in the wild. Yes, they do help relieve tension and stress, but they are important for the emotional well-being of the pack, they track emotions and react accordingly. I peek my head around the shoulders of Dylan, in front of me, and see the tiniest wisp of a female wolf. Her pretty, soft-brown hair frames her angular face while her body has a dancer’s build, she looks like a shorter version of a supermodel. If I couldn’t smell wolf coming from here I would have assumed she was a fairy.
“Yeah, Andrews, even we could feel that coming from the house, is everything okay?” asks another masculine voice, coming from my blind side. This speaker is about five-foot-ten, with blond surfer hair and a good bone structure, like the rest of the men I’ve seen in this Pack so far. He also has a killer body, and yet, I feel nothing for him except general curiosity. I close my eyes and take a deep breath through my nose, trying to scent what he is to the pack. Another nifty trick I picked up along the way to Montana in the last ten months, the ability to sense a wolf’s power. The scents filling my nose are so heavily saturated with the men that surround me, I only get traces of the stranger’s position, Beta.
“Yeah, everything is okay, we just had a bit of a shock. Sophie, Trent, this is Ava, our Mate,” Dylan announces to them both. As soon as the word ‘Mate’ is uttered, every manmade sound instantly stops. All you can hear is the fire crackling, ten feet away, and the music continuing to play. Well, no time like the present to start making good impressions. I take a step forwards so that I’m standing in front of Dylan, facing the small group in front of me.
“Hi, I’m Ava. Nice to meet you both,” I say, holding my hand up in a semi-wave. Trent’s eyes lock on mine, his wolf trying to assert dominance over me already.
“Oh, calm your wolf down, I’m not part of the pack, yet. No need to have the awkward staring contest already,” I huff out, causing his eyes to glow. Great first impression Ava. If I could slap myself upside the back of the head and not look like a spastic monkey, I would. I turn to Sophie while trying to drown out the laughter coming from my three mates, and wait for her to hold her hand out. I may not have been in a pack for a while, but I still know how this works, I have to wait for the member of Pack to initiate the handshake. Luckily, she thrusts her hand forward quickly and grabs my hand, shaking it with enthusiasm.
“Hi, Sophie, really nice to meet you. If it’s not too much to ask, sometime over the next few days or weeks I’d love to get to know you more?” I ask quietly, this invitation is just for Sophie. I want to try and understand Dylan’s pack and make a friend or two, so why not start with her?
“Uh yeah, I would really like that. I am here 24/7, so just come find me when you are free. I live in the cabin over there,” she says pointing to the smallest cabin out near the edge of the clearing.
I nod my head and then step back into my little safety triangle, I’m not even going to deny that I’m just in this triangle for the views; one very tight ass and two very toned arms on either side of me.
“The four of us are just going for a run, we will be back shortly. Trent, hold down the fort until we get back, make sure no-one does anything stupid again,” Dylan orders firmly.
Trent just nods his assent and moves out of the way for us to pass. We continue down a path that looks well worn, all the grass has started to wear away leaving a single dirt streak down the middle of it. The guys steer me further into the woods and before I can even watch the show, they’ve stripped down to their underwear and are already starting the shift. I start to slowly take off my clothes, not wanting to miss a single second of the guys shifting. Suddenly, I’m surrounded by three, very beautiful wolves, one pure white who I’m assuming is Wade, in Marco’s place is a beautiful, brown wolf with a white crest on his chest, and finally is Dylan’s wolf, a mostly black as night wolf, with little silver hairs across the coat giving it a shining effect. Seriously, could they be more gorgeous? I stand in the middle of them once again stripping off my clothing, one item at a time. Once I’m naked I instantly start to shift into my wolf, it only takes about two seconds total for the whole shift to happen. I feel my wolf jump forward in me and before you know it, I’m on all fours shaking out my sandy-blonde coat, just like my hair colour. I let the air whip through my fur, before giving over the reins to my wolf. I’m always here ready to take control if needed, but she needs to feel respected, to have power, so I let her take control in wolf form. When in wolf form we are one in the same, one entity with two personalities. We take one last look at the men before our body sprints off into the woods with our three mates chasing behind. Yeah, this is going to be a fun run.
Chapter Five
My mind feels clearer after the run with my Mates, to be able to get away from every distraction and decision to be made, to be able to just revel in the sensation of having them with me was beyond words. To meet their wolves for the first time was like coming home. Both my wolf and I could feel the stress releasing every second that I was surrounded by them, the total tranquillity perfusing through me. Unfortunately, the night had to come to an end eventually, which is how I ended up here, walking back to Marco’s cabin, mentally preparing myself for the first night with my Mate.
Marco’s fingers are tightly interwoven in mine, our palms pressed against each other’s. To just have that connection, was sending warm fuzzy feelings from my fingertips down to my toes and back. For this one moment, wandering through the woods, there is nothing but us.
“Ava, something has been on my mind since you told me you were a lone. Why didn’t you petition the council for a pack? You’re a young, female, dominant shifter, surely a pack would have taken you in?” Marco asks into the cold air, his head turning slightly to watch me. Shit, this is not the conversation I want to be having right now, or ever. They can’t know the whole truth about how I got here, or at least I can’t tell them the whole truth. I will not risk their lives’. He’ll come for them if he finds out. I will not let him take anymore from me. The fear and desperation dragging me down, drowning me under the weight of the anxiety.
“I thought about it to begin with, but I began to realise that I liked being on my own, I liked not living under the hierarchy of the pack. As for the council, I didn’t want to risk being placed in a pack that I had no choosing over. I could have potentially been put into a pack that had no other use for me than to breed pups. That wasn’t a life I was interested in having. I had the skills to look after myself in tricky situations, so I took a gamble and went lone. Fortunately for me, it worked out,” I answer as honestly as I can. All those reasons were all valid reasons that helped support my decision, but they weren’t at the root of my decision.
“I’m sure that the council would have taken in your concerns and found something suitable to you. You never know, they could have sent you here, and we would have met you earlier,” Marco says with a gentle bump to my shoulder
, his touch eating away at the thoughts that are suffocating me.
“Yeah, maybe,” I reply on a laugh under my breath.
The council of shifters are a group of five wolf shifters, usually three men and two women who are Alpha wolves, as well as being retired Alphas of a pack. The council presides over the wolf community, making decisions as a collective from circumstances as minute as pack VS pack arguments, to upholding the shifter law on a grander scale. They are the Judge, the Jury, and the Executioner when it comes to pack law. Thankfully, for the most part, they leave the packs alone, unless an issue is made against them. The council are a governing body, one that you are taught to fear early on because they can be the most unforgiving, ruthless leaders when the situation calls for it. A shiver runs down my spine when I consider what the worst outcome of my secret being exposed would be, the wrath of the council or the wrath of my old Alpha.
“Marco, what do you do in your spare time?” I ask, dying to know more about my Mate and to distract my psyche from spiralling down into darkness.
“I work every day till six pm, apart from Sunday. So, I don’t get to do a whole lot in terms of spare time. But, I do try and wind down after the day, and the only way that I’ve found to really turn my mind off is PlayStation. So, I play a fair bit of that. What do you do?”
“Nice! I love PlayStation, although I haven’t played in ages. Do you mind if I play with you every now and again? And well, I teach at a Dojo twice a week in a class full of under thirteen-year-old’s, and I watch Netflix, a lot of Netflix,” I reply. If that’s what he does in what few spare hours he has, who am I to judge. Plus, I really do love PlayStation, and I can see the appeal in doing something mind numbing to take you away from reality.
“I’d love to play it with you, then we can watch Netflix, I’m dying to see the rest of Stranger Things. Okay, so if we are getting to know each other, what’s your favourite food?” he asks, slowing our walk till we are dawdling towards the cabin.
“Hands down, cheese fries with ranch dressing. I could literally just live on that. It’s got vegetables in the potato, bacon for protein, and cheese for calcium. Yours?” The speed of my sentence rises as the intensity of my love of cheese fries becomes clear.
“Yes! How good are they? But, I think my favourite food is just anything with chocolate. I just have a genuine weakness for it.” His shoulder shrugs with acceptance of his favourite food.
“So, that’s why you smell like mint chocolate!” I exclaim, his scent making perfect sense now.
“How did you get so good at fighting?”
“I always did martial arts as a kid, and just progressively went through each belt color until I got to black. So, now I have two black belts. One in Karate and the other in Jujitsu,” I say with pride. I worked damn fucking hard for those belts.
“We just spent a lot of time with Dylan’s father learning how to defend ourselves and the Pack. He taught us how to fight instinctively, but not in any particular discipline. There was a lot of falling on our arse.” His eyes glaze over with the memory, a light chuckle ringing through the air.
We continue our walk back to the cabin trading little titbits of information about ourselves. Marco moves his body in front of mine to open the door of the cabin without letting go of my hand. Walking into the entrance, I’m once again greeted by the simplistic nature of Marco’s home. I let go of his hand to walk straight to the kitchen; my stomach will not be ignored any longer. I’m so freaking hungry that I don’t even wait for Marco to follow. I can feel his eyes on me as I walk around his kitchen, checking all his cupboards for any type of edible food that isn’t canned. My god, does this man not eat anything but canned beans and spaghetti! I continue my search around the cupboards trying to find sustenance.
“Just make yourself at home, Ava,” Marco says while trying to keep a straight face. My head shoots up at his voice and narrowly misses the corner of the open cupboard above my head. I just poke my tongue out at him in response and continue hunting for any morsel of food that I actually feel like eating. I’m coming to realise that Marco is not a cook. He owns way too many canned foods and not enough real food ingredients, unless he is an apocalypse prepper, in which case I can totally understand the canned goods thing.
“Aha! I’ve found bread!” I yell, quickly rushing to the fridge to see if there is anything in there to put with the bread. Yes! There are eggs! Scrambled eggs and toast it is. My body start to happy dance at the thought of food.
“Want some scrambled eggs and toast, Mac?” I ask without looking over at him, while beginning my rummaging once again, hunting for the hiding Fry-pan.
“Yeah, Ava, I’d love some eggs and toast,” Marco replies with a soft voice. I stand up straight when I realise he’s got the pan in his hand and putting it on the stove to my right and turning on the flame.
I grab the bowl on the sink, one of the few clean ones I’d found on my search around the kitchen, crack the eggs into it and begin whisking away. I trade places with Marco and start pouring the eggs into the pan watching the scrambled eggs start to fluff up.
“So, I take it you’re not much of a cook, huh?” I ask with just a little smirk on my face.
“No. Most of my meals are spent at the clinic or take away on the way home. I never really learnt, my mom never let me cook while I was at home, and at college, I lived on ramen noodles,” he replied back apologetically.
“Well, at least your mom fed you well. What is your mom like?” I ask, genuinely curious about what is potentially my mother-in-law. God, I hope she is nice.
“My mom raised me by herself, for the most part, with the help of the pack. My parents weren’t mates, and when I was about one, my dad left to be a lone wolf again, which meant that my mom raised me alone. My uncle, Dylan’s dad, was the closest thing to a father I ever had. That’s why Dylan and I grew up more like brothers than cousins. My mom is honestly one of the kindest, most typical, Italian mothers you will ever find, big on eating and family. She splits her time between here and another pack a few hours away where her sisters live,” he says with what is plain admiration written all over his face.
“She sounds amazing, but I’m really sorry your dad left.” My heart hurts at the idea of Marco being without a dad his whole life. I walk over and just wrap my arms around his torso, holding him tight, and bury my face in his chest. I feel his strong arms wrap around the tops of my shoulders, holding me in place with his head coming down to nuzzle against the top of my head. Both our heartbeats start to beat faster, the air around us changing from comfort to something a little more, our breathing becoming heavier. The smell of burning toast fills my nostrils, and I realise now is probably not the best time to be getting hot and heavy with Marco, maybe later, though. Who can blame a girl?
I turn back and turn off the stove while Marco gets the toast buttered. I carry the pan over to the plates and dish up the eggs. We just leave the dirty items on the counter and carry our food over to the table to eat.
After we finish the eggs and clean up our mess, we spend the next few hours sitting on the lounge getting to know each other a little more. The stories we trade back and forth range from college days to work and childhood memories, little quirks about ourselves and pet-hates, his love for animals is so beautiful, his humanity so overwhelmingly clear that I realise how detached I have become to the fragility of life and death. It isn’t until I start to yawn that we even look at the time. Yep, its four am, I think it’s time for bed. Marco stands and holds his hand up for me to grasp, pulling me up firmly and straight into his chest. It takes me a few seconds to hug him back, but once I do, I snuggle myself firmer into his arms, breathing in his intoxicating, mint-chocolate smell.
“I’ll grab you one of my shirts to sleep in,” he whispers softly into my ear. All I can do is nod my reply, I’m not going to get any sleep if his shirt smells as good as him, and yet I can’t think of anything better to sleep in.
I trail after him through the lounge room and up
the stairs to stand at the entry way of his bedroom while he grabs a shirt from the set of drawers that runs along the wall closest to the door. He walks back over, his eyes never leaving mine for a second, the intensity making my blood temperature rise with every step he takes. He hands it over to me. Before I can breathe out a thank you, his hands are on the side of my face, and his lips are so close to mine that I can almost feel them. I can’t control it, I close the distance between our lips. The kiss turns passionate quickly, he bites my top lip pulling on it slightly, and with a gasp I open my mouth. He wastes no time, slipping his tongue inside, flicking over mine gently. His kiss is mind blowing, the alternating pressure of his lips, little bites on my tongue and swollen lips. I feel his hands running down the sides of my breasts and back to grasp my arse in both hands, pressing my core further into him. Suddenly, I stumble back because Marco has pulled away, his chest heaving with exertion just like mine.
“You should go to bed, sweetheart, before things get out of hand. I don’t want to take advantage of you. If you still want to continue this tomorrow morning when you’ve had time to think it over, I’ll be here,” he says gently, while trying to slow his breathing.
“Yeah, you’re right, today has been a long day. Good night, Mac,” I say, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek, the disappointment at not being able to finish what we started working its way through my body.
I turn and head back to the spare room Mac showed me, as soon as I see the bed my eyes start to droop with fatigue. I drag my shirt over my head followed by my bra and jeans, and slip Marco’s shirt on to sleep. I lift the front of the shirt over my nose to breathe in his smell one last time before I flop face first onto the bed. I kick the covers down with my feet and wiggle myself down until the blankets are at my shoulder. Finally, I can get some sleep. This has to be the longest day ever. I close my eyes, expecting to get some sleep but I can’t get comfortable. Maybe if I roll over it will get better. I roll my body over, and wiggle down again; nope this isn’t comfortable either. Dammit, maybe the pillow is too hard, so I pick it up and give it a few punches and put it under my head again. Awesome, thank you brain, I am now wide fucking awake. The next hour passes with me continuously flopping from side to side like a walrus. Fantastic. I wonder if Marco is awake? Would it be awkward for me to go hop into bed with him? Or is that too much? What if. . . Fuck. It.
