“Hey, we weren’t able to be partners today,” he said as he ran up to her as she walked outside to her car. She slowed down when she saw him began to jog over to her as she exited the building. It almost looked like he had been waiting for her to leave, but that couldn’t be possible. Could it?
“I know,” she replied, smiling at him, as he fell into step beside her. She didn’t know what else she was supposed to even say. She desperately wanted the conversation to continue, though she didn’t know what she could say to keep it going.
She felt like a flustered idiot standing next to him. She looked over at him as they slowly strolled down the steps of the gym, getting goosebumps on her arms as she saw him smile at her, the sunlight reflecting off of his tan skin and dirty blonde hair.
“I didn’t see you before class,” he added, putting his hands in his gym pockets as they walked. Lea wanted to pull his arm and interlace her fingers with his.
“Yeah, I was running late this morning,” she told him. She didn’t want to explain that she’d been in a daydream since last night, imagining all sorts of scenarios and things that could happen between them. She knew it was a little crush, almost like a schoolgirl’s crush, but she couldn’t help it. Those daydreams were the sexiest moments she’d had in a while. And they were all in her head.
How depressing was that?
"How did you do in class?" He asked after there was a slight pause in the conversation. It was like they both were slowly strolling together, trying to come up with little conversations so they could stay around each other without both of them blurting out their feelings.
Lea had to remind herself again and again that Finn really wasn’t into her. He couldn’t be. It was that simple.
“Not very well.” She sighed, hating to say it but knowing she had to. “It seems I’m not the best when I have more than one sense cut off from me.”
"I could help you if you want."
Lea looked up at him, trying to hide her surprise.
Which was a bit ridiculous, but something they both felt.
“Really?” Lea hoped she didn’t sound too excited. She had to play it cool. Make him want more and not give him everything at once.
“Really.” He smiled at her, and her heart quickened, even though their stroll didn’t pick up speed at all. “We can meet after you’re done with work, later tonight, if you want.”
“Yeah, that would actually be great. You never know when I would need to be prepared like that, so I want to practice as much as possible.”
“Exactly.” He nodded and they made plans to meet at the gym later on that night. Finn left after they exchanged some awkward goodbyes, and only when Lea got into her car did she let out the breath she was holding.
How did she get in so deep? How did her crush blossom into this feeling? She felt like she couldn’t even breathe when she was around him, and she didn’t know how she was supposed to just get over a crush like this. She hadn’t felt like this in a while, and that scared her more than she wanted to admit to herself.
Because Finn wasn’t going to be good news for her. He looked like he used and then bailed on girls all the time.
Lea’s anxiety kicked into a full-blown overthinking process she went through as she drove to work. What if that’s exactly what Finn was looking for? Just a girl to have sex with and then leave? Was that what she wanted? There was no doubt that she felt sexually attracted to him. She would have to have been blind to not be attracted to him. But was her crush just sexually stimulated, or was it something more?
She was confused, that much she knew. She didn’t know how many times she told herself that Finn wasn’t her type in the last few days. But it was the truth! Finn wasn’t the type of man she was used to dealing with. She felt like he was so out of her league in every way, and it was like flirting with him was new every step of the way. It wasn’t like Lea was an inexperienced woman – she just wasn’t as experienced as she thought Finn would like.
Maybe he was looking for something different from her. Maybe he was just looking for sex. Lea truthfully didn’t know how she felt about this. In the past, she had longed for relationships with steady men that she would never have to question about where they were or who they were with. She felt like her jealousy would eat her alive if she and Finn continued this flirtation – just look at how she acted with Tatiana!
She didn’t know what Finn was looking for. Hell, she didn’t know what she was looking for.
But she sure as hell couldn’t wait for tonight when she could see him again.
Chapter Seven
Finn finally managed to meet up with Ethan after not hanging out in the last few days. He found that he missed his friend.
While Ethan wasn't a huge outcast like Finn seemed to be recently, he still wasn't as accepted within the community – and he was an alpha. Tensions were still high, and Finn didn't know when he'd get the approval of every single shifter in the Moonlight Maine Pack. He hoped soon. And he hoped that Lea approved of him, at the very least.
Just thinking about her made him miss her more, which was crazy because they hadn’t even become good friends until recently. And were they even good friends? They’d only talked to each other a few times. Finn didn’t know. He just knew that he loved being around her. He loved the way she made him feel just from the slightest glance. It was like she was his drug, and he never wanted to quit this new addiction.
“I’m not prepared to be an alpha, man,” Ethan told his friend over lunch at the pack bar. “I have my older brother taking care of things back home, and I kind of want him to just take over at this point.”
Ethan became alpha as his father’s last dying wish a few weeks ago. He was young, one of the youngest alphas around, at his early 20’s. Shifters didn’t normally become alphas until they were a bit older. Ethan and about half of his pack were in Maine now, training and trying to help out Hann and the Moonlight Pack as much as they could. The other half of his pack were back in their hometown, with Ethan’s older brother – who really didn’t want the alpha job, according to Ethan – who was taking care of things back there.
Ethan would be leaving Maine soon, though Finn knew that he didn’t want to. It was like he wasn’t alpha when he was in Maine, even though he was in all the alpha meetings and constantly seemed to be working. It would be completely different when Ethan reunited his whole pack and was in his own territory.
Then he would learn if he really was cut out to do this whole alpha thing.
Finn knew his friend, though. And Ethan was a natural-born leader. If he couldn’t be a good alpha, no one could.
He told his friend as much over lunch, to which Ethan shrugged him off and shook his head. Finn couldn’t stand his modesty sometimes, though he knew that Ethan had been through a lot recently. And he had a lot to live up to – his dad was a legend during his reign.
“I have to tell you something,” Finn said after reassuring Ethan that he was going to be a great alpha. “Mainly because I don’t have anyone else to tell. Without them all laughing at me, of course.”
“Tell me, brother,” Ethan said, leaning back and sipping his diet coke. Finn thought he looked like a little kid in that moment. “I’m all ears.”
“I kind of have this thing with someone in the Moonlight Maine Pack,” he confessed, nerves coming over him. He almost didn’t want to tell Ethan. That would make all of his emotions so much more real.
“Hazel?” Ethan blurted out, sitting straight up and almost slamming his soda on the table. Finn looked at him in surprise, figuring out immediately the feelings that Ethan seemed to have for Lea’s best friend.
“Nope. Not her.” Finn smiled at his friend, trying to hold in his laughter. He knew what it felt like to be laughed at, regarding emotions and flirtations, thanks to his own pack members. He didn’t want to do the same thing to Ethan.
“Oh. Well, she’s cute. In that type of way. If you’re into that.”
“I’m not. Some are, though, I’m sure.” Finn winked at him, to which Ethan almost seemed to be deterred.
“We’re just gonna drop this and talk about who you actually have a thing with,” Ethan finally said. Finn could see that the alpha didn’t want to talk about it, so he decided to just drop it.
“You know Lea?”
"No way." Ethan looked stunned. It seemed to be the common reaction whenever anyone heard about them. Tatiana, Lorelei, and Desmond all had the same reaction – and then began to laugh at him because they thought the whole thing was ridiculous. Ethan, though, didn't laugh. He just looked a bit confused. "She's not really your type, is she?"
“No. She’s not. But, man, I can’t explain it. It’s crazy the way she makes me feel. I don’t know how I didn’t feel it before, but suddenly, as I began to talk to her more and more, I began to feel this pull toward her. It’s weird because she’s not my type – and I’m sure as hell not hers. She’s beautiful, but she’s too good for me, isn’t she? I know this, which is why I don’t want to pursue anything, but I can’t help it.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it bad.” Finn looked up at Ethan after staring at his empty plate, and he saw the strangest look on his face.
“Yeah, I can’t really explain it. And I don’t really know what to do. I guess I just had to tell someone and get it off my chest. My pack doesn’t understand – they just laugh at the whole situation.”
“Have you ever thought… Never mind…”
Finn looked at Ethan, who was deep in thought. Finn was confused, and he wanted to know exactly what Ethan was thinking.
“Have I ever thought what?” He asked, leaning forward slightly and looking at Ethan expectantly.
“Have you ever thought that maybe she’s your mate? You know, you’re one and only?”
“What?”
Finn stared at his friend in utter shock. Mates, and one true loves, existed in the shifter world. That was a fact. But there were so many people that never met their one true loves and lived happily with another. It was hard to determine what made a lover a "one true love", as shifters bonded quickly and tended to feel emotions such as love and lust very strongly.
Rumor is, if a shifter meets their mate – their one true love – they know it. There is no second guessing the person they’re with. Mates are for life. Mates are bonded in ways that are magic and aren’t explained in a cause and effect sort of way. The chemistry is just there – and shifters just tend to accept it. Mates are impossible to shake and are constantly together. Not being around your mate for a long time can be potentially damaging to some – which is why it never truly happens.
But was Lea Finn’s mate? His one true love? He almost didn’t want to think about it, the pressure was too high. He never thought he’d find a shifter that he would recognize as his one true mate. It was impossible, wasn’t it?
Maybe it wasn’t.
“Maybe Lea is your mate,” Ethan repeated as Finn looked confused and bewildered – and almost like he was going to throw up. “If you’re so confused as to the way you’re acting around her, it could be a possibility. Or it could just be that you’re horny.”
“Let’s go with the latter,” Finn said, laughing and taking a sip of his water.
He really didn’t want to think about the alternative. Because that thought was just crazy.
Right?
“Do you want to find your one true mate, though?” Ethan asked him, sipping his soda as he stared at him. Finn didn’t want to have this conversation, simply because he didn’t know the answer. He never really thought about it before, but now that Ethan brought up the possibility that Lea could be his one true mate, Finn couldn’t get the idea out of his head.
"I honestly don't know," he finally said after searching his brain. He felt like his answer was dumb and not at all truthful, but he wasn't exactly prepared to go soul digging at one o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of a café. So regardless of whether this is just a sex thing, or if it's something a bit more serious, I'm not worthy. I don't care about my feelings, I care about hers. And I know me. I'll destroy her, and it'll be horrible."
“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, man,” Ethan said, laughing a little. “You’re not the monster you set yourself out to be, you know.”
“No. But I’m pretty close.”
Finn didn’t want to go into all the gory details of his past love affairs. He felt like those were such a long time ago, back when he didn’t know what love was. Did he even know what love was now? His mind flashed to the way Lea looked in the bar at Britta’s party. The white spring dress that she wore had to have left her cold later in the night when she left, the spring Maine air probably making her regret wearing something like that. She looked gorgeous though, and Finn found himself imagining him wrapping her up in his arms to keep her warm that night.
He wished his imagination was actually the real thing. He wished that he was with her right now.
Shit! Finn tried to focus on whatever Ethan was telling him now, but he literally couldn’t concentrate on anything other than Lea’s hair, Lea’s eyes, Lea’s mouth… He had it bad, and he really didn’t know if this was just a sex thing or if there was some magic in the air. He hoped it was just sex. He hoped he could get it out of his system.
He didn’t know if he liked this power that Lea had over him just by existing. She was making him insane.
“Do you want to find your one mate?” Finn asked Ethan, turning the tables on his friend so that he could maybe focus on something else. His daydreaming about Lea seemed to be getting out of hand, even to him.
“Yeah, I think so,” Ethan replied, a hint of a smile on his face.
Finn wished he could be that confident in his quest for love. But he simply couldn’t. He’d been in relationships before, and he hadn’t been the best partner around. Who was he to demand that he find his one mate to spend the rest of his life with? His mate would probably hate him in the end. Had that ever happened in all of shifter history? Probably not, but Finn was sure that he would be the first.
His thoughts went back to Lea as they got the check and paid for their meal. He hoped and prayed that Ethan wasn’t right about Lea being his mate, mainly because then Lea would be tied to him for all of eternity. And Lea deserved so much more than him, that much he knew.
Chapter Eight
Lea shook with excitement as she got out of her car and made her way up the stairs to the gym that night. She was excited for multiple reasons, the main one being that she was finally going to see and hang out with Finn. One-on-one. Just them.
She had been thinking about it all day. Thinking about him all day. More than once, she had to ask a patient or doctor to repeat themselves because she was completely zoning out and thinking about later on when she could see Finn again.
She couldn't describe how she was feeling. But she almost didn't care. She hadn't felt like this in a while, if she had ever felt like this, and she was just going to go with the flow and see where it took her.
Lea began to walk up the steps, catching her reflection in the glass walls and making sure that she looked okay. She had run home after work to change out of her scrubs and wear some cute workout clothes. She had even taken a quick shower to wipe off the grime of the hospital before she slipped on her tight yoga pants that made her butt look much better than it actually was. What could she say? She wanted to impress. And she wanted to look cute and flirty when he saw her again, not a sweaty mess that just came from work.
Suddenly, as if she just walked through an invisible layer of something in the air, Lea felt the little hairs on her arms stand up straight, and she stopped walking to try and understand this sudden change. She was tense all over, and as she turned around on the steps to try and find out why she felt so frightened, she realized what was happening. She got a scent. The scent of a rogue.
Rogues had a sort of scent about them. The scent was of a shifter, of course, but i
t was off in a way. It was how shifters could tell if someone near them was a rogue or not. It was like they were marked for all of eternity because of the crimes they committed. Rogues tended to be dangerous shifters that were banned from the society for one reason or another. The majority of these crimes tended to lean more on the murder end of the spectrum, but there were rogues, like Lukas, who didn’t do anything truly horrible, but yet became rogues because of differing alphas and other scenarios.
For the most part, though, rogues were bad news. And rogues this near to the Moonlight Maine Pack territory, after everything that happened with Kaiser and Gabriel? Well, that wasn’t good at all.
Lea looked all around her, trying to zone in on where the scent and pulse of rogue life were coming from. A cold sweat went down her body, her wolf reacting from just the scent of something wrong. This rogue was near…. Really near. If only Lea could find it.
Quickly shifting into her wolf form when she could find no one around, and so that the rogue wouldn’t attack her in her weaker human form, Lea sent a mental communication message to Hann, her alpha. She hoped that he would get it and that it made sense, though, she felt like a jumbled mess of fear and anxiety when she tried to open the mental link with her alpha, whose mental link was always open for his shifters to talk to him.
“Hann, there’s a rogue here at the gym,” she sent through the mental brain waves, praying that he would hear through her jumbled thoughts.
Mental communication in a shifter's pack was something shifters could do with other regular shifters, when they were in their wolf forms though it could be a bit more difficult. They could also do it in their human forms, but it was a bit harder and required much more concentration on everyone's part. Wolves couldn't communicate through speech, obviously, so this magical ability was the only way they could talk to each other when in their wolf form. The great thing about this skill was that wolves could also send messages from far away.
Outcast (Moonlight Wolves Book 4) Page 4
