by J. J. Massa
“I don’t want you to know my name,” she croaked.
“I’ll just call you Sweet Little Mate, then--Sweet for short?” he quipped.
“I’m not at all sweet!” she protested, angrily rising a little. “I, I can be really, um, really un-sweet,” she stammered. “I’m very mean,” she sat up and glared at him determinedly.
He scooted a little closer to her. Instantly, her ears went back and she pressed herself, shaking, against the hill face behind her once again.
“Shh, Little Mate. Don’t worry, I won’t accuse you of being sweet again, okay?” With difficulty, Yancey managed not to smile. She was so cute and precious. He knew that she wouldn’t appreciate that classification any more than being named “sweet”. Besides, he was so thrilled to find her that he certainly didn’t want to scare her away.
He wanted to move to her and wrap himself around her. He needed to hold her and nuzzle her and just be close to her. Somehow he would break past her fear. He realized that he must’ve been very rough when he’d taken her virginity and marked her as his mate. How he wished he could remember all the events of that so important night.
It amazed him to find himself in this situation. In his entire life, he’d never willingly hurt anyone, aside from his brother, Auggie. He had hurt his brother a little but that man had attacked his cousin’s wife and killed his pup.
Yancey was always called “sensitive”. He often found himself moved by music or movies. He was less emotional now, in the ten years since his brother’s death, but he was still a sensitive and considerate man.
It was hard to accept that his own mate was so frightened of him that he couldn’t come any closer to her than three or four feet. Of all the men who’d been least likely to hurt a woman, he felt certain he topped the list. Apparently, however, he had done just that. He’d hurt his own tiny, delicate mate.
“How mean are you?” he asked backing up a few inches. He had an idea that she was every bit as sensitive as he had always been--maybe even more so. He was willing to take a chance on it.
She appeared surprised. “Um, how mean am I?” She looked at him quizzically.
“I guess this is your chance to punish me.” He swung his head away, considering his words carefully.
She stared at him suspiciously, cautiously sitting up on her haunches. “What do you mean? What can I do to you?” When he would have answered, she blurted, “You’re huge!”
He had to stare at his paws for almost a full minute to keep from bursting out laughing. Finally, he focused on the seriousness of the situation. “By refusing to be around me, you sentence me to a lifetime of pain.”
“I’m around you all the time,” she revealed. “So you won’t be in any pain.”
He struggled to keep his features even. She’s around me all the time? In that case, I know I’ll find her. Still, if I can get her to be around me by choice that would be so much better.
“It doesn’t matter as long as I don’t know who you are. It’s the same as not being with you. For a man to know he has a mate but to be kept from her--it’s agony.” He waited. “I’ve seen Weres turn to alcohol,” he sighed, shaking his head from side to side. He remembered so well how Riker had tried to drown his pain before he’d be reunited with Bethany.
“I don’t believe you,” the little black wolf growled, eyeing him suspiciously.
Beautiful gray-blue eyes--how could I have missed her--ignored her-- all this time?
“Ask your own father, or some other older male you trust. They’ll all tell you the same thing.” He watched her carefully. She’d made a funny move when he’d mentioned her father.
“Okay, I’ll ask someone. If you’re telling the truth…then what?”
If he was telling her the truth, Philly couldn’t just leave him in agony. She was afraid of him. Maybe she didn’t really even like him anymore. That didn’t matter because she still loved him.
“If you find out that I’m telling the truth, maybe you can meet me here again?” He sounded cautious and hopeful. “Just to talk? Nothing more until you want that. I promise.”
He seemed so sincere. She looked deeply into his light green eyes and she was convinced that he would keep his word.
“What if I never want anything more? You--you hurt me,” she blurted, hating how sad he looked, but it needed saying. She wouldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened just because it made him feel bad. He’d changed her entire life and he didn’t even know who she was.
“I’m so sorry…” he began.
She cut him off, saying, “I won’t come tomorrow. I’m going somewhere.” She felt her face grow warm under her silver fur. “I mean if I was going to come, I won’t. There’s not any work tomorrow anyway.”
He nodded. “So, if you did decide to come, it would be the day after tomorrow?”
She closed her eyes, fighting tears of confusion. Was she being tricked? She opened her eyes to find him still focused on her, his beautiful pale green eyes unblinking.
“Um, I guess so,” she agreed tentatively. “I would come that next day. The day after tomorrow.”
He leaned forward and rubbed his snout against hers. He’d been too quick for her to jerk away.
“Thank you, Little Mate. I promise I’ll try to never hurt you again. I’d better go before you change your mind,” he said, backing away from her as slowly as he’d approached her.
While she watched, the much larger wolf stood, turned, and looked back over his shoulder at her. Then he was gone.
Chapter 7
Philly ran and then trotted beside the giant gray wolf for two miles before he slowed and finally stopped. Mik Montgomery, her companion on this outing, had taken her under his furry wing when he’d first become aware of her.
Her mother had brought her to North Carolina from Alaska when she’d been a very young pup only a few years of age. Philly had met Mik after her mother had mated with Roland Livingston, Yancey’s second cousin.
Roland had never liked her. Philly’s mother had paired off with her father, a half wolf, half Siberian Husky dog, during a mate hunt. When she turned up pregnant, she’d been forced to leave her pack.
They weren’t in North Carolina long when Roland had claimed Philly’s mother as his mate. When he learned about Philly, he’d been very bitter. He had forced her mother to place her with another couple. They’d been decent to Philly, although they never quite understood her.
She’d been about ten years old or so when she’d decided to run away. She had met Roland’s friend, August, and had seen his brother, Yancey, from downwind. August had treated her badly. She’d recognized Yancey as her mate and feared the same treatment from him. She still did.
Mik had been out hunting the night she’d packed a pillowcase full of clothes and snuck out of her foster-parents’ home. He’d been there for her ever since, a surrogate grandfather, looking out for her best interests.
“What’s on your mind, young lady?” Mik asked her, fixing his golden gaze on her. “I, I need, um, I have… Can I ask you a question?” she finally got the words out. She’d never been nervous with Mik before. This was a very important issue, though. “Of course you can, little lady, you know that. What’s wrong?” Mik sat down and she sat next to him on the bank of a stream.
“If a man finds his mate, does he feel pain if he’s forced to be away from her?” She didn’t look at him. “A great deal of pain, Philomela. It can be agony,” he nodded solemnly. “The same is true in reverse,” he went on. “It’s worse if the couple has actually mated.”
Philly nodded her head. “Mik?” she whispered.
“What is it, little lady?” he rumbled in his deep baritone.
“Most males don’t really understand how much they hurt us, do they?” She looked way up at him.
Mik was so much larger than her. She knew if he could transform he’d be well over six feet tall. She was barely five feet tall. Yancey was a foot taller than she was.
“No, I guess they don’t. Tell m
e what’s really wrong, little girl?” He pulled her against his side with a large paw.
“Remember, when I first met you, I had met my mate that day?” If she didn’t look at him, the telling wasn’t so bad.
“I remember,” he rumbled. “I got the impression that he worked with my boy, Lakon?”
She nodded. “He does. At the end of the last concert series, there was a big party.” She gave a sad sigh. “I guess I thought he finally realized that I was his mate. I thought he knew who I was.”
“Did something happen, Philly?” Still not looking at him, she nodded.
Suddenly, she heard someone coming. “Mik? Promise not to say anything? Please don’t tell anyone who I am?” It was him she knew it. She could smell his scent and he was headed toward them.
“What’s wrong? Tell me?” Mik insisted.
She heard Yancey coming closer. She smelled him. “Please, Mik, don’t tell him anything, please?” she pleaded.
“Okay, little lady, I promise, but we will finish our talk!” She jumped up and licked his snout, turning and leaping into the creek and running down it as if the IRS was on her heels.
Mik had a pretty good idea what had happened. Before Yancey reached him, he too dove into the creek and rolled around. He was shaking himself off when the dark red werewolf loped to the bank of the creek.
“Uncle Mik? Is anyone with you?” Yancey was looking around wildly.
“Nobody’s here, boy. Who are you looking for?” Mik asked, making sure to sit and drip on the spot where he knew that Philly had been sitting. Yancey was sniffing frantically, wandering all around the creek. “Sit down, son,” Mik barked impatiently. “You’re making me dizzy.”
Yancey slowly moped over to Mik and collapsed onto the ground next to him with his tail down and his ears drooping in misery. “I thought I smelled her,” he mumbled. “I thought I smelled my mate.”
Even with his suspicions, Mik couldn’t contain his shock of surprise. “Your mate? Who is she? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” he rapped out one question after the other.
“Because I’m a pig,” Yancey moaned dejectedly.
“I have no doubt that I’m going to agree with you, but tell me why anyway.” Mik was beginning to feel a little queasy. He dropped to his stomach and looked at Yancey through narrowed yellow eyes.
Yancey sighed heavily. “At the end of the last concert series, we had a big blowout party. My only excuse for my behavior is that I was so exhausted and excited that it was as if I was drunk or something. I’d been running on no sleep and I’d had a lot of champagne…”
Mik never took his eyes off of the auburn haired wolf. He didn’t blink and he didn’t speak. Yancey draped a paw across his eyes.
“I must’ve met her in the elevator or near the end of the party. Nobody could tell me who she was.” He groaned in obvious self-loathing. “I woke up the next morning and, and I’d had sex with someone--a virgin. She was gone and I realized later that she was my mate. I didn’t know who she was. I’d smelled her scent before but…” he trailed off on a heavy sigh.
Mik wanted nothing more than to murder this man next to him. That sweet little girl had been through so much in her life and none of it had been her own fault. It seemed that Yancey wasn’t done yet, though.
“I found her in the woods last night by accident. She was so afraid of me. I’d hurt her when we mated,” he explained miserably. “Besides that, I’d hurt her by not knowing her. Apparently we see each other regularly and I don’t know who she is. My own mate. I’ve hurt her physically and I’ve ignored her.”
“You’re right, Yancey, you are a pig,” Mik groaned, rubbing at his face with his paw. He felt old, suddenly.
“Uncle Mik, I want to do better! I want to make it up somehow. I got her to agree to meet me…” he tried to explain himself.
“Yeah, I know about that. You boys only ever think about yourselves. This little lady has known you were her mate for about eleven years now. She’s stayed close to you. Do you know how much pain she’s suffered knowing her own mate didn’t even see her right under his nose?” Mik growled, battling a swelling rage.
Yancey flinched. “No,” he whispered, ashamed.
“Now you’ve mated with her and suddenly you’re the one suffering! I won’t tell you who she is but she had every reason to worry that you’d treat her like an Omega. Your brother did and so did her stepfather.”
“Uncle Mik, how could I miss her? How could I smell her beautiful scent all the time and not realize that she was my mate? Myles knew Ashley was his mate when she was only eight years old!” Yancey still couldn’t get past this very important question.
“I think you ignored what your nose was telling you, boy. The same way Myles is ignoring what his head is telling him,” Mik growled, impatient suddenly, and angry, unbelievably angry.
“Ignored? How?” Yancey was trying to work it out.
“Maybe it was her age or maybe it was what you’d heard about her from your brother. Somehow, you got it into your head that this girl was beneath your notice,” forcibly ignoring his own desire to be far away from all of this, Mik did his best to explain to Yancey how he could now be in this odd and awkward position. “For her own reasons, maybe she thought the same thing.”
Without a word, Yancey stood and began to wander along the edge of the creek. He seemed to be pondering what Mik had said to him. The old werewolf just shook his head. He stood and made his own way home. Time to play with his grandchildren for a while.
Chapter 8
Yancey had almost given up on her when he heard the sound of the small wolf making her way through the brush toward him. He watched her approach, his heart beating wildly.
When she saw him, she stopped, her tail was straight down and her ears went back apprehensively. He could still smell a little fear on her.
“Hi,” he yipped softly. “Long day?”
She swallowed nervously and then yawned. She hung her head and looked up.
“Yes, it was really long,” she yipped shyly in response, embarrassed.
He moved forward, closing the distance between them. She held her ground, shaking like a leaf. Yancey licked her snout, liking the feel of her whiskers against his tongue, and then nuzzled her neck. Stepping behind her, he nudged her forward.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
Her stomach rumbled loudly, and in contrast, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Livingston, I’ve just been emotional since--since…well, you know.”
“It’s okay, Little Mate.” He licked at the tears on her furry cheeks. “I feel so bad that I’ve done this to you. Do you think you can call me “Yancey”?”
“I call you “ Livingston” at work if I ever talk to you,” she explained.
He opened a thermal bag with his nose and carefully lifted out five fast-food hamburgers and two large orders of French fries. With some difficulty, he pulled the lid off of a plastic container that had milkshake in it.
“I don’t know much about how women eat and all my friends’ mates are humans. Will this be enough to eat? I wasn’t sure because you’re not that big…” Yancey realized that he was babbling. He stopped talking.
“I think this is plenty. I couldn’t eat half, really. Thank you for thinking of this,” she said sweetly.
He nudged a burger over to her and she delicately tugged the wrapper open. He was fascinated by her every move. She carefully opened the bun and removed the pickles with her teeth.
Looking up, she caught him watching her. “It’s nothing,” she said self-consciously, “I just don’t care for pickles.”
He smiled and turned his attention to his own food. No pickles--I’ll remember.
“So you spoke to Mik Montgomery about what I said?” Yancey asked casually.
She stopped eating and looked at him fearfully with her big blue-gray eyes.
“Mik’s the only male I trust completely.” She looked at him unflinching. “Did he… What did he say?”
&
nbsp; Yancey nudged her burger back in front of her. “He agreed that I am, in fact, a pig.”
“Oh!” she yipped. “That’s not very nice.”
“I guess he’s nearly as mean as you are, huh?” Yancey winked at her.
She dipped her head, embarrassed again. “Well, I’m still trying to learn. He’s helping me work on being mean.” She took a small bite of her reassembled burger, holding it down with one paw. “What did he say about me?”
“Not too much, Little Mate. When did you meet him? Are you and I related somehow?” The last question popped out accidentally.
“I met Mik the same day I met you when I was still a pup. I knew you’d never accept me as your mate and I was trying to go away. Don’t worry, even though my mother mated with a distant relative of yours, you and I are not related.” She leaned over and took a drink of the milkshake.
“Why did you think I’d never accept you?” he knew he sounded a little angry. He couldn’t help it. That was just so unfair a judgment to make, especially on such short acquaintance.
She was nervous again but she didn’t back down. She licked the milkshake off her snout and stared at him.
“Mik didn’t tell you? It’s what he and I have in common. I’m not a full-blood,” she confessed almost defiantly.
It didn’t take long for her words to sink in. He felt a wave of anger break over him. He didn’t yell but he felt his voice vibrate with bitterness. “That’s not fair. You know most of my friends are mated with humans. I’m not prejudiced against them.”
She cringed and began to tremble but she looked him in the eyes. “My father wasn’t human,” she said, her voice shaking. “He was a Siberian Husky and wolf mix. I never knew him. My mother’s pack drove her away. My own stepfather wouldn’t let me live with them.” She dropped her eyes and looked away--clearly trying not to become too emotional.
Yancey moved over to her and pulled her against him. He licked her eyes, her snout, and her sweet little whiskers. Resting his head atop hers he let her calm down.
