I was born into this world with one purpose: to mate the new Hunt alpha and keep the truce between our two wolf shifter packs strong.
Fate made me for him, and tonight I will become his.
But what I don’t know right now is my future isn’t all sunshine and roses, and white picket fences with two-point-four pups like I’ve been led to believe.
My future is shadow and blood, and destiny has grander plans for me…
And so does my fated mate.
~
My fingers danced over the heart-shaped pendant as Everlee draped it around my neck, a smile playing on my lips as I gazed down at the twin silver wolves set against a clear, bright blue stone. A colour Lucas had told me reminded him of my eyes when he had gifted me the necklace last year for my birthday, and then he had kissed my cheek and murmured how beautiful I looked and that he couldn’t wait for the day we would be mated.
Fate couldn’t have picked a more perfect mate for me, and I counted my blessings daily for the fact he was the son of the former alpha of the Hunt pack, and that it had bound our lives together at such a critical moment. My birth and the discovery of the tie between us had spared my pack the full wrath of the Hunt pack in those dark days following my uncle’s foolish attempt to overthrow the Hunt alpha and take control of both packs.
Everlee stepped back and I released the long braid of my platinum hair, letting it fall against my spine, and turned towards my best friend. Her emerald eyes glittered with her proud, if a little wobbly, smile.
“Don’t start.” I glanced at the summer dress laid out on the bed behind her, a flimsy thing I was sure I would regret once I stepped outside and felt the cold bite of early spring air, and drew down a deep, steadying breath. “You’ll get me going again.”
I had spent most of the morning torn between tears of happiness and sorrow, and had barely managed to stifle them when I had stood before my pack on the deck of my family’s cabin as my parents went through the formalities of my leaving for another pack. Looking down at all the familiar, friendly faces, and hearing their congratulations and heartfelt wishes that I would have a beautiful future with my new mate, a sensation of dread had stirred inside me and now it was growing with each minute that ticked past.
Time marched onwards, despite my attempts to slow it down by dawdling and dressing at a snail’s pace.
Everlee sniffed and nodded, and her expression pinched as she took me in. “You’re sure you don’t want to wear it down?”
She was talking about my hair. It had become her favourite topic the moment I had asked her to tie it back in a braid—my usual choice of hairstyle. I had distracted her by twisting the unruly waves of her russet hair into a knot at the back of her head and not-so-subtly hinting that my cousin, Chase, had once said she looked pretty when she wore her hair that way. It had been enough to quieten Everlee for twenty minutes while she had lost herself in thoughts I was glad I wasn’t privy to. I really didn’t need to picture my cousin like that.
“You’re going to have to get dressed at some point. The sun’s getting lower.” Everlee crossed the small wood-walled room to my tiny single bed and picked up the dress. She ran her hand over the sky-blue fabric, a faraway look in her eyes.
I’m never going to see her again.
That thought drove through my head like a nail, jarring and painful, and I swallowed a gasp as I pivoted away from her, ridiculous tears burning my eyes.
I would see her again. I would.
I was supposed to be happy today, and I had been in the month leading up to this moment. I had daydreamed about what life with Lucas would be like. With my fated mate. With the man I loved. I had watched my parents, how they touched hands when they thought no one was looking, or shared a secret smile, radiating love that I could feel in my bones. In my soul. I would have that kind of love with Lucas once we were mated. I was sure of it.
As I had approached maturity, Lucas had started visiting more and more often, making excuses to stop by my pack whenever he was passing or going as far as bringing supplies for us that someone other than the alpha’s son should have been delivering. We had spent every possible minute together, sneaking away to the lake to be alone, to sit and talk about anything and everything, or just laze together in the sun.
He had been visiting less frequently since the death of his parents.
Losing them in such a sudden and brutal way and stepping into the role of alpha while still grieving had been difficult and hard on him.
I closed my eyes, still able to see him as he had been at the funeral, his gaze hollow as he stared at the pyre as flames engulfed and devoured his parents, releasing their souls to their ancestors. I had wanted to speak with him, my heart breaking for him as I felt him slowly withdrawing from the world, but too many words had filled my mouth and heart, and before I could sort them into order and find the right thing to say to him, something that wouldn’t make him feel weak but would show him that he wasn’t alone, he had been walking away.
A solitary male with hunched shoulders and a bent head.
My heart had screamed at me to follow him into those dark woods, but his cousin, and beta, Braxton had stepped into my path, blocking my way. One look into his stern, dark eyes and I had known he wouldn’t let me near Lucas—near my own future mate.
But now he wouldn’t be able to stand between us.
Lucas would be mine before the moon had set.
A smile tugged at my lips, warmth unfurling through me as I thought about what this night held for me, even as that trepidation continued to build. Nerves. It was just nerves. Any woman about to start their forever with their fated one would feel the same.
Tomorrow, my life would be completely changed.
I would have a mate, and a new pack.
“Are you wearing this?” Everlee turned away from my dressing table and I glanced at her hand, at the silver chain cupped in her palm, with a solitary charm hanging from it.
A gift Everlee had given me close to a decade ago. She had even had it enchanted, so I could wear it whenever I shifted and wouldn’t lose it. It was the same spell Lucas had used on my necklace, performed by a witch in Quesnel, the nearest city to our pack lands.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” I reached for the charm bracelet, eager for it even as my hand shook a little, my nerves rising again as I stared at it and then felt the links beneath my fingers. I lifted it before me, studying it, and that feeling of unease grew within me, tinged with something like regret.
Everlee took the bracelet from me and set it back down. “Time to get dressed. If you delay any longer, people are going to start talking.”
“Can’t a wolf show up late to her mating? Brides do it all the time in the human world.” I stripped off my fluffy white robe, letting it pool at my feet.
“And humans talk about it. Arms up.” Everlee motioned with her own arms and when I dutifully raised mine, she was quick to snatch up the summer dress and pull it on over my head for me. She pulled a face at it before moving around to my side to zip it up. “I still think you should be wearing something more suited to a princess.”
I laughed, couldn’t help it.
The act alone lightened some heavy thing within me, and I was grinning when I looked over my shoulder at her. “Are you ever going to stop calling me that?”
Everlee grinned right back at me. “No. You’re a princess, whether you want to be called one or not. Or maybe a queen. Alphas are like kings, aren’t they? That makes you a queen.” Her expression turned serious and she came around to stand before me and took hold of my arms. “You’re going to have an amazing life, Saphi. You’ll be treated like a queen. You’ll want for nothing, and you’ll be deeply loved by your fated mate. Your future will be bliss… like your parents have.”
She loosed a long sigh as her gaze drifted to the window of my bedroom, growing distant and sombre.
“You’re one of the lucky ones,” she whispered. “I wish I knew who my mate was.”
It was my turn to take hold of her arms, and my hands lowered to lock with hers. I squeezed them and smiled. “You’ll find him.”
But I wasn’t sure it was the man she hoped it was.
Chase showed no sign that Everlee was his fated one.
I held on to hope that it was because Everlee hadn’t matured yet.
Usually, wolves only knew they were fated once both were sexually mature, something which occurred at around a century old. I was different. A witch and a spell had revealed I was Lucas’s mate soon after I was born. I had known all my life who my mate was, without all the worry I would never find him, or that he would be someone cruel and terrible.
So many wolves never found their fated mate.
Everlee was right. My future would be bliss.
But my eyes strayed to the charm bracelet on the dressing table, a gift Everlee had given me when I had found the courage to confess my secret desire to see the world, to have adventure and experience life beyond the boundaries of the pack. I loved my life and my role within the pack, but for the last thirty years, my gaze had started to stray towards the edge of the Harper pack lands, towards that horizon filled with unknown sights, sounds and so much promise.
She had told me she had seen online how some people who travelled had charm bracelets and they added one for each place they visited.
Mine still only had one charm on it—a wolf to symbolise me—despite how long it had been since Everlee had bought it for me in Quesnel.
A city that was close to my pack territory in Wells, yet I had never seen it with my own eyes.
Just like I had never seen the ocean.
And deep in my heart, I doubted I ever would.
“This will be a beautiful adventure.” Everlee took the bracelet and wrapped it around my wrist, fastening it for me.
I wasn’t sure this was the adventure I really craved, or that stepping into a mate bond wouldn’t be like locking myself into a life I wasn’t quite ready for yet.
As the mate of an alpha, I wouldn’t be free to travel and see everything beyond the boundaries of our pack lands. I would just be trading one life of duty for another, one set of walls for another.
I wouldn’t see beyond those walls as I longed to, to see what else was out there, and see how others lived. I wouldn’t know the scent of the sea or the feel of sand between my toes. I wouldn’t know the infinite horizon.
I would know another set of trees. Another group of people who would need my help with day-to-day chores, and if I was lucky, maybe Lucas would let me help with the running of the pack, or at least let me work as a healer, as my mother had taught me.
“Saphira,” Everlee started, but I held my hand up, silencing her as the weight of everything pressed down on me and I struggled to push it all away, all the doubts and the fears. She sighed. “If you ever need to get away or need a change of scenery, you can always come visit.”
I looked at her now.
Could I?
Would Lucas allow it?
I had a sudden urge to be outside, to explore every inch of my home and the woods surrounding it one last time, as if I would never see it again. I wasn’t sure that I would. It wasn’t unusual for mated females to remain with their new pack and never return to their old one, especially those females who mated an alpha.
Would this be the last time I saw my pack lands? My friends? My parents?
My stomach tightened, twisting painfully at the thought tonight might be my last moments with them, that voice in my head so loud it drowned out the one that soothed and whispered I was overreacting, letting fear get the better of me. I was being foolish, I knew it deep inside, but I couldn’t shake the dread and the fear I would never see this place or these people again, that my mate would order me to remain at his pack—my pack—and cut me off from this world.
The pressing need to drink it all in and savour it, to make memories I would cherish for the rest of my life, had me moving to the cabin window, my wolf instincts tugging me there, towards all that freedom I had taken for granted.
“Saphira?” Everlee’s soft voice tried to soothe the sharp edge of fear that felt like a knife poised over my heart, but it pressed closer nonetheless, the tip of it piercing my chest as I struggled to breathe. “Saphi?”
Her hand on my shoulder was a balm, an anchor I clung to as I placed mine over it, pinning it to me and clutching it tightly.
“Lucas isn’t like that. He’s not like other alphas, and not all alphas are so controlling. Look at your father.” Everlee squeezed my shoulder and I tried to take comfort from those words, but it was hard.
My father, who had never even entertained my requests to go to Quesnel with Everlee, or even with Chase and my protector, Morden. Who had looked close to laughing the one time I had asked whether I could make the long trip to Vancouver. He had always reminded me that my time was better spent here at the pack, carrying out my duties and taking care of our people. My mother had always looked as if she wanted to argue, and then she had agreed with him, shutting down my attempts to seek out adventure even in its tamest forms.
Yet even though part of me resented them for keeping me caged within the confines of the pack lands, my eyes still burned and throat still clogged up as the bedroom door opened and my mother poked her head into the room.
“It’s time.” Her eyes—eyes I had inherited—warmed as they took me in and she pushed the door open fully to enter the room. “You look beautiful.”
She bustled across the room, opened the closet and pulled out a thick cream shawl.
“But you’re going to freeze your backside off. It’s April, Saphi. You’re lucky there isn’t six inches of fresh snow on the ground right now.” She handed me the knitted shawl and I took hold of it, but she didn’t release it. She stood there, clutching it, her hands close to mine, so near I could feel their warmth. Her lips trembled as she forced a smile, her blue eyes glittering with unshed tears as she released the shawl and lifted her hand to sweep strands of my matching pale silver hair behind my ear. “It was snowing the day you were born. I told your father you looked as if you had come from the snow, had been born of it, with your hair and your eyes… as if you had come from another world. He had chuckled in that way of his and told me you looked just like me, and I was too warm and kind to be made of frigid winter. Just like you. I knew the first time you laughed and smiled how warm, kind and beautiful you were.”
“Mom.” I rolled my eyes, aiming for dramatic effect. “We’ve heard this story a thousand times.”
She released me and raised her hands in surrender. “I know, I know. But forgive me this one time? It’s not every day a mother lets her daughter go.”
Those words hit their mark.
Let me go.
Like I was being released into the wild, into unknown and uncharted lands, rather than into the hands of another person, like a possession.
I shunned that dark thought and focused on the positives, on the happy moments that were ahead of me, and on Lucas. I pictured his bright smile that would soften his glacial blue eyes and would draw my gaze down to his lips. He had never kissed me on the mouth, but tonight he would do that and so much more.
A buzz tripped down my arms, shimmering through my veins as my blood heated.
Suddenly, I was itching to see him rather than itching to be out in the woods, running wild and free as a wolf.
I pressed the backs of my fingers to my heating cheeks, and my mother smiled knowingly.
“It won’t be long now.” She sounded as proud as she looked as she wrapped the shawl around my shoulders. “Maturity can hit a female hard, but Lucas will take care of you.”
“Oh my god!” I nudged her in the shoulder, sure I looked as mortified as I felt inside. One moment she was talking about when I had been a baby, making me feel younger than my ninety-eight years, and the next she was hitting me with talk of my first heat. I wasn’t sure which was worse. Actually, I was. I would take her speaking about me as if I was still a little pup over her talking about my impending maturity. “I am so not having that conversation with you.”
Everlee laughed, the sound bright and warm, and my mother chuckled with her, and as I was escorted out of the room, out of the cabin and ushered into the back seat of my father’s red SUV, I couldn’t bring myself to laugh, even when I wanted to.
Lucas occupied all my mind, my heart, and that ache to stay here in my old home with my old pack transformed into an ache to see him.
An ache to take hold of him.
Kiss him.
And mate him.
