Chapter 1

*3 Years Earlier*

“Jill, I need your help to pick out my birthday outfit for tomorrow!” I whined to my best friend.  “Can you please come home with me after school?”

“Of course, girl!  Do you and Brent have something special planned?” She wiggled her eyebrows playfully.

I blush, “yeah, we really lucked out that my eighteenth birthday fell on a Saturday.  We have the whole evening planned out.”

Jill grins and her forest green eyes sparkle with enthusiasm, “Well, don’t hold back, give me the details!  What do you have planned?!”

“Well, first, we are going to meet at Grand Teton National Park.  You know, to see if the mate bond snaps into place.  Then, we plan to just hang out for a bit before we head to dinner, we’ll finish off the night camping out together under the stars, and we’ll probably mark each other.”  I couldn’t hold back the smile that crept onto my lips.

Brent and I have been dating for the last three and a half years, and we are both certain that we are mates, but we have agreed that we will choose each other even if we are not fated mates.  His parents have been cautioning us not to get too carried away, so we didn’t tell them that we already decided we would choose each other no matter what.

They are very old fashioned and think that a fated mate is the most important thing in a wolf’s life.  They would probably freak out if they heard us talking about choosing a mate, but it really doesn’t matter because we know that we’re fated.

“Do you think that Brent has felt anything yet?”  Jill interrupted my thoughts. “I mean, I know they say if you’re 18 but your mate isn’t, then you won’t recognize the mate bond, but has he said anything about any new feelings since his birthday last month?”

I purse my lips in thought, “We haven’t really talked about it, but I don’t think so.  We knew we’d have to wait until my birthday to confirm that we’re mates, so we didn’t really bother trying to figure it out after his.”  I shrug my shoulders.

“So… what will you do if by some crazy chance he isn’t your fated mate?”  Jill asks with a wince.

I’d never really given that much thought because I was so confident that he was the one who was created just for me. I don’t like even thinking about the idea of him not being mine. “We choose each other and mark each other anyway.”  I respond casually, as if the thought doesn’t completely crush my soul.

“Alright, I’ll meet you in the parking lot after school.” Jill waves and we part ways in the hallway. Her long black wavy hair swinging behind her as she hurries down the hall to class.  It’s the last hour of the day and it’s one of the two classes that separates us during the school day.

Our senior year of high school was supposed to be easy.  We were going to take all of the blow-off classes together, but she partied a little too much junior year and failed her calculus course, so she’s retaking it this year.  She’s really smart, but things like art and literature are much easier for her than math.

That’s the class she was headed off to now, calculus, while I’m going to work as a pass runner for the office. It’s basically like study hall, but I hang out in the main office and if the counselors or anyone needs to speak with a student, I go and deliver a pass/request for them to come to the office.

It only takes me the first 15 minutes of class time to finish off the homework for today, and then I can spend the afternoon chatting with the secretary.  Ms. Sanders has always been very sweet and friendly.  She’s around 140 years old which is equivalent to early 30’s in human years.  She has short, curly, strawberry blonde hair, and warm chocolate brown eyes.  She’s never been married, but she’s a hopeless romantic who doesn’t date because she’s waiting for her mate.

Every year she travels during summer vacation to visit other packs looking for her mate.  We only have a month and a half left before summer break, and she’s been planning her next trip to visit a new pack she hasn’t been to yet.  This year she’s visiting a pack in Eastern Europe for 2 weeks.  There are several other packs close by, so she can thoroughly check the region for her mate before she returns home.

I hope she finds him.  I can’t imagine waiting that long to find my mate.

“Are you excited for your birthday tomorrow, Gina?”  She smiles at me warmly.

“Yes!  Brent and I have a special date planned to celebrate.”  I beam excitedly.

Ms. Sanders is still smiling, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes this time.  “I hope you two are mates, but if not, remember not to lose hope.  Your mate is out there somewhere.”

I know she means well, so I offer her a kind smile.  It doesn’t matter if Brent isn’t my mate.  I have already chosen him regardless of what happens tomorrow.  I admire that Ms. Sanders is so committed to the mate bond and has been looking for her mate for so many years.  Most wolves just give up and go with a chosen mate long before they reach her age.

Unfortunately, if your mate dies before you meet them, there is no way of knowing, so you might be searching your whole life for someone who has long since left this earth.  It’s a really depressing thought and I would never voice it to Ms. Sanders.  I don’t want to be the one to crush her hopes and dreams.

A few minutes later I’m sent off to deliver passes for students to come to the office for meetings with the counselors.  Human high schools have guidance counselors to help students set goals and make plans for college.  Some wolves go away to college, but some choose to start an apprenticeship with a local business on pack grounds, and many enter the warrior training program.

Brent and I both plan on joining the warriors training.  Jill is hoping to get an apprenticeship with a local fashion designer in the pack.  She loves dreaming up and designing beautiful gowns and she even made the dresses we both wore to the last formal event.

Upon entering the first classroom, I see my Brent sitting in the far corner.  He is smiling and laughing with his friends.  His shaggy blonde hair falls gracefully across his forehead, and his turquoise eyes slide closed as he laughs at something someone just said.

Heidi, my nemesis, is sitting just in front of him doing her best to insert herself into their conversation and flirt with the guys.  She’s a year younger than us, but she’s actually pretty smart, so she has a lot of the same classes as Brent and me.

Heidi has platinum blonde hair, cut short into a pixie style haircut.  She’s cute enough in the face, but she’s a party girl and flirts with everyone!  I don’t trust her.  She’s always had an attitude towards me, and she’s already slept with half the guys in our school.  I’d like to think she knows better than to flirt with Brent, not that he’d give her the time of day anyway, but she has already slept with a few of his friends, and she always seems to be around.  He told me once that she annoys him, but he doesn’t want to be rude, so he just does his best to ignore her rather than acting like a jerk.

A second after I enter the room, Brents eyes snap to mine as he shoots me an irresistible smile, showing off his perfectly straight, white teeth followed by a wink.

I’ll admit, I’m not some pure innocent virgin.  Brent and I started sleeping together last year.  I was holding out for my mate, but once Brent and I decided that we would choose each other, with or without the mate bond, it was an easy decision to give my virginity to him.  I don’t regret it, and I feel like it has only brought us closer.

I really hope he marks me tomorrow to solidify our bond, but I keep reminding myself that he might want to wait until after we graduate in a month and a half.  I’ve been trying to prepare myself for the possibility that we might wait so I’m not too disappointed if it goes that way.  I’d hate to ruin our moment by sulking.

After throwing Brent a wink, I sway my hips as I walk to the front of the room.  My skirt swishes side to side with my movement, and I know I’m giving Brent a nice peek at my thighs with this motion.  I smile at the teacher as I hand over the pass requesting one of the students in the office.

Then, I quickly spin on my heel and head for the door.  I have a few more passes to hand out in other classrooms.  I glance over my shoulder and Brent has resumed his conversation with his friends.  Heidi is back to her attempts to flirt, and her current focus is on Brents best friend Gavin.  I roll my eyes as I approach the door.

As I’m passing by the last desk someone reaches out and grabs my ass.  I quickly snap my head around and sitting right by the door is Trevor, the school’s star basketball player.  He is devilishly handsome with his thick, raven hair brushed up on top with tapered sides, and his mint green eyes, but right now I’m too pissed to notice.  He gives me a wink and then turns his attention back to the assignment on his desk.

My eyes snap over to Brent and he’s completely clueless.  Still laughing and chatting with his friends, completely oblivious to what just happened to me.  I scowl at Trevor, but he’s not looking my direction anymore, and my glare is wasted.

I step out into the hall, still a bit stunned, and shake my head to clear my mind.  Trevor is lucky that the mate bond hasn’t snapped into place yet.  Otherwise, Brent would have felt someone touching me in such an intimate way.  I know Brent would be murderous and he would destroy Trevor for touching what’s his.

Thinking it through as I walk the halls to deliver the next pass, I’m able to calm myself down.  I decide not to mention it to Brent.  I’m not trying to start a fight over something so trivial, and it probably won’t happen again anyway.

-----

After school Jill is lying on my bed while I try on different outfits to get her opinion on what I should wear tomorrow.

“You mean he just grabbed your ass and winked, then turned around like nothing happened?!?”  Jill shrieked with indignation.

I stepped out of my walk-in closet wearing the 6^th outfit I had tried on.  A pair of black hip-hugger pants and a copper-colored glitter halter-top. “Yeah!  I was so shocked that I just walked out of the room without doing anything about it.”

Jill glances up from her magazine at my outfit and shakes her head.  “No, not that one.  Brent needs to see your neck if you want to temp him to mark you right away.  He needs to see where his mark will go.”

“Fair point.”  I head back into my closet looking for another option to try on.

“Has Trevor ever tried to flirt with you before?”  Jill questions, “I mean, not that it should matter.  Everyone knows you and Brent have been together forever.”

“No, he’s never spoken to me, or even given me the slightest bit of attention, before today.”  I yell from the closet.

I continue digging through my closet and stop when I find a baby blue Hawaiian print strapless sundress.  I quickly put it on and step out of the closet.  Jill looks up and her eyes go wide!

“That’s the one!  It’s perfect!  It shows off the spot where he’ll mark you, and it gives easy access if he can’t wait to get you back to his place.”  She giggled.

“I’m not a slut, Jill!” I scoffed, “I won’t have sex with him in public!”  My face flushed bright red at the thought of him being so excited to mark me that he couldn’t wait.  No, I would make him wait.  I’m not that kind of girl.

“Now that you have your outfit sorted, can you help me with my homework?”  Jill interrupted my thoughts.  “I want to get it done now so I don’t have to think about it for the rest of the weekend!”

“That’s a smart idea.  Let me just change out of this and then we’ll take a look at it.” I throw a wink at her over my shoulder as I walk back into my closet.