Episode 3 - Hey dad, I've got three mates.

Samuel

I couldn’t believe what was happening. I couldn’t believe that I finally found her. And she was perfect in every single detail. I had to control myself really hard not to claim and mark her right there because I knew it was something that I had to do with my brothers and with her permission and I was happy enough that she let me kiss her and what a sweet mouth she had. As my right hand was tangled between her wave hair my left hand traveled to her waist trying to bring her body as close to mine as possible. As my hand touches her tanned skin she moans against my lips and traces her fingers along my back which makes goosebumps run down my spine in pleasure. With all sanity I had left I pushed her away gently.

“Why did you stop?’ She asks me with an innocent look in her eyes.

“If we didn’t stop I wouldn’t be able to stop myself later and I can’t do that with my brothers. We can’t do that to them.” I justify my actions to her.

“I understand.” She says with a hint of disappointment in her voice. “But why didn’t they come with you?”

“We had lots of packs to visit so we decided that would be faster if each one of us went to different packs”. I said.

“Ow, that makes sense. Divide and conquer, then?” She asks laughing.

“Something like that”. I say laughing and kissing her forehead.

“You knew, didn’t you?” She asks 

“What?”

“You knew we were mates.” She says.

“I had my suspicions but I had to wait until you were 18 to be sure. Lucky me I had to wait only a few days.” I said, stroking her hair while she laughs. But suddenly she stopped laughing.

“Sam?” She calls me. “Yes?” 

“When will I meet them?” She asked in a low tone.

“We can arrange that. Why?” I ask her, a little bit jealous.

“If we don’t mate I can go into heat.” She says, looking a little bit ashamed. Damn, I forgot about the freaking heat.

“I’ll call them later today and try to arrange for them to come here, okay?” I say trying to reassure her. She seemed afraid of the heat. I don’t blame her for being afraid of it. Most female wolves who have been through it wouldn’t wish it for their worst enemy. It’s the most excruciating pain a wolf could ever go through.

“Come on. I prepared a little surprise for you.” I say intertwining my fingers to her’s and guiding her to the little picnic I set up for us. I look at her just to see her eyes glowing with happiness.

“You set this up for us?” She asked me with a huge smile on her face.

“For you. I did it for you.” I say smiling at her. She jumps and hugs tightly.

“Thank you. Noone besides my family has ever done something like that to me.” She says while a little single tear ran down her face.

“No need to thank me, little one. I’ll always be here for you and will always have your back.” I declare to her. I kiss her forehead and put her back to the ground again. We sit and eat while talking.

Pandora

I can’t believe I have triplets as mates! Even though I’m happy and can’t wait to tell my family I worry about my father’s reaction. The poor man has a lot on his plate already but I can’t and won’t lie to him. Sam put me back on my feet and we ate that delicious breakfast while talking about our lives and dreams. I found out that I was right, he surely was a softie inside.

“Can I ask you something?” He asks me.

“Sure”. I say eating a delicious piece of chocolate cheesecake.

“Did you suspect that I was your mate?” His question caught me off guard.

“I guess. I thought that you were quite intriguing and I kind of thought that you were a softie inside and I’m proud to say that I’m not wrong.” I say laughing and smiling at him.

“Well, yeah. This tough-looking façade is just for no one to come near.” He said while laying down.

“Why?” I ask him.

“Someone in the past hurt us. Me and my brothers. We swore that we’d never let anyone come close again if not our mate.” He says making me ask myself what possibly could have happened to make them take such a harsh decision. We stayed there in silence. A comfortable silence.

“Aren’t you gonna ask me what happened?” He asks me with a little bit of anger in his tone. I feel him becoming tense as I take my time to answer.

“No.” And then I returned my attention to my cheesecake but not without seeing his reaction when I said that I’d not ask him what happened.

“Why?...” He was now leaning on his elbows and looking at me curiously.

“You don’t feel like sharing right now. And that’s okay. I could sense how tense you became just to think about it. All I can say right now is that whenever you feel like sharing what happened I’ll be here for you.” I say putting into practice what my parents taught me. Being kind and respecting the personal space that our loved ones needed once in a while. He looks at me in shock and then he smiles.

“Thank you.” He said. I finish my cheesecake and lay down next to him.

“What are you gonna do today?” He asks.

“Well, I was planning on helping my family with things at home.” I start. “But now that I know that I met you as my mate I was thinking that maybe you could come back with me?” I say looking up at him.

“You think it’s a good idea to introduce me as your mate already?” He answers while looking down at me.

“Well, my family already knows that I came running after my mate and I’m sure that they are dying to know who you are”. I say reassuring him with a smile.

“Okay then. Let’s wrap this picnic up and we can go.” He says getting up and starting to put everything together. I helped him and then we shifted into our wolves. Sam’s wolf is magnificent. A dark shade of brown fur pairing with brown eyes. His wolf was huge. Indeed, the alphas usually are bigger than beta and regular wolves but he was a little bit bigger than most alphas I’ve seen, which was only one. He stood tall and proud of himself while he waited for me to lead the way towards my home. We ran back home to find my parents and sisters waiting for me in the backyard.

“You took your time, sweetheart.” I hear my mom say.

I ran towards them and grabbed my clothes to shift and change into them behind a tree. As soon as I was decent I locked Sam’s fingers with mine and we approached my family. As we came into view my dad was shocked by what he was witnessing, seeing my dad speechless, my mom looked at us but a huge smile crept upon her gorgeous features.

“Oh my God. What a beautiful couple you guys make.” My mom says without holding her excitement back. She gets up and comes over to us and hugs Sam.

“Welcome to the family.” She says while smiling

“Thank you, ma’am”. Sam answers while smiling at my mom which fills my heart with happiness.

“Good morning, Mr. Vaughn.” Sam greets my father.

“Oh, you guys know each other?” Mom asks, surprised as Dad gets up and comes over to us.

“Yes, my love. He’s the alpha of The Silver Moon pack.” My dad says introducing Sam to my mom and sisters who have been awfully quiet until I see they are staring at each other with a look that meant trouble. I guess I’ll have to keep my eyes on those troublemakers. My mom looked shocked but then a sweet smile appeared on her lips.

“Well, what are you waiting for then? Alpha or not, you’re my first daughter’s mate, sit and eat with us. You’re family now.” My mom says gesturing towards the huge picnic table we have in the backyard. We make our way to the table and sit next to each other.

“Well, about that I have some unexpected news for you.” I say trying to calm down my heart which seemed to get the hell out of my chest.

“What is it, love?” Dad asked as he served himself with the most delicious chocolate pancakes. Seriously, I love my mom.

“Mom, please, you’ll need to help Dad after I tell you what I’ve to tell.” I mindlink my mom who looks at me with a worriedly look.

“Uhn… I don’t really know to tell you guys this but…” I try to explain. “What I’m trying to say is…”

“I might not be her only mate.” Sam breaks the news.

“What?” My dad is looking at us with his mouth open without knowing how to react to this news, the same goes for my mother and sisters.

“What-- What do you mean you might not be the only Pandora’s mate?” My mom asks with a bit of reluctance in her voice.

“I’m not the only alpha of The Silver Moon pack. We’re three alphas.” Sam explained in a diplomatic tone.

“THREE? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?” My dad now asks, exploding with the unexpected news.

“Well, apparently I might have three mates…” I say trying to be as clear as the river’s water. With that, my dad falls back to his seat with a look on his face that I can’t understand. I can’t decipher. Is it fear? Anger? Is he feeling overwhelmed with everything that is happening to me? I don’t know but I’ll give him time. As he had read my thoughts Sam says.

“I think it’s better if I make my way back to the hotel I’m staying.” He says getting up from his seat.

“No! You don’t have to go.” I’m shocked as my father is the one asking Sam to stay.

“With all due respect sir, I don’t wish to intrude any more than I already have” Sam says kissing my head and grabbing the things from the picnic we had earlier. “I’ll be back later for your birthday, my love.” He says while walking away. I look at my parents with an apologetic look and run after my mate.

“What are you doing?” He says, stopping in his tracks.

“Accompanying you.” I simply answer and he smiles at me. I guided him to the entrance of my home and waited with him until his car arrived. We sat there in a comfortable silence as we waited for his car until his phone buzzed.

“Hello.” He picked up.

“Oh, hey. Yes, I need to talk to you but--” I was trying my best to not let my heightened abilities let me hear his conversation. But it was really hard too so I tried to distract myself from him. See, I don’t want to spy on him if he wishes to share with me then he should do it in his own time. Or at all. I don’t want to be like those people that live with uncertainty when it comes to their relationship. I want to be able to trust my mates so they can trust me as well. As I look to the opposite side that my mate is talking on the phone I feel something rather strange. The warm weather suddenly has gone cold making chills run down my spine in a bad way. I look around carefully trying to sense some kind of threat when something makes me focus on a tree. It was not noise. It was a presence. And it seemed like it was calling me.

“Pandora.” Fuck. Whatever it was. It was definitely calling me. With my curiosity picked I slowly got up and walked towards the tree that seems to be calling me. As I got closer the voice got louder before I couldn’t make out if it was a male or a female voice but now it was clear that the voice I was hearing belonged to a woman. She had a deep yet sweet voice.

“Come on, Pandora. We’ve to get going.” She said but now her voice had a hint of urgency. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to contact you again. You can’t repeat--” Her voice was starting to fade away. I try to run after her but it’s no use. I can’t move my legs. It’s like they are frozen. They’re not responding to my commands. Anxiety grows in my chest as I start to notice that no part of my body is answering. I try to move my eyes away from the tree and look towards the backyard to see if my family was still there. Yes, they were. My mom, my dad, and my sisters. Relief washes quickly over my body that tenses up again when I notice the situation I’m in is rather worse than I thought. I did the reality check looking for my family, so that means I’m wide awake but that also means that I’m paralyzed.

Did I get hit with tranquilizer darts? No, I’d have sensed it coming, and even if someone were able to hit me with one of those darts I’d be sleeping like a baby right now. What could it be? I close my eyes to focus on the environment around me. I start to control my breath and sense everything around me, the ground, the grass, the trees, and their roots, my house, my family, my mate. But then I felt it. An aura. A different one. More powerful. Stronger. And it came from that freaking tree I was trying to walk towards.

Damn it! Focus! But before I could think of something I felt my body moving again and that presence was gone.

“Are you alright, love?’ Sam asked, getting closer.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” Answering while regaining my composure. He hugs me from behind and kisses my head. “I’ve to go now but I’ll be back tonight with a surprise for you.” I turn around to see him smiling down at me.

“You know, you don’t need to get me anything. Being your mate is the best gift I could wish for.” I say hugging him back.

“Oh, but I’ll get you something and I know you’re going to love it.” He says. “But now I gotta go, I’ll see you later tonight.” We say our goodbyes and I go back to my family but not before glancing once again at that tree.