-AURE-I thought we were supposed to talk. Wasn’t like it was a desire more so than a need. Although…I’d have been lying had I said that there was a bit of that involved as well. Still, though, it didn’t change the necessity of the conversation. We truly did need to talk. I just… I wanted to understand. I needed to. Didn’t he? Did he not long to feel the way that he did when around me as I did him when we first met? Longing, that was the only way to describe the ache and need that had ignited in me since the first time I’d run into the stranger. Pathetic? Pitiful? I didn’t know which word to use or just to consider myself both because I certainly felt like a mixture of the two. These questions and notions had been plaguing my mind on repeat for an insurmountable time and I just couldn’t shake it. My thoughts were so intrusive that I had completely forgotten for a moment or so that I had a
-Colter-There was a lot on my mind as I stared out into the horizon. It was about time to leave for our journey but my best friend and second in command was nowhere to be found. Probably that new friend of hers that she had been going on about for the last week. In all my short years, I had never known Madison to be so taken by someone-man or woman. I couldn’t help but hope that this wouldn’t start to become a problem. “Alpha, everyone is ready to move out when you are.” I heard my Delta announce to me. I turned away from the beautiful morning sunrise, walked past Nathan and moved ahead of the line of those waiting for me. We started to the forest’s edge where we usually stood when we were about to head out. As everyone began to transition into their beastly form, I sensed a presence behind me. “Was beginning to think that you wouldn’t show up.” I said as my best friend approached. “Sorry, I’m late! Crisis prevention!” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at her remark. Crisis
-Colter-The early morning sun painted the forest in hues of gold and amber, casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to whisper secrets of the ancient woods.I stood there at the checkpoint, my gaze sweeping over the weary pack, their fur damp with dew and some with eyes still heavy with sleep. The pack had rested for the night-some in the packhouse while others chose to lie about the grass under the moonlit sky. But now, it was time to continue the arduous journey to the powerful wolf pack they were to meet.“Go get breakfast and we’ll rendezvous in the next hour.” I told them. A good hunt for their morning meal would get them bright eyed and bushy tailed for our trip. And it would give me time to think.“Morning,” I heard Mads greet from behind me. I was glad that she hadn’t shifted yet.As she approached, my mind immediately drifted back to the evening before. About her. Madison had revealed a startling revelation to me. The coincidence of her roommate being my fated mate, it
“Jose!” he said. “This is the great alpha Sloan’s son! And his future commanders. Promising young bunch, I must say. Young alpha, this is my daughter, and heir of the Moorlands, Josephine.”She stepped forward, and I was taken by her beauty; her skin flawlessly brown, her hair long and pin straight in its jet black hue. Her eyes were serene in color. She was petite and simply astonishing to look at.“It is a real pleasure, Josephine.” I found myself smiling, probably wider than I should have. She chuckled timidly. “The pleasure is all mine, alpha.” We went our separate ways, a pack member leading us to our sleeping quarters for the time being of our stay, while another, along with Nathan, went to the pack members waiting outside to allow them entry.So far, this trip was doing wonders to alleviate my concerns. Well, at least one part of this trip was.“Right up the hill,” the pack member directed us and then departed. Madison and I took the rest of the way up alone.Josephine seeme
-Aure-I’d been on the phone with Mom for what felt like hours, my mind wandering as she talked about her day at the office. The usual stuff: a particularly difficult client, a coworker who’d spilled coffee on her new blouse. I tried to focus, to sound engaged, but my thoughts kept drifting back to Colter and Madison, my new roommate. It had been three days since I’d seen Madi and even longer since I’d heard any sign of the mystery man that I could not seem to get off of my mind. What was worse was the fact that despite me not knowing them nearly well enough to feel like this, I couldn’t shake the loneliness that came with their absence.“Have you made any friends yet? Met any guys that you’re interested in?” Mom asked, pulling me out of my reverie. I could hear the hopeful anticipation in her voice.“Mom, I’ve not been here long enough to-”“You’ve been there for well over a week now, dear. Surely, you’ve met someone in that amount of time.” She was right, of course, I had met someo
-Colter-Monday had come and gone into Tuesday, and still the Moorlands still lingered in my mind. A vivid tapestry of rolling hills, ancient forests, beautiful bodies of water, and the haunting beauty of the Moor wolves; it was like living in another world.Then there was Josephine, with her mesmerizing and hazy yellow-green eyes, who had captured me in ways that I could never have imagined. Our time together had been a whirlwind of passion and excitement that I didn’t expect when agreeing to this trip to the Moors.Even with this past extraordinary weekend, the weight of my obligations to Aurelia and what to do with her started to settle on me. She was my mate, after all. I promised myself that I would figure out what I should do about our mating bond before making any decisions going forward. Yet, Josephine had tempted me; the she-wolf had completely swept me away in a tide of excitement and desire. As I walked away from the classroom, I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t even r
-Aurelia-Hours had come and gone of us talking and learning about one another. Colter Sloan I had learned, was not as surly, and easily aggravated as I initially thought him to be. I guess first impressions aren’t everything.The statuesquely handsome young man was far more charming than I had ever imagined he could be. He was patient, and very considerate of this inexplicable pain that I’d been wrought with over the last couple of days. He was attentive to me and even concerned. Odd, considering he hardly knows me well enough to call me by my first name. As we studied each other throughout the night, I also couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a pang of guilt in his eyes. Almost as if he had something to hide from me. When I began to think along those lines, I was forced to ask myself what on earth he could be hiding from me in the first place? He neither knew me nor owed me anything enough to have secrets from me. And still….I could not shake that feeling that some part of
The day seemed to go down hill from the moment that Colt blew me off. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something big was going to happen soon, and that it probably wasn’t going to be good. Not for me anyway. Following the last class, I found myself wandering around the college campus, my mind afloat with frustrations and confusion concerning this thing with Colter Sloan.My phone rang, and I immediately knew that it was my mother checking in on me again. There wasn’t much to talk about on the phone. Her conversation consisted entirely of how I’d been taking care of myself. She was a worry wart, my mother. I loved her for it, but truth be told, I just didn’t have it in me to talk right now.Politely, I decided to end the conversation early.“Okay, mom, I gotta go, but I’ll talk to you later. I love you too.” We exchanged, and then I headed to my dorm.“Hey Aure!” Madison greeted me from her desk as I came into our shared dorm.“Hey, Mads.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t return Mad’s gre
-Aure-I was wholly invested in mom's history at this point. Sitting on edge, as I pressed and waited for her to tell me how she and my father met.“How?” I could tell that there was an interesting story behind it.“He, uh, he was the enemy,” she said. “Your father, he was Sigma, the strong lone wolf of the Moors. And well, your grandparents had gotten a little too arrogant, I guess. They were powerful, the strongest mated couple in the territory. That power went to their head, and they moved in on the Sigma’s territory, deciding that together they could take him.” she laughed. “They were wrong.”“Did he kill them?” I asked.“No,” she answered. “But he took the pack from them
-Aure-Alpha? Of the Moors? “Moors?” I emphasized the word after she confessed this. What on earth was I supposed to do with this information?“Yes, Aure,” said. “You heard me correctly. It’s a deep in the Moors, quite majestic in its way.”“Mom, you’ve got to be kidding.”“I wish I was,” she chuckled tensely. “It’s not the easiest place to live when you’re a human-born wolf.”“What?” I had never heard of something like this before. To be honest, I had never heard of any of this before. All of it was new to me. What my mother was telling was simply furthering the concept of my mind being blown.She sighed. At this point, I had noticed that she was showing signs of fatigue and so I helped her to her favorite reclining chair, and propped her feet up.Mom leaned back in her chair, and then continued to explain. “That’s why I never told you, Aure,” she said. “About your true nature. Your father and I thought that you were like me, and he felt that since he could not raise you amongst his
-Aure-Mom had been doing pretty well over the last few days with the new herbs that I’d been getting from the shop.Her walk had gotten a little peppier, and her energy levels had improved a bit. Sure, she was still a bit weak but the little improvements were better than nothing at all.“Hey, sweetie?” I heard mom call me as I finished brewing her special tea. “Yeah, mom?” “How do you feel about pizza tonight?”Pizza? Both me and Sephara were surprised by the suggestion, as mom hadn’t been able to eat anything so heavy like that for a long time.I chuckled. “Yeah, sure! If you’re down, I’m down.” My phone began to ring. “But I’d still have some soup or broth on hand just in case.” “Yes, hon, I know, I know.” I could hear her replying impatiently as I picked up the phone.“Only trying to look out for my best girl!” I teased before answering. “Hello”It was Madison. Again.Ever since our little meet up at the cafe, she’d been hassling me nonstop to not only take her up on her offer
-Aurelia-“So, are you sure it’s a good idea for you to be meeting me like this?” I asked Madison as she sat across from me at the table of the small cafe we sat at.She sipped on her black coffee. “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?” I chuckled. “Don’t want you getting into trouble for associating with me,” I told her. “Seems that pack life…wolf life in general is far more strict than I previously thought. I’m learning that more and more every day.” Madison sighed. “Colter Sloan cannot tell me who to talk to and who not to talk to,” Madison said. “If he has a problem with me talking to you then…well, he’ll just have to get over it.” “Okay,” I laughed a little. “If you say so.”“Besides,” Madison went on to say. “Not like I told him that you were even here,” she shrugged. “He doesn’t even know that you’re back.”I sat there quiet, sheepishly staring down at my drink. Madison seemed to catch my sudden awkward silence.“Right? He…he doesn’t know that you’re here…I mean-I-I didn’t tell h
The hunting hour was close, and I was so glad for it. I needed the break, from everyone and everything. My thoughts were still in a whirlwind from that day when I saw her. I was glad that Josephine had gone home to visit her father because being around her seemed to only make me feel worse about the whole ordeal.Why? Because I really wanted to see her again. I stood on the hill overlooking the vast land owned by the Sno pack, anticipating the moment where I tore away from this human body and roamed free with my beast, Maxim.“We should find her.” he suggested in the back of my mind.Immediately, I scoffed, annoyed and intrigued by the idea. Annoyed because it was probably the worst idea that he could think of; trying to find a woman that not only did I reject, but also manipulated her memory to forget almost everything that she knew.I was still intrigued, however, by the terrible idea, because simply put, I just wanted to see her again.“We will run into her, one way or another. I
‘-Aure-“Au-Aurelia?!” Madison’s voice was good to hear, even despite how loud she was. I looked around nervously. I didn’t want anyone walking up on two half naked young women standing in the forest.Where it was clear that I was nervous, Madison seemed not to have a care in the world. “Aurelia, I…I can’t believe this!” Madison rushed toward me, an ecstatic look in her eyes. Nevermind the fact that we both were bare in the moonlight. She wrapped her arms around me. “I’m so glad to see you again!”“Ha, thanks!” I chuckled. “It’s-I’m glad to see you too.”Madison pulled away from her. “What are you doing here?” she asked, as she steadily began to put on the remainder of her clothes. “I…well, I came back home for my…” It was hard to even mention her mom around others. “For?” Madison pressed, but not in an intolerable sort of way. She was curious as I remembered her to be. “My mom,” I finally replied. “Oh! Ms. Char! How is she? I think about her often. Is everything okay?”I tried
-Colter-I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Her face…those eyes. I had to find her. I had to find out if it was really her. “We both know that it was. There was no mistaking that scent.”“I shouldn’t be still…her scent shouldn’t still be so…noticeable though…right? I rejected her. I…I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t still feel her like this…right? I did the rejection right…right?” “You did…we have never had to reject someone before, so to go by the book I can only assume that we have taken the right process in rejecting her.”I knew that it frustrated my wolf to even have this conversation about Aurelia, but ultimately it needed to be had. Still Maxim’s clear hesitation brought another thought to mind. One that I was curious to explore.“Hey, honey.”Josephine’s melodic voice broke through my concentration. I quickly tried to cover up my frustrations and concerns with a small smile.“Hi, Jose,”She wrapped her arms around my neck. “So, how are we feeling? The big day is three days away, now a
-Aurelia-Was that him? Was…was it really him?I had no time to convince myself that I was seeing things before that persistent voice popped up in my head.“You know that it was, Lia,” the throaty guttural feminine voice whispered in my mind, an alter ego of myself. And she most certainly was an ego all her own.“Be as snide as you’d like, love, but the facts remain.”“Yes, thank you, Sephara!” I hissed, through the loud whistling of the wind as I cycled through the highway to get home. It was a good thing that I was on my motorcycle and winding down the road at a fierce speed. There was no one around to hear me talking to myself. My other half stopped talking for the rest of the ride. I was glad for that, thinking that she’d have dropped it.“You have to deal with this eventually.”Then she picked it up again. With a sigh, I removed my helmet, and headed to the house. “I don’t, Seph. I don’t have to deal with it at all. I was rejected, remember?” I cut her off and headed into the
-Colter-Three Years Later….Sex.The one thing that we were never lacking in, and the one thing that we seemed unable to get enough of.I laid there in bed, next to my Josephine, her face emitting the dewey glow one would have after three hours of rough passion. The corner of her light eyes wrinkled with satisfaction as she laid there across from me, staring.“You never disappoint, alpha.” she grinned.I smiled. “If I did, I’d never hear the end of it,” I teased. And then turned on my side, back facing her as I started to drift off.“Wait, baby,” she said with her subtle Moors accent. “I want to talk a little more.” I knew what she wanted to talk about and to be honest, I wasn’t in the mood too.“And I’m listening, sweetheart.”“Okay, well,” she took a deep breath and then asked. “How are you feeling? About the ceremony?”I rolled my eyes. “Fine, Jose, but I’ve told you this.”“Have you gotten a speech ready? This…this is a big deal, Colter. You don’t want to embarrass anyone.”“The