4

I open the door and see she isn’t here yet so I walk around the room. We call it her office, but really its her cave. She does have a desk to one side that she uses for all her queenly duties that require her attention. But the rest of the room is where her heart truly lies. She has an enormous table that is on wheels in the middle of the room. The room itself is rounded and the entire rounded part of the wall is completely made up of windows, overlooking the forest. On the large table are her two sewing machines and cutting mats, along with random fabrics from whatever her current project is. Shelves line the other wall, all completely organized with fabric by color, art supplies, canvases, scrapbooking. No matter what creative mood strikes her, she has all the supplies she could ever need in this room.

On the walls, the little bits there were anyway that were visible, is art that Quai and I made when we were younger. The one that catches my eye was supposed to be an exercise to learn to blend, hide things. She put a small 2x2 cut out from a magazine on a canvas. And then our goal was to blend it, draw and create from it and finish the rest of the canvas so that it was hidden. Mine was on the wall, and my eyes found the magazine quite quickly as I knew where it was. How I wished I could blend in, just for the next 6 days like that. How I wished I could disappear for a week until I wasn’t a shell of a person anymore.

Her door opened and she breezed in, now changed from her nicer clothes into an outfit similar to mine.

“Hi honey, I didn’t realize you made it here so quick,” she says, this time pulling me into a hug as she reaches me. I let her hold me, not letting go when she does, soaking in the comfort that only she can bring me. She seemed to sense I needed it so she didn’t let go until I did.

“A bit better?” she asked when I finally pulled away.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Anytime baby, anytime.”

“So what did you want to talk to me about?” I asked as I found my comfy chair in the corner. I’d sat here so many times, so many weekends while I visited and watched her work. She went right to her desk and started cutting something out as she spoke to me.

“Well, I wanted to discuss your future. I am well aware that you most likely do not want to yet, and I wish we could wait till the full moon to go over this, but unfortunately, word has spread about your return and the circumstances surrounding it,” she said as I watched her rotary blade run through layers of cotton.

“Wait, word spread? Like to other packs?” I asked.

“Yes, to all the packs.”

“Does the Brook Hole pack know who I am?” I asked as I started hyperventilating at the idea that Syn realized who I Was.

“No, no. You know your identity outside of the pack is limited, and no one knew where you were.”

This was true, the word was I was at boarding school and returned on the weekends.

“Ok, so everyone thinks I got rejected at boarding school and came home?” I asked

“Pretty much that’s what I gathered from the rumors. But the bigger issue is, that now everyone knows about that, and there are some questions emerging.”

“Like?” I asked, prodding on.

“Like, there have already been several Alphas who have asked for a meeting to discuss mating their sons to you,” she says as she swipes through another layer of cotton cleanly.

“WHAT” I asked incredulously.

“Mhmm. Damn men, only care about power,” she mutters to herself.

“Wow…” I shake my head.

“Yeah. Now, I already diplomatically told them to screw off, however, as your father pointed out, that won’t stop them. And sure enough, I got word that one of them is planning to come in a weeks time with his son to meet you. Just ‘in case’ his son is your second chance mate. And your father seems to believe that most of the others will probably join them, and come on the day of the Full Moon.”

“Fuck,” I mutter out as I try to contemplate this. “I don’t get anytime to let go of my first bond or try to figure out my next steps without men throwing themselves at our doors”

“Like I said, they only care about power. And if you do have another mate, a truly destined mate, then you will be able to find him after the full moon. Otherwise, you can choose a mate if you don’t find another destined mate.”

“How long do I have to find another destined mate before I would be free to choose one?”

“A year. That’s the other reason I wanted to talk to you, your father and I would like to start arranging where you would like to travel to first. Now, you don’t have to leave soon at all. You can wait. There are 19 packs across the world, 8 in our kingdom and then the others in other continents. You need to visit all of them, but only for a day or two each. So it won’t actually take you more than few weeks to get them marked off. But technically, you will need to visit them before this time next year.”

Surprisingly this didn’t irritate me as much as I thought it might. At first I felt irked cause I hadn’t even have a full day to just -be- without my next steps laid out for me. But that was what it was like being a royal, I knew that. This wasn’t the worst thing though. I had a pretty sure chance that there wasn’t a mate out there for me, another one I mean. Those were extremely rare, practically unheard of. So I could travel, work hard, and spend a year finding my place in the kingdom.

“Okay,” I said, which earned me a raised eyebrow from my mother. “It’s not exactly what I wanted to hear right now, but it also isn’t the end of the world. You aren’t forcing me into a marriage I don’t want or forcing a title on me tomorrow. This is something I can handle.”

“Good, I’m glad you feel that way. I hope your true mate is waiting and you find him quickly.”

I don’t. I truly don’t.

“yeah,” is all I say out loud.

“Ok technically, I actually hope you don’t have one and you can choose a mate, because I can't imagine you want anymore fate at this point, but I have to hope for WHATEVER the Goddess has in store for you. She knows better.” Mom adds with a chuckle.

“technically, same.” I tell her with a small smile.

We chat for awhile longer before it starts getting late and I head back to my room. I crawl into bed and find my favorite book where I left it the last time I Was here on my window sill and dive right into it, submerging myself into another world, another time, another story other than mine.

I wake up to my alarm blaring that I don’t remember setting. I groan and reach over to see it says 5am, and that it also has a note on it from my brother telling me he didn’t want me to miss another training. Such a nice brother, I thought as I pulled myself out of bed. I’d ended up reading till 2 so this was not the time I wanted to start the day but it looked like I was expected elsewhere this morning.

Once I was dressed and drinking coffee in the kitchen, I heard Quai whistling as he came down the stairs.

“Gooooooood morning Oly,” he said as he came in and poured himself a protein shake.

“Mmmm” I groaned at him.

He laughed a deep laugh and then took down his shake in 3 gulps before smacking his lips and heading back to the door.

“Ready?” he called over his shoulder.

“Asshat.” I muttered as I put my coffee cup in the dishwasher and headed out after him into the dark morning.

“We have visitors today, so try not to use that language when they arrive,” my brother said to me as we walked side by side out of the house.

“Really? Who?”

“Two packs are coming to discuss their alliance with another pack. I guess the 3^rd pack is doing things that they don’t want a part in and they want to discuss the issues and if we can’t resolve the issues, as in if they are technically legal and we can’t intervene, then these two packs want out of that alliance.”

“Mmmm so boring stuff.” I joked but when he didn’t laugh I knew he wasn’t saying everything. “Wait, what else?”

He huffs and says, “Well, they are also bringing their daughters. Both of them have a son to take the Alpha position, but they also have daughters and are causally bringing them to ‘see the royal pack’ but Dad says its more likely they want to see if they are my mate. Which they aren’t…” he whispers the last part and I know by the far off look in his eyes that hes lost in thoughts of Lana.

“Did you already do your traveling to find your mate? I mean the travelling to disguise like you were looking.”

“No, not technically. I take over the crown in 14 months. So I have to do it in the next year. But it doesn’t matter because in 1 months and 15 days Lana will be 18 and I can go to her pack first and claim her. Or better yet, simply have you invite her here so I don’t have to set foot in that disgraceful misfit band of-”

“Ok, ok mister future king. They are all your people, all our wolves. We care for all of them, even the ones who make stupid choices. If it isn’t illegal, it isn’t our issue.”

“I know,” he tells me as we finally reach the field and find that its full of warriors. The King’s army is unofficial. We’ve never actually been to war with another kingdom, mostly because the kingdoms are all on different continents, with ours being the largest with 8 packs out of the 19 in the world. We had an impressive army, recruited from within our packs, but everyone who joined our pack and became one of our warriors was by their own choice. No one was forced, only offered the position. And the army was actually used to keep peace inside our own kingdom more often than anything else. If there was a war between packs within our kingdom, a violent disagreement as my father called them, we go and settle it. If there is a rogue issue, we handle it. We are the security within and on the outside of our kingdom.

My eyes scan the field filled with thousands of warriors all paired off and already sparring at 5:22am. They were loosely warming up but it was still an impressive sight. This wasn’t even all of them, as we did two shifts of training each day.

“You don’t actually have to train you know.” my brother says and I look at him confused.

“You don’t, I set your alarm just to bother you. Mom and Dad cleared you, and after sparring yesterday, I’m satisfied as well. You are more than capable of taking care of yourself.”

“QUAI!” I yell at him and slap his shoulder. He rubs it halfheartedly and just bursts out laughing at me. “I could be sleeping?!”

“Yep” he says as he keeps laughing and I begin to plot his death.

“Unfuckingbelievable..” I mutter as I begin to walk away from him. I don’t walk to the packhouse though, I start walking towards the woods.

“Where are you going?” Quai calls after me.

“To cool off,” I yell back as I strip off my favorite sweatshirt and then shift into my large black wolf.

I take a few steps, getting my footing as I hadn’t been out much recently in wolf form. Mina, my wolf purrs at the feel of the grass in her paws before she takes off into the woods, drinking in her freedom. I encourage her to go full force, something she rarely has done in the 2 years she I gained the ability to shift. My wolf was black, a dead give away I was a royal since female wolves rarely are, and also she is extremely fast, strong and deadly. As much as I’ve been hiding, so has she. I can feel her excitement as she tears through the forrest at a pace we hadn’t gone in months. She rips through a rabbit that she caught in the blink of an eye and then continues through, dodging trees and branches until we find the spot we wanted. My waterfall.

This was where I was born. My mom and dad had been out for a walk when she went into labor. Unfortunately, she had actually been in labor for hours and thought it was cramping. When the real part started, it was too late to get back. She had me right here, in the grass, next to my waterfall in the middle of the night.

Mina trotted over and took a drink from the small pool that formed. Technically this was two waterfalls, one coming from the cliff above that pooled and then went off the next cliff down to the river below. Neither waterfall was large, but they were supplied by glacier water from the mountains above us and always was fresh and a beautiful blue green color.

After she was sufficed she gave me back control and I shifted into my human form. I was deep inside the territory, our territory being quite large. It was shaped like an enormous oval, with the pack settling in the middle of the top half, and the waterfall being in the middle of the bottom half. I was far enough away no one really came here, but still deep inside the borders and perfectly safe.

I waded into the water in the small pond that seemed to get deeper each year that the waterfall pounded down into it. I could wade in chest deep now and the cooling effect of the water was exactly what I needed this morning. The sun was coming up finally and I sat in the water and watched it rise.

I’d been there about an hour when I heard paws in the forest near me. I assumed eventually one of the patrols would scent me and come to check on me. I was honestly thankful it took them an hour. I needed it. I ducked deeper into the pool as I was naked and tucked myself into the rocks as the paws came through the trees. But it wasn’t patrols.