Confusion

Andrew

It is interesting to be me. After cousin Xavier died my parents didn't tell me much but I did ask around. My parents used to think like my aunt and uncle but after the investigation they have given in a bit and realize that same sex mates are real.  They still are homophobic bastards but they are not as enraged by the concept as they used to be. The interesting part is that they seem to be willing to accept that I like men if the Moon Goddess says it is okay but not if I say so.

I have had one boyfriend, Trent, in my life and Judith, my best friend, knew about him.  She even encouraged me to go out with him as long as I gave her all of the details.  I really liked him and Judith was shocked when I broke up with him.  I never told her the real reason we broke it off.  We got along really well.  He was my first kiss.  He was my first hand job and my first attempt at giving a very crappy blowjob too.  He was not very large in that area but he kept trying to control my head and pushed me down when I was taking a breath so my throat was constricted and I gagged hard.  I was able to get off of him in time but threw up on the floor and it was not my best moment.  I thought that maybe he could be my mate as I liked him so much.  He was a year older than me so he would know sooner than me.  He was not a pure blood Beta but his family was from a line that if the beta line could not fulfill their duty for whatever reason he would be next to take over.  He was not much taller than me at only 5'8" and not overly muscly but he was strong.  Primed to be a warrior one day once he was finished school.

After a few months of dating he got a new car and asked me to go for a drive to see the sunset.  We went to the abandoned cabin at the edge of our pack's territory that had this amazing view and watched the sunset while cuddling on the hood of his car.  It was spectacular and I was so happy.  With his birthday in a few months I was hopeful that he would know his mate right away even though he was not a pure blood and it would be me. I got off of the hood and started walking to the passenger door and I felt him gently put his arms around my waist so I turned around into a passionate kiss.  I could feel him directing us towards the cabin and I didn't fight him.  I was so confident in our relationship that I never doubted him nor his intentions.  When he broke the kiss to open the cabin door and I noticed a dirty mattress on the floor I scoffed at it and placed my hands on his chest to indicate I was not getting on that thing.  When I looked in his eyes I could see a change in them.  For the first time ever I feared him.  He threw me violently down on the mattress and before I could react he was on top of me.  He started roughly biting and kissing at my neck, forcing my hands above my head.  He pulled at my shirt to try and tear it off my body and I struggled but not with as much force as I could have.  I asked him to stop and told him it hurt but I didn't fight back.  At least I didn't fight back until I felt him pulling at my pants.  That is when I realized just what kind of danger I was in.  I heard him say something along the lines of me owing him as he fiddled with my belt.  He was distracted enough to loosen his grip on my hands for a moment so I swung my head forward to head butt him and folded my hands together into a large fist and smashed it into the back of his head.  I ran out of the cabin and did something I had never done before, shifted into my wolf while still fully clothed and on the run.  My clothes tore as my, arguably, large wolf sprung forth and ran as fast as possible away from that cabin towards home without looking back.

My wolf is not as big and bulky as any of the other wolves in our pack, in fact even some of the children's wolves are larger than mine, but my wolf is fast.  I am the fastest wolf in our high school and am told that I have a good chance of being recruited for the hunter squad when I am done my post secondary schooling, should I go on to college.  I am down the hill and back home in record time.  Because I shifted the way I did when I shift back my clothes are in tatters and I have small wounds all over my body that will take time to heal.  I headed in my house and showered then curled up in bed with my favourite comfy PJs on to cry myself to sleep.

The next few days at school I avoided Trent like the plague and Judith never pushed to hard for an explanation.

Being a low ranking pack member the chances of me finding my mate on my birthday are slim; Xavier had been the youngest in our family to find a mate at 6 months after his 18th birthday. So when I woke up this morning with a slightly sweet smell in my nostrils I didn't think anything of it. Today is my 18th birthday.

As I woke up more the smell continued to be there. I just assumed mom maybe had a cake baking or something. She wasn't particularly maternal but she does enjoy baking. At breakfast neither of my parents even seemed to realize it was my birthday so that vetoed that assumption.

I went off the school and the smell lessened as the normal smells of the wolves all around me that I am used to mixed with it. Judith, bounded towards me with a grin on her face.

"Happy birthday, Andy baby!!!" She jumped onto me with such force I thought I would collapse under her weight. At 5'6" I am on the shorter side for our species and I am also quite scrawny. I have lean muscle mass but compared to others in our community I am tiny. Judith is 5'8" and a muscly specimen of beauty. I often wonder why she ever approached me our first day of high school as I am definitely not who anyone wants to be seen with.

"Shit...I hate when you call me Andy!!! It is Andrew. Thank you for the birthday love but can you please get off?!?"

"Did you get a mate?!?"

"I doubt it. Why would the Moon Goddess ever give one to me of all people?"

"Oh And...you are so down on yourself. You are so perfect just the way you are and any mate would be lucky to have you."

I roll my eyes as we grab our stuff from our lockers and proceed to our first class. School is almost out and both of us will graduate in 2 months. I cannot wait to get out of this hellhole.

At lunch I notice the smell getting stronger and my wolf is starting to pull forward wanting to find this smell.

"Do you smell that?" I ask Judith as we sit down with our trays. She just gives me a questioning look. "I have been smelling this sickly sweet smell since this morning and it has gotten stronger. I can't place the smell."

Judith's mouth fell open and she coughed a bit. "You idiot! You have a mate!!! You need to follow that smell RIGHT NOW! How can you be this stupid? Get off your ass and go find them. What is wrong with you?"

The only reason such low ranking wolves find mates so young is because they are mated to a high ranking wolf. Our Alpha has his mate. There are no direct pure bloods of age in the immediate area so unless my mate is from a neighbouring pack that only leaves Xavier's rejected mate, the Beta Austin. They must be someone from a neighbouring pack as our Beta is to old for a mate and I've never heard of a second chance mate being a first chance and having such an age gap.

"What is our nearest pack neighbour? They must be from there. I will see if I can borrow the family car and go searching after school."

Judith looks at me and starts putting my thought process together and realizes what I have realized. "Andrew, it could be Austin, you know?"

"That can't be possible. He is to many years older then me, he is over the age of finding a mate. Remember we share a birthday so he turned 26 today. I would be his second chance mate and I have never heard of one wolves second chance mate being a first chance. Have you? It just can't be him. It would be more likely that there is an unknown pure blood of age or even that a lowly wolf like me has been graced at an early age by the Goddess then that!"

I text my parents and ask if I can borrow the car after they get off work but don't tell them why. They will suspect it is Austin and freak out if I tell them. If it was Austin he would have found me already by my scent. Everyone knows how torn up he was after Xavier and even I have seen him at the research centre scouring over all the material trying to figure out if he can get a second chance. If Austin realized he had a mate he would probably be running around like a mad man trying to find them.

Even at the age of 10 I realized the profound mistake Xavier made, I assume, all due to his fear of his parents and their severe hatred for gay people. I have lived in fear of being rejected by my mate because I am so physically inferior. I figured out not long after the rejection incident that I also like men so that also has me fearing my own rejection. My only consultation has been in the fact that that would most likely result in both of our deaths so I may be accepted to avoid death but now that I believe the other party is of high rank I am scared. They may not die so may be more willingly reject me.

My parents are at the pack house when I get out of school and tell me I can grab the car from then at 5pm so I head home to grab a snack and change before going to start my mission to find my mate. As I walk to the pack house I am very distracted as the smell is getting stronger and I am having a harder time keeping my wolf in check. I try calming him down by telling him we are going to find our mate now but he is getting more and more agitated.

I walk into a much larger man and stagger a bit. It is Beta Austin.

Mate