THERESA“There you are!” My mom grabbed me by my mock-neck collar as soon as I entered the dining area. My pulse quickened at the gesture, but I instantly relaxed upon seeing she was facing the other direction and dragging me toward the kitchen. At least this wasn’t about that.I hadn’t even had the time to imagine why she was dragging me by the collar as if I were a dog when she planted me in front of our cook. “It’s about time you learn how to make borscht. Your future mate will be expecting it,” my mom said. “Every good Ukrainian wife knows how to make a good borscht.”“Every good Ukrainian wife?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow. While, rationally, I knew I was half Ukrainian, I’d certainly never been raised as if I were. We never ate her home country’s food, even with a cook that was from her home country. And I’d, in all likelihood, find my mate in the very country I was currently standing in. So it defeated all logic for her to suddenly state that I needed to prepare to be a “good U
THERESA“Well, Alpha, what do you think?” my mom asked as Nikolai took his first sip of the soup.“It’s good,” he replied.“It’s nice having a beautiful woman cook you a hot meal, right?”My cheeks heated. Goodness, why was my mom making this dinner so awkward?“Mm,” Nikolai responded noncommittally.“Terri can cook all sorts of wonderful dishes. What would you like to try next?”Nikolai let out a breath, and then responded, “I am happy with Tasha’s cooking and I am also happy to eat American food. Terri does not need to go out of her way for me.”“But Terri is more than happy to go out of her way for you.” Could my mom make it any more obvious what she was doing? My body was on fire with embarrassment. I was ready to tear my mock neck off with how uncomfortably hot my neck and chest burned.“There is no need, Luna,” Nikolai replied politely. He finally set his spoon down, his expression unreadable. But for a moment, I swore I saw something flicker behind those silver eyes—annoyance?
JULIA*29 years ago*By the time I’d gotten to high school, I had one goal. Get out of this shithole.While perhaps there may have been some advantages to being a part of the beta family, no one was untouched by the poverty caused by communism. And while most had accepted this as a card they’d been dealt, there had always been a fire deep within me that knew—yes, just knew—that I was not meant for this middle-of-nowhere country bumpkin life. In my heart, I could sense that I was too big for the pack I’d been born into.My older brother would be beta one day, even if it was in some half-dilapidated pack, where the electricity didn’t even work half the time. Being a beta’s daughter, however, meant that I wasn’t destined for anything more than to be some nobody forest-boy’s mate. If I stayed here, I’d never have even half a chance of meeting someone outside Severnaya Zvezda Pack.But once the Soviet Union fell a few days after the winter solstice in 1991, I began to have some hope. Perha
JULIA*29 years ago*As the month wore on, he became desperate to fuck me. I threw him breadcrumbs. One day, I let him touch my breasts while fully clothed. Then, a few days later, I unbuttoned my blouse and let him touch them bare. Each new boundary he crossed made him bolder, more frantic, more obsessed.One evening, I wore a skirt and let him slip his fingers past the elastic of my panties. His breath hitched as he pressed against my entrance, teasing, testing.“Just don’t put them inside,” I murmured. “I’m saving myself for my mate.”“You’re so fucking wet though,” he groaned, tracing the slickness with the tip of his finger. “I can make you feel so good.”I tilted my head, letting my lashes flutter. “Do they have to go inside?”His nostrils flared. “Have you ever had an orgasm?”“What’s that?” I asked with eyes wide, playing the role of the innocent, untouched girl he so badly wanted to corrupt.“Oh, fuck,” he choked out. “You’re driving me crazy, Julia.”“Why?” I tilted my head,
NIKOLAIThere hadn’t been much improvement in training. I reminded myself that we’d only been here for a short period of time. These things took time. In our pack, we had never expected anything of our women, not even to pass the bare minimum physical requirements that packs in the US apparently had. While I’d come to understand that Tyce’s pack was considered traditional for the standards here, they were still far more progressive than the vast majority of packs in Eastern Europe.Before the war, it had made sense. Women were to be protected and cherished. They made a house a home, a dead animal a meal, a mating a family. Each gender brought its own strength. But what if a pack was only forty, half of which were women? Then what?We no longer had families, we ate for survival, not for enjoyment. And mates? What of them? Sasha wasn’t wrong. We did need to increase our numbers. But it was also irresponsible. We hadn’t set up our permanent residence. We were still reliant on the Jade Mo
NIKOLAI“He should take Terri with him,” Yulia explained. “She could help him if something happens. We never allow anyone in our pack to travel alone. It’s for good reason.”“You know what.” Lance looked up, and a smirk appeared on his face. “That girl has been getting weak. She slacked with her training in school. Time out in the Alaskan wild would be good for her. I’ve been going too easy on her.”Yulia nodded her approval.“Go get Terri ready to go. I’ll have a talk with Nikolai,” Lance said, and gestured to the chair in front of his desk.Yulia practically skipped out of his office. I likely lost a centimeter of teeth from grinding them so hard. It took everything in me not to flip over Lance’s desk. What could he possibly be thinking?He pulled a knife out of the top drawer of his desk and stroked it between his thumb and pointer finger. A typical threatening alpha tactic. “I’m assuming you’d like to make an heir one day.”“I would,” I confirmed, not sure where this was conversat
NIKOLAIWe traversed through the snow for hours. By evening, Terri’s stomach grumbled, cutting through the silence of the frozen wilderness. I turned my head to sneak a peek at her, and she kept her head facing ahead, marching on.Again, her stomach grumbled.I had planned to make it further before attempting to hunt, as I had learned it was a bit more abundant a good dozen or so kilometers forward, but something inside me stopped my feet in their tracks. I physically couldn’t ignore her hunger. It was as if my willpower had been overtaken by the aching need to fix what was wrong with Terri. She stopped next to me and tilted her head in a look of confusion.I pointed my nose toward the open tundra and nodded. I’m sure she understood. She followed me into the pitch-black landscape and switched off her night vision as soon as I did. It was time to hunt using our other senses.We stuck side by side as we crept into the icy terrain, scenting along our path, perking our ears for any sounds
THERESAThere was a shift in Nikolai. I don’t even know how I so definitively understood this. One moment, he was his usual grumpy self, with dark clouds hanging over him. And the next moment, something just seemed lighter about him.At first, I thought I imagined it. But as we traveled, something was… different. His shoulders weren’t as tense. His ears weren’t flicking back toward every sound like they usually did. And when I stumbled over uneven snow, his head turned—just for a second—before he returned his focus forward. The realization crept over me slowly. There was a shift in Nikolai.I didn’t think I’d ever felt so in tune with someone before. I’d never been so aware of someone’s mood, especially someone that was well-practiced at keeping a poker face. But the longer we traveled together, the less I could ignore how tuned in to him I was.After following him for over twelve hours, he made an abrupt stop. I can’t lie. I was relieved. My legs felt like they would give if we conti
THERESA On Thursday, I showed up for the last training session with the ladies of Severnaya Zvezda Pack. They all gave me a warm greeting, making me feel right at home in their pack. After some warmups, I started them out on sparring, so I could at least teach them some good fighting techniques before I left. I was pleasantly surprised. These Ukrainian ladies could fight! I supposed that’s how this group had made it out of the war. After spending the entire morning and afternoon with them, they convinced me to join them for drinks that evening. The ten of us headed to the pack’s pub together, where we grabbed a large table and settled in. Despite my insistence on paying, they wouldn’t hear of it. I knew they were living off modest contributions from my pack, yet they pooled their money together and made sure I didn’t spend a single cent. Toward the end, Mariya, who had the biggest personality of the group, pulled me aside. “Alpha smiles again,” she said in her heavy Russian accent.
GINGERI ran and leaped, targeting her with my claws. She swiftly ducked and grabbed me by the torso, plucking me out of the air and slamming me onto the large mat underneath us. So much for giving me an advantage.I tried again. This time, I lunged. Fast.Or at least, I thought I was fast.Sara sidestepped me like it was nothing. A blur of motion—before I felt a brutal force against my ribs.My body slammed into the mat, air rushing from my lungs in a painful burst. For a moment, all I saw were stars.“Again,” Sara ordered, pacing around me. “You’re not using your claws enough. You’re letting your opponent dictate the fight. That’s how you get yourself killed.”Gritting my teeth, I scrambled to my feet, forcing my breathing to steady. I had to land at least one good hit. Just one.I pushed forward, snapping my jaws toward her shoulder, but she twisted mid-air, flipping over me before slamming her elbow into my back. My knees buckled, pain shooting through my spine.“Still too slow,”
GINGERBy the time my final training session with Sara rolled around, I’d—mostly— recovered from what I’d experienced during the previous one. Tyce clearly sensed something was off during the drive, because he kept trying to interlace his hand with mine, but I wouldn’t give.“I’m sure you did amazing for your first torture, Gi,” Tyce tried. “You’d be surprised at how many grown ass men throw up and pass out.”A phantom sound echoed in my mind. The screams. The knife cutting flesh. The smell of blood, thick and metallic, clinging to my nostrils.My stomach turned.Tyce reached for my hand, but I pulled away.“You couldn’t have done any worse than me,” he added.“You were ten!”As soon as I said it, I regretted it. His face darkened, shadows flickering in his eyes.“I’m sorry.” I winced. “That was really insensitive of me to bring up.”“You’re not wrong,” he replied softly.I exhaled, searching for the right words. “I guess… I just feel so behind. All those years I didn’t have a wolf, I
JULIA*29 years ago*The day after the incident, I made sure to wear my tightest, lowest-cut black dress to dinner. Even Gabe’s father, who otherwise loathed my existence, couldn’t help his eyes as they skimmed the tops of my breasts.Gabe clearly noticed, because at one point, during the meal, he leaned in, gripping my wrist under the table. “What are you wearing?” he hissed, his voice barely audible over the clink of silverware.“What?” I fluttered my eyelashes and acted dumb. “Is there something wrong?”He scowled but said nothing else, though his tension was palpable. Across the table, Lance’s sharp gaze found mine. Unlike his father or Gabe, his attention wasn’t rooted in lust. His eyes narrowed, assessing me, silently questioning me. I met his stare with a shrug and resumed eating, unbothered.After dinner, Gabe, as usual, whisked me up to his bedroom. I went through the usual motions, stroking his ego and his dick. I excused myself at the earliest I could. I had big plans, and
THERESAI’d spent my whole life under the weight of constant criticism and impossibly high expectations from my parents, never stopping to think how deeply it affected me. Of course I had stayed. It felt familiar.My breath hitched. “I never even realized…”Maybe that same crude judgment was what had drawn me to my ex in the first place—without me even recognizing it. It was why I felt so at ease around him, why his behavior hurt but never felt out of place.I let out a deep breath. For the first time in months, the idea of forgiving myself felt possible. But I was too exhausted to unravel all the complex thoughts that had suddenly formed.Instead, I glanced at Kolya and smiled faintly. “You still owe me an answer to a question.”He raised his eyebrows but didn’t speak.“What is the Russian pack after? Why did they go to war with you?”His muscles stiffened against my body and he pinched his lips together.“You promised,” I reminded him.With a resigned sigh, he sat up and crossed his
THERESA“I know you probably think I’m stupid for not breaking up with him sooner. I guess a part of me cared about him. He’d had a tough life—his parents were chosen mates, not fated ones, and they fought constantly. When he was a kid, it sometimes got so bad that they’d forget to feed him. He didn’t have many friends either. Really, his only friend was that warrior I mentioned before, and even that friendship wasn’t a close one.”Desperate to justify myself, I added, “If I’m being fair, not everything was bad. Some things were good—really good. We’d have times where we’d just hang out and talk, and he could actually be sweet. Those moments made it harder to walk away.“Sometime in early August, I told him I was ready to have sex.” Kolya tensed beside me. “We did it one afternoon while his parents were at work. It was horrible. One of the worst experiences of my life. He was so nervous that he couldn’t get it up, and he took it out on me. He kept being mean, blaming me. I can’t even
THERESAI shook my head, pushing the thoughts away, and then continued. “Everything changed this past spring. I came home for summer break after my sophomore year of college. By then, I’d mostly gotten used to the idea that I’d stay a virgin until I met my mate. And then... I met him. My now-ex.”My mood darkened at the thought. Kolya seemed to sense it, as he gave my upper arm a squeeze.“Honestly, I didn’t even like him at first. He was a friend of a friend of a friend. My friend Kaylynn had a crush on this warrior who she invited to a party she was throwing. He had duty and couldn’t make it, but he asked her to invite one of his friends in his place that he said was kind of a loner. Said he was trying to get him to meet more people. And Kaylynn, of course, agreed.“We were all just sort of hanging out. I’d made some silly joke, teasing him in a flirting sort of way. And instead of laughing, he flipped me off. I don’t even remember what I said, but I’m sure it wasn’t anything that r
THERESAI stirred awake, blinking against the lamp light. Had I fallen asleep? I glanced upward to find a pair of silver eyes meeting mine.“Oh, shoot! Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” I stammered, scrambling to get up. Gosh, last thing I needed was for him to think that I believed this to be a relationship where we spent the night together and stuff. Moreover, my family was likely getting back soon, and it was in my best interest to scram before they figured us out.As I sat up, readying to grab my clothes and get out of his way so he could leave, his hand closed gently around my wrist. “Wait.”I glanced back at him, searching his face for a clue to his thoughts. As usual, his expression was unreadable.“Would it be wrong to want to spend a little more time with you?” he asked.“Oh,” I replied, caught off guard.“When we can speak to each other,” he added.I blinked, then smiled faintly, the tension in my shoulders easing. “Look who wants to talk all of a sudden,” I teased, play
NIKOLAIWhen she finally lifted herself, and lined her entrance up with my cock, I was a goner. Any other misgivings I may have had were wiped from my consciousness.I let out a deep, appreciative moan as she lowered herself onto me in a slow grind, rocking her hips to allow each bit of my length to methodically enter her. The inner walls of her pussy clench around me. My hands dug into her thighs in reaction. I couldn’t believe such a beautiful angel was allowing me inside her, packing every inch of me into her. She continued to slowly and carefully lift and lower herself onto me until she was filled to the hilt.“Fuuuuck, you feel so good!” I cried out.She smirked and lifted her arms over her head, elevating and emphasizing her sporty, pert breasts. I couldn’t take my eyes off them as they bounced with every movement. Using only her thick, well-muscled lower body, she easily slid up and down the length of my cock, impressing me with her display of athleticism.I wrapped my large ha