Getting Back My Younger Mate

1 Stupid, Reluctant Mate

Eva POV

“So, about this weekend,” Tyler says, sliding into the chair beside me in the lunchroom, “Did you think any more about coming with me to the party?”

“Oh, gawd. Not again,” Rhea grumbles in my head. I almost giggled at her annoyance.

“I think I already told you no,” I smirked, then took another bite of my yogurt. Brently is glaring at Tyler from where he is sitting across from me, and Chelsea looks amused, tearing off pieces from the top of her burger bun and nibbling away at them like it's popcorn.

“I was hoping you had changed your mind,” Tyler smiled cockily.

“She’s busy this weekend,” Brently glares at him.

“With what?” Tyler eyed Brently warily, probably trying not to show his annoyance at his future Alpha. Brently is the quiet, stoic type, but when he gets mad, he won’t hesitate to let you know it, and he’s about to let Tyler know it.

“Family s**t. Now go away.”

“Wait, you’re family?” Tyler asks.

“No s**t, sherlock.” Brently is one stupid comment away from snapping. Chelsea is resting her hand on his arm to try and keep him calm, but I can see it's not working.

“But, you don’t look…” Tyler bites his lip, hesitating to finish. He's looking at our skin color. I'm pale and Brently is mixed. I have blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair, and he's got the same dark eyes and curly hair as my uncle, our pack's Alpha.

Crap. I got to cut him off before he finishes that sentence and gets his face smashed in.

“Let him do it. He will leave us alone then,” Rhea mutters.

“You know that’s not right. He doesn’t know any better.”

"Doesn't know any better than to be a bigoted jerk?"

"He has not been bigoted yet. Arrogant, maybe, but maybe he really just doesn't know. Brently and I look nothing alike. We technically don't have any of the same blood in us either." My dad is my mom's mate, and he's my father in every sense of the word, but I came from an assault on my mother when she was about my age. My dad won't tolerate anyone suggesting he's not my dad. Brently and I are as much cousins as any of my other siblings are his cousins. My biological paternity is irrelevant to everyone.

"You have a mate, though. You already told him that," Rhea reminds me.

Yes, but it’s really not Tyler’s fault that my mate refuses to mark me.

“Brently’s mom is my dad’s sister. He’s my cousin,” I tell Tyler. “I thought everyone knew that.”

Tyler makes an ‘ah-hah’ face, then grins, “I had no idea. You don’t live in the packhouse.”

“That’s because her mom is-”

“My mom works elsewhere,” I cut Chelsea off. Everyone knows my mom and dad, but in the pack they are like elusive figures you only hear about but never see. At least, not that they are aware of.

Mom is half angelic wolf, half demon, the most powerful supernatural in this world. Like, scary powerful. She’s known as The Queen, thanks to Titus, a powerful warlock who is also kinda my grandpa, and Eros, a pleasure demon that likes to call himself my uncle, though we have no relation to each other. Dad hates him, but I think that's because Eros wanted to be my stepdad at some point in time. Mom can put Eros in his place, and she loves dad in the most cringy, gag-reflexing way, so Eros never stood a chance.

Mom and Dad travel a lot, ridding the world of evil, saving lost and lonely supernaturals, all that typical super wolf stuff you could imagine. They have developed quite a reputation because of it, and I hate being The Queen’s daughter, at least at school.

Here, I want to remain just Eva Lopez, the seemingly regular werewolf girl who is somehow related to the Alpha’s family.

Lately, though, I have become known as the seemingly regular werewolf girl who has a mate that won’t mark her. It’s made boys like Tyler who don’t value the mate bond more forward with me as of late.

“Oh. That’s cool,” Tyler shrugs with mild disinterest, “So, about this weekend-”

“She said no,” Brently growls, standing to his feet. Chelsea tries to pull him back down, then sighs heavily as she realizes it’s a losing battle. Brently is pissed.

“Hey, hey, man,” Tyler holds his hands up defensively, “I got it. I just thought it would be nice to, you know, have a friend when you need him.”

“She has a damn mate,” Brently snarls through clenched teeth.

“That won’t mark her,” Tyler huffs, “Geez. Like I said, everyone could use a friend when they get lonely.” He turns to look at me, “Sorry to bother you, I guess. See you in our next class.”

I pressed my lips together, giving him a tight smile as he walked away.

“Brent, you didn’t need to scare him like that,” I told my cousin when Tyler was far away enough to not hear us anymore.

“The bastard doesn’t know when to quit. You have a mate, Eva. You shouldn’t have other guys sniffing around you like that.”

I scoff, “Well, maybe if he would mark me, they wouldn’t be.”

Chelsea reaches across the table and rubs my hand. “He will. He’s just, you know, waiting.”

“Waiting for what? He’s been waiting all my life. I am finally 18.”

Chelsea gave me a sympathetic smile. She’s my best friend and knows how hard waiting has been for me. Since I turned 16, I’ve wanted my mate to mark me back. I had already marked him when I was just 12 to keep him from growing older. That was a huge fight between him and mom, but Corey eventually gave in and let me do it.

I’ll live eternally, like my parents and my family on my mother’s side. That’s why being mated to a man who was born two decades before me isn’t such a big deal to anyone who really knows us. He was my father’s Gamma when dad was still just an Alpha, and he has been the Beta of the pack for my Uncle Marcus ever since my dad stepped down to go chasing after my mother.

Corey is frozen at the age of 26 now, thanks to Titus’s magic and my marking on his neck. My mark is why Rhea is so protective of our bond, but he still refuses to mark me back. He refuses to even treat me like his mate. He’s like a second dad or a bodyguard to me and I hate it. I don’t know what he is waiting for.

“You are only 18,” Brently mutters, “and you haven’t even graduated from high school yet. I think you should at least wait until then to start getting all worked up.”

“Quit acting like you’re older and wiser than me. You’re younger than me, remember? And you already have Chelsea.”

“I might not be his mate, though,” she grins teasingly.

She is. She turned 18 last month and told me, but she’s holding back on telling him until his birthday next week.

But he knows. He’s known she was his since we were all in middle school. He used to watch her and follow her around like a creep until one day she just walked right up to him, told him to either talk to her or quit acting like a stalker.

He chose to run away, running back to Aunt Elizabeth, our Luna, telling her all about the fiery redhead with bright green eyes who called him a stalker. Aunt Beth knocked him upside the head, told him to get his head out of his ass and talk to her. She knew. I knew. Mom knew. It just took my quiet cousin some time to realize the reason why he was so drawn to her.

I helped. I liked Chelsea and her no-bullshit approach to school and Brently, so I started to sit with her at lunch and we quickly became good friends. After about a week or so, Brently asked to sit with us too, and we have been an inseparable trio ever since.

Recently, though, I have started to feel like the third wheel to their relationship.

After lunch, I have gym with Chelsea. Brently and her always spend the entire break before class making out, unwilling to say good-bye to each other, so I go to the gym first.

I was completely caught by surprise to see Corey standing on the basketball court with our PE coach.

I grinned widely, skipping to them, Rhea purring in my head at the sight of her mate. Corey looks over, sensing my approach, smiling back at me. He opens one of his arms, and I skip right up to his side, loving the tingling on my skin when he hugs me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“I’m here to help with wolf training today. Rangi was busy and I figured you would rather have me than your dad or grandpa help out.”

“Which grandpa?” I grin.

“Either,” he chuckles, “Carlos would embarrass you and Tyson would break the boys' necks if they look at you the wrong way.”

“And you won't?” I giggle, but then my laugh dies down when I don’t feel any jealousy coming from him in the bond.

“I wouldn’t embarrass you like that,” he smiles down at me, that same smile he has always given me, not like a mate smiling lovingly down at his woman, the way Brently smiles at Chelsea, but like a guardian or uncle smiling down to a child.

I hate it. I hate this smile. I hate feeling rejected by my own mate almost every day.

I try to keep a smile pasted on my face, but my heart isn’t in it anymore. Even Rhea is whimpering, feeling nothing but a fatherly devotion coming from Corey, the same as when she first appeared to me and we marked him.

“Stupid Corey,” she grumbles.

“I know. Our stupid, reluctant mate.”