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West of Destiny (Book 5 of The Claimed Series)

Prologue 

“Am I weird?” Lucy asked her mother, brows furrowing over her button nose.

“What you have is rare, but it’s not unheard of,” Mrs. Wallace told her daughter, soothing her with a firm hand on her knee. “It means your bond will be strong when you two finally reach maturity at 18.”

Lucy watched her mother sigh wistfully and look away toward the window as if wondering where the passing time had gone. It was only 14 years ago she had held a small baby girl she had named Lucinda Briana Wallace in her hands for the first time. Ironically enough, the male they were talking about had been born only a few weeks prior to Lucy, and the two had grown up as friends. Now her daughter had told her she had felt an odd pull forming over the last several weeks toward her best friend, Zachary, the son of the Alpha of Arrowhead pack in northern California. Her daughter didn’t know if he felt it too and had come to her for some advice.

“I don’t know what to say to him.” Lucy looked down, watching her hands fidgeting nervously in her lap. “Do I mention it or wait for him to say something first?”

“Lu, he’s been your best friend since you were practically in diapers.” Her mother’s voice was a soft chide as she cupped the young girl’s cheek in one hand. “You wouldn’t want to keep things from him when you never have before, would you?”

“No.” The petulant mewl of her voice made the older woman smile.

“Then you should say something,” Mrs. Wallace replied. “If you are feeling it already, he must be as well, with his Alpha blood and all. He may think you don’t feel the same way or that it’s too soon for you both, and while it is and you will have to wait until you are both of-age, that is no reason to avoid the topic now.”

Lucy’s lip trembled like she wanted to say something and her eyes gave a faraway look as she thought over what her mother said. Though she now knew that pull she had been feeling was the beginning of the mating bond forming, she had shied away from talking to Zach about it before now. Fear of rejection or the fact that he might not feel the bond forming at all made her wary, and she had decided to distance herself from her best friend to sort out her feelings. She had come up trumps until she finally confided in her mother.

Lucinda had always been close with both her parents and her younger brother, Emery, but there had always been a special bond between the two females in the family and—though she was reluctant to say anything lest she be wrong—it was always at the forefront of her mind to tell her mother, who was the most open and honest person she knew, bar none.

“I’m…I’m afraid to say something,” she admitted, her chin jerking away with defiance at her mother’s prodding. “What if…what if he won’t want me in the same way? What if he rejects me because he can only see me as his best friend? What if—”

“The mating bond will only become stronger with time and if he’s smart, he’ll put the kibosh on any doubts he has about being with you. A mate makes a man—particularly an Alpha—stronger and gives balance to the pack as a whole. No man, even a younger one, would be stupid enough to reject their true mate for a lesser bond. It’s hardly ever done, and only in dire circumstances when it does happen.”

Lucy nodded, only slightly more assured at what she must do in the very near future.

As her mother went off to start an early supper, Lucy sat on her bed, thinking about how much it was killing her to be away from Zach. Weeks had gone by and she barely saw him. The constant texts had only made it harder to be apart from him. She needed clarity, not the ever-constant reminder of who he would one day be to her. If anything at all.

Her cell phone vibrated on the nightstand, pulling her attention away from the window and to the small piece of technology that kept her connected to Zach. She picked up the device and saw a new text pop up on the screen.

Zach: I don’t know why you’re ignoring me, but I’d like to talk this out. The falls? 9 PM. I’ll meet you there. Please, Lulu.

She sighed, but knew she had to reach out to him and at least make him understand why she had been so distant, so absent in his life. She opened up the text and responded.

Lucy: Okay. I’ll be there.

A teenager of only 14 shouldn’t have to deal with this type of situation so soon. It made her head spin to think of enduring the mating bond for four years until she was old enough to claim what was rightfully hers, her birthright.

If that could even happen. She had her doubts.

Lucy could see the shine of the moon’s light off Zach’s blond locks and thought, “that boy needs another haircut.” It seemed he was forever getting trims and that his hair was growing like weeds from the top of his head. When it got too unmanageable, it always made her think of a golden halo sitting atop his head like something placed upon him by the gods. The need to wind her fingers straight through to his scalp was like a pulse that started at the tips of her fingers and found a home in the dripping beat between her thighs. It had only gotten worse as time went on, and now that she was seeing him for the first time—close up—in weeks, it was all she could do not to run up to him and jump into his arms, winding her legs around his trim hips in the process.

The pulse in her core had a heartbeat, and the thrum it caused in her veins was like a flame that flickered beneath her skin, setting every nerve ending on fire.

Zach turned his head and his profile set her heart galloping. He had heard her, that much was obvious, and it was impossible to tell whether or not he was upset with her for her recent distance.

“Luce,” he called softly, only barely audible over the sound of the waterfall fifty feet to his right and to the east. It was a favorite spot of theirs to meet, and the sound of water plummeting over the rocks into the clear pool below was always a calming influence. She felt her muscles relax minutely before moving forward to her best friend.

When he turned around to face her fully, her heart stuttered and leaped into a canter. A tug at her solar plexus kept her moving towards him and he closed half the distance in just a few strides of his long legs.

“Where have you been?” he asked. There was no hurt or pain in his voice, and it had Lucy wondering if what she felt was all in her head. It was something she had asked with increasing frequency, and it made her mouth quiver as she sought to find the words to tell him—admit to him—all that she was feeling.

“Home.” It was the only word she could think of, though her mind was swirling with everything she wanted to say.

Are you my home, Zach?

Do you feel the pull just like I do?

Will you reject me if I say it?

Will you cut me dead if I admit there’s more to this to me than just friendship? Will it ruin everything if I open my mouth and speak?

“Home,” he repeated. There was no question in his tone and it was obvious he knew where she had been the whole time, even if she hadn’t seen him skulking nearby when she was on her mate-vacation.

She nodded in response and he jerked his head toward the cliff over the falls after a moment. He meant for her to follow him and swing their legs over the side of the cliff to let them dangle. They always did that when the weather permitted, and they could sit there for hours talking about nothing until the sun went to bed.

Lucy joined him at the ledge and tossed her legs over the side. They swung a few times until the tension in her body leaked into her lower extremities.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Again, it was not a question, and Lucy could only nod, her eyes averted as she felt his seeking hers until his hand came out to pull her focus to him.

“Why?”

“I—” she immediately stammered, unable to lock her gaze onto his. “Tell me. Please.”

She wanted to run and bury her head in the sand, but as soon as she had texted him back that they would meet earlier, she had resolved to speak with him about everything—everything she had been feeling and thinking about for the few weeks that the bond had been pulling at her.

This was torture she had inflicted upon herself, denying the pull she felt. Now that he was there, next to her, the tether between them seemed to wrap around their entire bodies, coating them in a sense of rightness that had been lacking as of late.

“I don’t…I don’t know how to say it,” she admitted, shrugging a shoulder as if to ward off the question in his eyes.

Why? Why are you doing this?

“Is it…fuck, Luce—can you feel it too?”

Her heart thudded to a halt in her chest before picking up its frantic rhythm again. She could feel her pulse in her throat, her heartbeat in her skull, washing out all other sounds for an interminable amount of time until he pulled her from the panic she was experiencing.

“Lucy?”

Her head shot to his and she hesitated before nodding.

“Yes, I feel it, too.”

He chest expanded, making him seem larger than his usual boyish frame. It was not that he was small, just still growing and all lanky limbs and awkward angles. Zach was tall for his age, and growing by the minute it seemed.

“The bond,” he rectified. “You feel it like….like I feel it?”

His tone held no hint of rejection, only stunned relief. Though it soothed her to realize he wasn’t turning away from her in disgust, her heart’s rapid beat didn’t slow and she waited for more of his words.

“Thank f**k,” he breathed out, seeming to expel a vast amount of air that he’d been holding in. “I was…I thought it was just me—that maybe my alpha blood let me feel it sooner. I was going crazy with doubt.”

She looked at him, at his profile as his eyes remained closed in the solace he took from her words. She realized he had been just as anxious as she, and it warmed her heart.

“W-what do we do?” she asked right before his eyes blinked open and his head shot to hers.

“What do you mean? There’s nothing we can do for right now,” he said. “I haven’t told anyone about the bond, but I did do some research in the archives. It seems that every other generation or so of my bloodline has the ability to feel the mating bond early. My father did not, but my grandad was said to have felt it at 15 when he met my grandmother.”

That was not what she had meant, and she shook her head at him.

“No, I mean—” She cleared her throat. “What do we do about our bond? Do we tell people or…or do you—”

Her throat closed up as the words fought to get out.

“Do I?” he prompted.

She gulped so loudly she was certain it could be heard over the tumult of water cascading down into the white water below.

“Do you want to find a different mate? Someone who’s not your friend?”

He blinked in rapid succession, as if he wasn’t quite sure he had heard her right.

“I would never,” he told her, the shock trembling in his voice. “You’re going to be my mate when we turn 18 and that’s it. You’ll rule the pack beside me when my father steps down and that’s all there is to it. That is—you do want that, don’t you? Please tell me you do.”

The tension in her shoulders eased incrementally and she let out her own held breath after a second.

“I do…I didn’t know it before now, but I do.”

“So, it’s set then,” he said, leaning into her warmth as he wrapped a steadying arm around her. “We wait ‘til we’re 18 and mark and mate. You’ll be mine and I’ll be yours.”

She melted against him, the warmth of his skin seeping out through his t-shirt and cocooning her in an odd sense of home.

Chapter 1 

Lucy

Birthdays in the past had always been special occasions, but this one—the one tomorrow—would outshine them all. I would turn 18 and be able to feel the full potency of the bond I felt for my true mate.

Zach.

We had known what we were to each other since a little after our 14th birthdays, and no matter how much time passed, I was still in awe of how much I felt for him, even if we had started out only as friends. It was a rare thing, to feel the bond prematurely like we did, but I could only think of it as a blessing and not the torture might have thought it would be—to truly be with your destined mate in all but the basest of ways.

It was tradition in Arrowhead Pack that the Alpha and his progeny would wait until their mate had turned of-age before marking and mating with her—or him—and Artemis Greenwood, Zach’s father, believed staunchly in that tradition.

Not that we hadn’t fooled around. I knew what Zach’s d**k—holy f*****g s**t!—looked like and he had made me come with his hands and mouth, but he had never penetrated me, though we had come close to toeing that line more than once.

Okay—a lot more than once.

It killed me to have to stop from giving him my virginity, but I always knew in the end that it would be better once I was his, and we were each other’s.

Mating after marking was as close to marrying in a shifter’s world as you could get. It was akin to going to your bridal bed as a true-blue virgin in the human world. It was sort of sweet, but when you knew who your destined was for almost four years, it was frustrating as well.

My mother wanted to have a big party for my 18th, but my father knew it would be no use. Once I turned 18, the pull to be with Zach—and only Zach—would be too great. Very few with an alpha bloodline would be able to resist marking and mating the very day they found the other half of their soul.

I was glad my father had intervened, because I was wanting to make plans of my own, which was why I was heading over to Zach’s house to speak with him.

Though we “dated”—for lack of a better term—freely in front of his father and mother, I had a feeling they always thought it would be short-term, and the steely look in Artemis Greenwood’s eyes would always send shivers up and down my spine whenever I came over to meet up with my boyfriend. Zach said he never told his father that he already knew who his true mate was, though I always thought both his parents had their suspicions.

And while Cleo Greenwood was a warm and caring soul and loving mother, I always had a sense the woman was hiding something from me, something she knew and couldn’t say—or was forbidden to say.

That was more than likely the problem. Artemis used his alpha command to keep his wife under his thumb, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he used it on occasion with Zach and his siblings, Leah and Nolan. He was authoritarian in every sense of the word, and he wouldn’t let anyone prove him wrong in way. His way was the right way, be it resulting in a good or bad outcome.

In a good old Webster’s Dictionary, his photo could have accompanied the word “stubborn” with damned good reason.

As I dashed across the territory and through the wide-open spaces between houses, I wondered if I should just text Zach to meet me by our waterfall, and if going to his house on the eve of my 18th birthday was a good idea at all. Something told me that the Alpha would not be as happy to hear we were true mates, but as he’d seen us together for four years already, hand in hand, I pushed the thought away and strode brazenly up to the front door before knocking.

I don’t know if he had sensed by nearness or could smell me, but Zach was the one to open the door and shut it behind him before giving me a thorough kiss on the mouth. His tongued twined with mine, flicking and sucking until a soft moan bubbled up my throat and was nearly devoured by his own lengthy groan.

“Baby, we should go to the falls,” he told me once our lips parted from their lusty greeting. “My father’s been a damned pain in the ass around here. Very cross and snapping at everyone. I don’t want you to have to witness that.”

I nodded up at him, a smile lighting up at the beautiful gleam in his eyes as they roamed over my face. As he linked our fingers together and guided me off the porch to head toward the woods, I could hear a thumping inside his large house. It sounded like the stomping of boots, and I could only imagine what had gotten the alpha in such a state to be so agitated.

“What happened?” I asked as soon as we were out of earshot of anyone else. We were already past the tree line and were making our way east to Arrowhead Falls, an unimaginative name if there ever was one.

“Don’t know, but he’s been a beast every since I reminded him of your birthday tomorrow,” Zach told me. “He said he wanted me to work with him on something in his office, but I said that it was your birthday and I promised to spend the day with you. His mood soured immediately.”

A grimace replaced the smile I had donned and I blinked back a tear or two.

“He hates me,” I said, feeling the sting of tears continuing to prick the back of my eyes.

“He…he doesn’t hate you. He—”

“Then why else does he look at me like I climbed out of a sewer and shook it off like a dog onto his Persian rugs every time I come around?” I questioned. “It’s like my mere presence pains him. I hate going over to your house for that very reason.”

Zach looked grimly back at me, his mouth a thin line over his thick, defined jaw.

“I don’t know what problem my father has with you, but I’m certain it’s not because he doesn’t like you,” he claimed. “He’s stated many times that you are a fine she-wolf and would make someone a very happy man when you found your mate.”

Someone’s mate. Not his son’s.

Zach didn’t have to say it; it was all too clear that if push came to shove, he would have no problem saying he thought I was nice, but just not good enough for his son. I didn’t know if it was because my family were omegas or if there was some other reason, but we were kind and decent folk that didn’t deserve whatever hostility he felt towards me and my family. After all, my father was a doctor for the pack and cleaned up many wounds after disputes or invasions by hunters and rogues. Dad had even delivered the alpha’s youngest child, 13-year-old Nolan, the next in line for Alpha should something happen to Zach.

Heaven forbid.

“But let’s not talk about all that,” he said, pulling the thin line of his mouth into a tight smile. “Let’s talk about tomorrow. What do you want to do for your birthday?”

What I truly wanted to do was scream to the world that Zach was mine—really mine—before going off into one of the mating cabins on the territory and becoming bonded with him for good. I didn’t need any pomp and circumstance, but it would be nice to be able to lay claim to him, I had wanted it so long. The only people who knew were my parents, Zach, and me. Emery, my little brother, wasn’t even aware of our situation as of yet.

“Let’s watch a movie and cuddle.” I wasn’t big on going out on fancy dates or flaunting our relationship to the public usually, and apart from wanting to scream he was mine to the world, I was pretty happy with it just being me and him, playing games or in front of a television set and watching old reruns of That 70s Show, or The Big Bang Theory. I was a no-frills kind of gal, and Zach had told me many times it was one of the reasons he loved me.

Yes, he had said he loved me, even if we weren’t mated already. He’d told me just under two years of dating, on my Sweet 16, of all days, and I had said it back. And I did love him, with every fiber of my being, even if his father seemed to hate me every breath in his body. I didn’t care what Zach said—his father must truly hate me to have become so agitated when merely reminded I was to turn 18. Zach was of-age now, and if my theory was correct and he already knew that we were true mates, it was the only reasoning I could think of to anger him so.

He didn’t want me for his son. Why? I didn’t know, but there wasn’t a lot he could do to keep two true mates apart.

At least, I didn’t think so.

We made plans to watch a few of our favorite movies together—we enjoyed much of the same type thankfully—and said we would let the marking and mating take place naturally, though I didn’t think we would get through all the movies that we planned on bringing to one of the cabins in the woods. They were a mix of Rom Coms and dramas, and we decided to start with an old favorite of ours we had watched countless times before. The Mirror Has Two Faces.

It had a little bit of everything—love story, comedy, heartbreak. I felt for Babs’ character because she really loved the man she fell in love for, but I wanted to strangle Jeff Bridges to within an inch of his husky timbre. So blind some men were to the jewel they had underneath their very noses. Good science wasn’t a recipe for a happy marriage, and he had found that out almost too late.

After making our plans and promising to meet at the cabin at 10 AM the next day, I went home to round up all the selections we had decided upon and grab an overnight bag for the next day. I wanted to be prepared for what was to come, and I didn’t know if the outfit I had prepared for my mating would survive an alpha’s fierce claws if he got a little out of control.

In any case, I was prepared for all outcomes, and it took me far longer to go to sleep than it normally would that night.

When I woke up the next day, it was to birds chirping cheerily outside my cracked bedroom window. They greeted me gaily, but a niggling in the back of my head had my blood pressure spiking at an alarming rate.

You awake, Lulu?

Zach sounded frantic, almost desperate through the pack link.

Here, yeah. Just woke up. What time is it?

My eyes were still blurry and too unfocused to latch onto any solid object, much less the alarm clock on the nightstand by my bed.

8 AM, he shot out quickly. I have to speak to you about something. I…I know why my father doesn’t want us to mate. You were right all along. He always knew what we were.

What is it? What’s wrong? Why can’t we mate? We’re true mates to each other.

Please—just meet me at the falls as soon as you can. I’ll explain everything. Maybe we can…I don’t know. Maybe we can work something out. He’s very insistent about us not mating today.

But—we made a promise! On my 18th we would do it! Why wait?

Just meet me at the falls, Lulu. I’m sure we can think of something that can be done if we put our heads together.

He cut off the link and I charged into action. I was up and out of bed and heading to the hallway bathroom as if my skin was on fire and the only water in the house was the rickety old shower. I scrubbed so fast and hard it was a miracle I didn’t lose skin in the process. But the only thing in my head was to get to Zach at the waterfall and hear what he had to say. I knew the sound of his voice and he was…I didn’t know. Scared? Worried? Upset?

If I had to guess, it was a mixture of all of them. The only other time I had heard him sound this alarmed was the time we admitted we felt the mating pull at the age of 14. That was an unnerving experience, but every day since then we had been okay with it. Some of our other friends had even thought it was a long time coming, though we had only been good friends for long before that. What made them all think that way—well, I hadn’t a clue, but we had almost seamlessly gone from friends to boyfriend and girlfriend. I had prayed for years that the transition to mates would go just as smoothly.

My biggest worries were that it would not, and those deep-rooted fears were all coming together to tear Zach and I apart.

Chapter 2 

Zach

Anger was all I felt.

When my father had spoken to me once I had gotten up and eaten breakfast, I was livid. He was taking what was supposed to be one of the most significant days in my life and turning it into a clusterfuck of epic proportions. This was supposed to be the date I marked and mated my future Luna, and now it was put on hold. For how long, I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to allow him to f**k my life up for me—not if I had breath in my body and the free will to choose my own destiny.

I growled as I cut the link off with my Lucy, and I wasn’t f*****g quiet about it. The tension in my house was deafening, and I was about to find out why I was being told what to do and how to live my life.

“You can’t mate with Lucy Wallace, son,” his gruff voice told me as my breakfast of cereal churned uneasily in my stomach.

“And why the f**k not?”

I stood from my place at the table. It was like he was telling me to stop breathing, the command seemed so wrong.

How would I live without my other half, the person who was destined to be mine? Why give her to me only to snatch her away when I finally could have her officially?

“There…there’s something you don’t know that we have to talk about.” My father stood tall and foreboding. “Let’s go into my office.”

“Let me speak to Lucy first. I have to tell her I can’t…I can’t make it to her at the appointed time.”

Father stood there for a moment before nodding his head once, a sign he was giving me permission to communicate with my mate. As I reached out to her in my head, I noticed the fuzzy haze of her sleep and felt bad for waking her so early. If it wasn’t so important, I would have let my sleeping beauty rest.

After I felt the panic in her voice, I felt horrible. It killed me to have to give this news to her—whatever it was going to be. I didn’t know why he was telling me I couldn’t mate with my Lucy, but I was going to find out, and find out soon.

Stalking to my father’s office, I ignored my mother’s greeting. It was soft and gentle as always, but I felt the tension in her as easily as I felt my own as it bunched up my shoulder blades and caused a dull ache in my strained neck.

I lurked outside the door of my father’s study, gathering up enough gumption to knock and be asked to enter. With the same surly disposition, my three knocks on his door invited his loud bark to bid me to enter, as if I was some lowly subordinate instead of his beloved son and heir to the pack.

I loathed the man some days.

As soon as I entered the room, he gestured with one long arm to the office chair across from his where I planted my churlish ass before leaning forward and speaking. As I spoke, my hands gripped the edge of his cherrywood desk and I felt the wood give under the strain.

“Why can’t I mark and mate with Lucy?”

My voice held a challenge and he met it with the same strong timbre.

“Because you are to be mated to another.”

You could have f*****g knocked me over with a single light breeze, I was so startled at the news. All air was extinguished from my lungs as I blew out what little I had been hoarding.

“What? You expect me mark and mate another? What about Lucy? She’s my true mate, Father. I sensed it the moment I woke up. The pull, it’s unbelievably strong. I want to make my way to her right now, but you’re here preventing me from claiming what’s mine!”

My voice rose with every syllable until I was shouting at a dull roar. How dare the man before me—the man who claimed his own true mate a year before I was born—tell me I could not have the woman I loved? How could he stop me from claiming what was mine this very day? How could—

“I owe a blood debt,” he said, his voice calm and collected, like he hadn’t just attempted to shatter my soul into a million pieces.

“That is no business of mine what debts you owe,” I barked out at him. “If you owe someone, you owe them, not I. Find some other way to repay the man or woman for your trespasses.”

My father sighed and I thought I saw a spark—just a hint really—of emotion behind the stoic mask he kept up to hide any real sympathies the man felt.

“I can’t,” he told me. “This is what the man wants—the only thing he wants. Alpha Seneca Strasser said I could repay him with only one thing. That thing is to have you mark and mate with his daughter, Enid.”

I had met Enid once years ago, maybe when I was 14. I remember her being pretty for a young female, and had been surprised to find the demure thing to be the only daughter of an alpha in a neighboring pack. She was much more humble than many females would have been in her position.

She was pleasant enough—she just wasn’t my Lucy.

“What about when she finds her mate?” I questioned. “What then? You know that unless her mate marks and bonds with another there will always be a pull to him, same as mine to Lucy. If she meets him, then what?”

“Her mate was made rogue and killed a few years ago.” That cut me dead. “There is no other male for her, and to…ease the tensions between our two packs, we made a deal that you would mark and mate with her as soon as you turned 18. I only didn’t bring it up last month because your mother was hoping there was some way to change Seneca’s mind. The man is stubborn though and this is the only way to keep the two of us from warring over my…my mistake.”

“What did you do?” I bellowed. “What have you done that was so wrong that Lucy and I have to suffer for it? Why must your faults fall onto Lucy and I?”

I was enraged at this point and my claws poked through the thick skin on my callused fingertips. The tips left little divots into the fine wood of his desk, but I couldn’t be bothered to give a s**t. It was a thing—an item, and this was my life we were talking about. My happiness. To be told you couldn’t do something that you were meant to do was terrible, but to be forced into something because of someone else’s error almost felt worse. The man had f****d up, and I was the one who would have to pay for his crimes, whatever they were.

“It’s…that’s not important,” he gritted out. “What’s done is done and you will heed your father and Alpha, even if I have to place The Command on you.”

“No!” I lashed out, swiping half the contents of his desk onto the floor and leaving claw marks across the once pristine surface. I craved to s***h him across his face with those same talons and felt a thin layer of fur popping out on the surface of my skin. I was as close to shifting as I could be without actual feeling my bones pop and maneuver into their wolf form. Another second and I might have done so, seeking blood for his offenses against me and my Lucy.

“Yes!” His tone was a command—the command—and I stood frozen in place. His voice lowered as he gained control of his temper. “You will not shift in this room.”

Immediately my skin was smooth as the fine hairs descended back into skin. My claws retracted and I felt my elongated teeth move back into place in my jaw.

“I’ll leave.” My voice sounded weak, even to my ears. “I’ll give the pack over to Nolan when he comes of age and go rogue. I’ll…I’ll take Lucy with me and we can find somewhere else to live.” I leaned forward, pleading with him. “I can’t be without her, you know that. What if you’d had to reject Mom? Would you have been able to do that to her? To yourself?”

A small tic at the edge of his jaw told me I had gotten through, but his eyes were still steely and determined.

“I’m sorry, son, but you can’t do that. This pack is yours when I hand over my responsibilities to you. I can force you to my will and make you reject her, and I will if I have to.”

I banged a fist on the top of the desk, toppling a desk lamp and sending it crashing to the floor.

“This is un-f*****g-fair! You can’t just wreck my life because you made a stupid decision that got someone killed! I will mark and mate with my true mate and not this…this poor excuse for one! You cannot make me!”

“I can, and will, and you know it.” The jut of his chin was defiant. “All I have to do is say the word.”

“No!”

More items crashed to the floor as I whipped around the room, causing chaos in his usually tidy office. He didn’t stop me and for that I was glad. I might have wrung the damn man’s neck if he so much as laid a finger on me.

You’d think an Alpha-to-be would have had a temper and cut up every once in a while, but I had never been one for dramatic temper tantrums. The little angry outbursts I had once indulged in had all but dried up once I felt the bond with Lucy a little after my 14th birthday. She calmed in a way nothing and no one else could. How could I reject her, the love of my life and the one beautiful and perfect thing I’d found in her?

I wore myself out after a few minutes and surveyed the room with grim satisfaction. If he was going to make a mess of my life, the least I could do was make a mess of a small bit of his. The only thing he seemed to value more than his personal space was my mother, and I wouldn’t have done anything to harm her for any reason.

“Are you done?”

His voice was calm, which only irritated me further. How could he be so undisturbed when he was condemning his son to a life without his fated mate? He’d found and marked his and made a family. Could he not let me have the same?

I loathed the man with everything in me at that moment. There was nothing he could have done that could have persuaded me to be convinced that he was only interested in his own self interests. His f**k-ups became my punishments.

“Do it, Zach. Do it today.”

“No.”

“Don’t make me—”

“I said no!”

He heaved a sigh and shut his eyes slowly. When they opened again, there was a bleak tenacity in every flicker of green irises, down to the golden flecks that matched mine.

“I’m sorry that I have to do this then.”

He cleared his throat before his stature seemed to double in size. His eyes bore holes into mine with a rigid determination.

“Be still.” His Alpha command rendered me motionless until I realized I wasn’t even able to blink without his say so. “Zachary Greenwood, you will reject one Lucinda Wallace as your true mate and mark and mate with Enid Strasser. You will reject Lucinda by midnight tonight. I give you permission to get to know Enid a bit before claiming her as yours. You will have no more than three months to do so and mark her as your mate. This is on pain of death.”

The air was sucked out of the room as the last syllable of his command fell from his lips. It was as if time stood still and I watched as he heaved an unsteady breath and nodded to himself.

“You may move now.” The command was gone and I straightened my spine before looking him dead in the eyes.

“I hate you,” I told him, meaning every damned word. “From now on I will always hate you.”

Chapter 3 

West

“You…but you’re….you’re…”

My mind draws a blank as I try to take in all I see. Words cannot describe it, and my heart sinks into my toes.

“But you’re my mate,” I say, as if that was everything that needed to be said. I see what is happening in front of me, but I cannot bear to put it into words.

My mate—the one person I should love for the rest of my life—f*****g another shifter. I watch in horror, unable to move, but she only smiles playfully back at me.

“Perhaps you’d like to join,” she says, winking. “I’ve always wanted to have two men filling me up until I’m limp with bliss.”

My head shakes and I take a step back. She pouts prettily. It’s the most evil thing I’ve ever seen.

“You’re f*****g another man when you’re supposed to be mine!”

There. I said it. It’s out of my mouth now, but even as I speak, she only rides his c**k harder, as if the words turn her on.

“Oh, f**k! Yes!” Her eyes roll back in their sockets and the shock I feel turns to rage. Rage at a female that until yesterday, was just another possible mate for me, though I had hoped to be paired with someone a little more stable, more caring. Of all the females to be mated to, it would have to be Carla Moore. I had saved my virginity for my mate and now she was there, riding some strange wolf’s d**k like it was the end of the world and it was now or never.

“Of course, I’m f*****g another man,” she says as her breath came out in heavy pants. “Did you think that I would wait for my mate in order to receive such pleasures? So old-fashioned, West. All of you Harkins are. Step out of the Dark Ages and into the 21st century, you fool. No one but limp-d**k losers wait for their mates anymore.”

Shaking my head again, I stop in place. This can’t be happening to me.

No.

No. No. No.

“You…you can’t—this is… This is wrong, Carla.”

“f**k, you’re such a whiner, West. You’re completely harshing my s*x buzz, ya know?”

She stands, the man beneath her groaning at the loss of contact. His wet d**k slaps the hard ridges of his abs. A d**k that should’ve been mine instead of his.

Carla pats him on one stiff shoulder before sauntering over to me naked, her p***y glistening.

“Listen, West. I don’t think it’s going to work out with you and me. You’re too…well, you’re just too stiff. If you loosened up a little you might be alright, but as pack Beta and being besties with that old stuffed shirt, Paul, there’s not much hope for you and I, is there?”

“I—”

I’m at a loss for words. They won’t come not matter how hard I try to push them out.

Unreal. This is unreal.

“West Harkin, I Carla Moore re—”

“West! Yo, West!”

My nightmare was shattered by the most welcome and unwelcome voice I could imagine. It was that of my best friend, Paul Weiss, the newly appointed alpha of Destiny Pack in northern California.

“f**k off, Paul, I’m sleeping.”

I threw an object, possibly a pillow, in the direction of his voice.

“Nice shot, but you went wide left. Better to stick to your day job, bro.”

It was apparent I wasn’t going to be getting any more sleep, so I sat up, blinking at the bright light streaming in through my windows. Most days I slept like a log and if it wasn’t for Paul nearly yelling himself hoarse every morning, I’d sleep until noon every day of the damned week.

It hadn’t always been like that, but ever since I had found my mate just after my 18th birthday, I found the times when I was awake to be less than thrilling, and never something to look forward to. Usually, the respite of sleep made me forget my mate woes, but every once in a while I had a nightmare—the¬ nightmare—and found being awake the lesser of the two evils.

Like today.

It had been five years, five long years and some change since I had been rejected and left without a mate. They said everyone deserves a second chance, but I would never be able to find it in my heart to forgive the cheating b***h, even after all these years and even if she had wanted to accept me. I don’t know why she did it—I never did—but there had been a time I had blamed myself. I thought that there had to have been some fault of mine that pushed her away, but in the end, I think it came down to power. She wanted it, and I didn’t have enough of it to satisfy her.

Before Paul had met Cassidy, his mate, Carla had tried to get him to mark her, though she knew he was my best friend and I was Beta to his Alpha. When Cassidy was marked, Carla quickly slinked back into the slimy hole from whence she came.

You would think that she’d then try to come for me, but she never did—not that I had wished her to.

Well….maybe, but only because I would have loved to reject her back and see the look of hurt on her face. They said that one needed closure, and I had always thought it would have been a perfect way to rid her from my mind for good.

Five years of wondering what I was going to do without a mate. Someone of my position was never meant to be without one, but it seemed that whatever God or higher being there was out there hadn’t gotten that memo.

“Blow me,” I gritted out, even as I stood.

Stretching in place, I looked around my room and thought how empty it looked. It held no appeal. It was a resting place only, and held very little that I held near and dear to my heart. It definitely needed a woman’s touch.

In fact, the whole house seemed empty, so I spent as little time as I could there, usually sticking to the lodge that was always bustling with distracting activities and where drama lay around every corner. I figured as long as it wasn’t my zoo to keep, I couldn’t get hurt again.

“No thanks, bro,” Paul said cheerfully. “I doubt Cass would approve, even if we were like super close or whatever.”

He hopped up onto the desk in my corner, looking like a f*****g kid as his long legs swung back and forth and watching as I grabbed a towel, my bathrobe, and a few other essentials I’d need for my shower and the special patrol I had been given just the day before. Mysterious scents had been spotted near the borders, and I was to take a group of men to scout out the scents and report back to Paul when the mission was complete.

“Let me take a shower quick,” I said, forgetting that I’d probably come back looking like a stick dipped in s**t anyway. The south side of the territory was undoubtedly muddy, what with the wide river that bordered our vast land in that direction. Shoes. Shirt. Skin. All were likely to be covered with wet soil by the time my ass was back at home, though I honestly didn’t mind it in the least. It would just be another diversion to get me through another day without thinking about being alone.

I thought about that a lot. Most females were dead-set on waiting to meet their mate, and the land was usually so peaceful that women didn’t lose their mates easily. It was a rough terrain, this far north in the Sierras; one would have to be incredibly stupid or undeniably brave to try to get past the foothills and rocky crags that surrounded Destiny Pack.

We occasionally got strays that came onto the land, but they were usually so worn out by the time they reached us, they were too far gone. Some fell off cliffs and limped or crawled their way here, and some had run from hunters or rogues and had to be driven off the land by the only road that led to us after being patched up and fortified by food and water. Like I said, it didn’t happen often, but when it did, it was always one big fat clusterfuck of a time.

After all, there was a reason that we were a powerful clan of shifters. No one dared go after us as most wouldn’t get past the rough terrain, and no one was stupid enough to drive down the road in plain sight.

“You might want to rethink showering now,” Paul said just as I dropped my towel onto the bed. “You’ll be up to your eyeballs in dirt and mud before you know it. Why waste the water?”

“Saving the earth again, Paul?” I asked, chuckling without any humor.

“You know me.” He grinned. “I always share my showers with Cass so that we don’t use up more of our precious resources than we need to.”

I scoffed.

“Yeah. I’m sure that’s the only reason you shower together,” I said with a hint of bitterness fouling my tone. “I’m sure it’s not what’s under her clothing that gets your d**k pointing up to your chin and has you racing to the bathroom any time she goes to bathe.”

His smile only widened further.

“Can you blame me? I have a beautiful woman, inside and out. And my d**k plans on seeing a f**k-ton of her insides whenever it can.”

Paul Weiss was one testosterone-charged motherfucker. All those with Alpha blood were. If only I’d had Alpha blood in me…

I shook my head, warding the thought away. I didn’t regret now that she had rejected me. I hadn’t wanted her in the first place, and it was a curse that I had been given to such a willful, vain, c**k sucking little—

“The head warrior wants to head out within the half hour,” Paul said, breaking into my thoughts. He had a knack for doing that when he thought my mind was going off the rails. He wasn’t my best friend for nothing. “He’s afraid with all the recent rain it’ll be more difficult to traverse the rockier portions of the land. Hiking boots, my brother. Wear ‘em.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I mumbled before starting to strip out of my t-shirt. By the time it was up and over my head, Paul was gone from my room.

We were close, but not strip show close.

And that fucker was as silent as Casper The Friendly Ghost’s farts when he left a room. If I hadn’t still smelt him in there, I would’ve thought he had been a figment of my imagination.

I lifted my noise in the slight breeze. We had started at the north end of the territory and wound our way down to the south before heading east by way of the Manzanita River. We walked against the flow of the river, hoping to catch wind of any of the scents that had been reported to us by earlier patrols. So far, I had caught only the odors of the natural wildlife, though that wasn’t a surprise. The rain that had come the night before had probably washed the scents away and we were just chasing our tails.

In some ways, literally.

Every once in a while when we thought we caught an errant scent, we would shift into our animal forms and give the area a good sniff before shifting and moving on. It was utterly exhausting and I was already wishing I was back home, in bed, and preferably having a late afternoon snooze. Some people called it depression. I called it getting to know my unconscious mind a little better.

There were cries in the distance, just to the east. I could hear the noise of the water winding its way around another rocky outcropping, the distance making the sounds bounce off the far side of the river where it was a sheer cliff of crumbling shale.

“What’s going on up there?” I called. Although the head warrior was in charge of most patrols, this time he would defer to me.

“Rogue!” someone called ahead. “Dead or dying.”

“Leave it!” I said. “Or put it out of its misery already.”

My guess was that the poor creature had probably been driven from his pack and fell over the cliff. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

I guess that the patrol the night before hadn’t been wrong like I originally had thought.

I heard more mumbling, then arguing. Walking up to see what the fuss was about, I got to the top of a boulder that was peeking out from the ground to see a couple of the other warriors standing over a small body that was lying still on the muddy banks of the river.

“I said to kill it or leave it be,” I told them loudly, walking over to them. “Its heartbeat is faint and—”

“I don’t think she’s rogue,” the head warrior said as he looked up from the body. “And I don’t think she’s going to live much longer unless we get her some help.”

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