Prologue
Thank you for supporting my stories. This is Book 4 of the Jungle Series. I do recommend reading the earlier books. I hope you all enjoy this story! Be sure to leave me lots of comments! They are always appreciated!
Jax
Everybody treated me and Shiloh differently whenever we spent time together as kids. Only because we could feel the pull of our mate bond at an abnormally young age.
Before my grandparents took me to live with my mum, I couldn’t feel the pull of our mate bond, and I hadn’t met either of my parents. I really liked my father, but I only got to spend a short amount of time with him before my mum’s fated mate, King Silas, killed him.
I should have resented Silas for what he did to my father, but I didn’t want to cause problems for my grieving mum. She truly loved my father, and it was hard enough for her to move on without me making things worse. .
Luckily for Silas, my mum found it in her heart to forgive him, shortly after he forcefully put his mark on her. I couldn’t be mad at my mum for giving Silas another chance, but I kept my guard up with him to start out with. I’d heard my mum cry to my biological father about the awful things Silas did to her, so it took me a little longer to see the good in him.
After a few weeks of being away from Shiloh, my cat started whining in my head. That in turn caused my wolf to get irritated, leading to one argument after another between the two.
My cat was already convinced Shiloh was our mate, but my wolf insisted she was not his mate. All of the quarreling between the two of them, led to me falling ill with a high fever.
It wasn’t the first time I had a bout of illness, but my mum didn’t know that at the time. She called my grandparents, who made haste traveling to see me, and they brought Shiloh’s parents with them. Shiloh’s mum, Tamara, was the one who always helped me with the bouts of fever, by brewing up a special tonic.
Upon learning about the frequency of my illnesses, Silas jumped into action, asking doctors from other packs to travel up the mountain and take a look at me. When they weren’t able to provide us with answers, Silas planned a trip to a coven of witches.
It was the witches who provided us with answers. Turns out, my wolf and cat are both of the dominant nature, and it was too much for my body to handle.
Since I got along better with my cat, I opted to put my wolf soul into a dormant state, so I wouldn’t fall ill anymore. The witches performed the ritual to cast the spell, but they warned about the possibility of the spell wearing off over time.
After returning from the coven, Silas and I quickly came to be as close as any other father and son with a good relationship. He crowned my mum as Queen, then they planned a double celebration and invited our family from the Jungle Pack.
The day they arrived was the first day I felt the pull of my mate bond with Shiloh. It was also the first day she felt it, and the day our families learned about our unusual circumstances.
My mum freaked out at first, but soon realized it wouldn’t be good for anybody to keep me and Shiloh apart. Our bond created a necessity for us to see each other often, bringing about the reversal of my mum’s banishment from werecat territories.
Our parents were diligent when it came to taking us back and forth. Even when our mums were pregnant and unable to travel, Silas, Dane and my grandparents would still make every effort to ensure we weren’t apart for excessively long periods of time.
Over the years, our love for each other blossomed, and I couldn’t wait for my beautiful mate to turn eighteen. It was the number one rule agreed upon by both of our parents. We weren’t allowed to mark or mate with each other until we both reached the age of maturity.
As you can imagine, it didn’t stop me from touching her skin or running my fingers through her brown hair and enjoying those remarkable sparks. Nor did it stop me from gazing into her mesmerizing, light brown eyes that swirled with love.
When we were young cubs, we would give each other cute, little pecks on the cheek, but that changed as we got older. It was incredibly difficult to resist the urge to kiss my mate on her soft, full lips, but I managed to do so until Shiloh’s sixteenth birthday.
That was the day we shared our first passionate kiss, and it was such a magical moment. Those sparks made my lips tingle like crazy, because of how much more sensitive they were compared to my skin.
Once our lips came together for that first kiss, there was no pulling away from each other for several minutes. All it took was that one special kiss, and I was addicted to my beautiful mate’s lips.
Moving forward, we didn’t see each other without spending at least two-thirds of our time enjoying that part of our mate bond, and it was time I always cherished. We became inseparable as time went on, leading to our parents agreeing to let Shiloh move in with me and my family shortly after she turned seventeen.
However, we had to promise not to mark or mate for the next year. It was a challenge at times to keep that promise, but we were determined to stay true to our word.
The biggest challenge we ran into was our differing sleep schedules. Shiloh was still in the habit of sleeping during the day and being active at night. It took almost three weeks for Shiloh to get used to doing the opposite, but once she did, life was great.
We would train with the warriors during the day, then we would spend a few hours at the lake. After eating dinner with my family, we would head to separate bathrooms and shower, then Shiloh would spend the rest of the evening wrapped in my arms.
Despite not being able to mark or mate, it was truly a blissful time for us. Every day spent together brought us closer, making it one of our most memorable years together.