The Gamma’s Secret Witch

Asher Blaine

TABITHA

I waited for him to continue talking but he went silent. The air was thick and electric but I was finally able to regain control of my breathing. "What do you mean it's me?" I questioned him. I was in no mood for riddles , especially with a wolf who was confusing enough on his own. I watched as a smile formed at the corner of his lips.

"I have been searching for you for years, I never thought I would find you." He said gently, looking me directly in the eyes. What he was saying made no sense to me. How could he have been searching for me for years when we had just recently encountered one another, he must have been insane. Maybe he had suffered a knock to the head during his patrol. Yes, that had to be it. That's the only thing that made sense about this whole bizarre night. I needed clarification and as I suspected, that wasn’t going to come easily. Not when this wolf was already demonstrating strange behavior.

I slowly pulled away from his hand and his face fell slightly, this action however changed instantaneously and a look of indifference had taken over his features. The strange man straightened his posture and shoved his hands in the pockets of his torn navy blue jeans. I didn't understand why this man did what he did to me, why I couldn't breathe properly when he touched me and why I also felt weaker around him. Not that my physical powers became weak around him, it was more a metaphorical weakness. Like all of a sudden my knees and legs, they felt like they were going to buckle and my body would crumple to the ground.

I searched his eyes for an answer, refusing to believe what my brain was telling me. "Tabitha, I believe what he's trying to say is that he has been searching for you, his mate for a very long time," my father said, as he came and stood behind me. My eyes must have looked like they were going to pop out of my head when my father said those words. It would explain my mother's strange reaction to me telling her about our encounter in the first place.

Once again I found myself staring into the eyes of this mystery man, I didn't even know his name. Yet, His gaze was as intense as it was beautiful, I could have got lost for hours just staring into his eyes, but, it wasn't the time for that, I needed to keep my wits about me if I was going to figure him out.

It was the first time I noticed how wonderful this man smelled. It was like the forest floor after a light spring rainfall. It was my favorite smell in the world, leading me to believe what my father had said was, in fact, true. I took in a deep breath as my mind began racing. I vaguely remembered reading somewhere that a “mate’s” scent could bring calmness and peace to its other half. However, for me, inhaling so much of him only served to set my heart rate once again ablaze. It was all too much for me to handle.

I wanted to run and hide in my room away from everything, but I couldn't. I was twenty years old. I wasn't a child anymore and running away never solved any problems, it usually just created bigger ones. If I had learned anything in the last few months, it was that.

"So wolfie boy, what's your name?" I asked as bluntly as possible. I knew my father wouldn't approve of talking to anyone in the manner in which I had spoken to this man, but I didn't really care. I was running on a short fuse and it was almost out of wick. He straightened up to nearly his full six foot and then some height. "Asher," he replied curtly. Well at least I knew his name now. I thought to myself as I internally rolled my eyes at how ridiculous this whole thing was.

"Well, it was nice to meet you Asher, you can leave now." I told him. I grabbed the door and tried to slam it in his face, an action which proved entirely futile as he quickly grabbed the door, blocking it from being shut. "What the hell?" I yelled in frustration. I could feel my father's eyes burning holes into the back of my head. He had raised me with better manners but after the events of that evening I didn't care about much, except for finding out why this wolf was still hanging around. I knew I should be worried about Sorren too, but, mother was with him and there was nothing more that I could do for him.

I folded my arms across my chest and glared at Asher. He refused to talk to me, but he would also growl anytime my father tried to interject himself into the conversation. I was careful not to touch Asher again, the feelings were too overwhelming. Even just being close to him had started to make my brain go fuzzy. "Asher, what do you want?" I asked him , trying not to throw my annoyance around.

He took a deep breath, it almost seemed like it was a sore subject for him, he probably wasn't expecting his mate to be a witch, I was actually sure he was thoroughly disappointed. Not that I blame the poor guy, spending all your time searching for the other half of your soul only to find that she was essentially considered to be a mortal enemy by your own people.

"You are the girl from the woods!" He stated his question instead of asking it. We both already knew the answer to that question, he had followed me here, of course it was me. "And you must be the big, bad wolf right?" I teased him hoping to get under his skin a little bit. "Tabitha, I have been looking for my mate for seven years, seven f*****g years. I believed that I was mateless and had come to terms with that fact. Now, I find out that my mate is a f*****g witch?" He growled, raising his voice and also trying hard to keep his composure.

The teasing smirk instantly fell off my face. I truly did feel sorry for him, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like for him to have thought for seven years he didn't have someone out there looking for him.

I felt the need to reach out to Asher, like his soul was calling to mine. I took a cautious step forward without uncrossing my arms. The closer I got to Asher, the stronger the smell of rain got. I could see him go stiff as a board the closer my body got to his. I decided at that moment that the uneasy feeling I had when we touched before was just nerves, it had to be. I uncrossed my arms and laid my hands flat on Asher's chest. His body tensed up and flinched, but he didn't move away from me, instead, his arms came up and wrapped themselves around my waist. Again, the uneasy, woozy, fog-like feeling began to take over. I didn’t have the heart to pull away, something in me told me that Asher needed to be close to his “mate”. To hold the person he had been searching for so long. To feel that she was truly there and not just a dream that would slip through his fingers the minute he opened his eyes.

The tingles, and my erratic heart beat returned with a vengeance. I did the only thing I felt I could do. I leaned in to him and allowed my head to rest on his chest, my arms dropped to my sides. I could hear his heart beating as fast as a hummingbird flies and I knew he must have been feeling some of the same effects from the pull of our bond as I was.