West of Destiny (Book 5 of The Claimed Series) (Sample)

Chapter 1

Lucy

Birthdays in the past had always been special occasions for our family, but this one—the one coming 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 some 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 wait until their mate had turned of-age before becoming too intimate 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 Alpha blood would be able to resist marking and mating the very day they found the other half of their soul.

Or, at least, was able to feel the full potency of the bond.

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

Though we had “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, 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 issue. Artemis used his Alpha Command to keep his wife under 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 any way. His way was the right way, be it resulting in a good or bad outcome.

In good old Webster’s Dictionary, his photo could have accompanied the word “stubborn” with damn 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 didn’t know if he had sensed my 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 tongue twined with mine, licking 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 rasped once our lips broke from their lusty greeting. “My father’s been a damn 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 the 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 questioned as soon as we were out of earshot of the house. We were already past the treeline 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 ever since I reminded him of your birthday tomorrow,” Zach explained to 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 whimpered, feeling the sting of tears as they continued to prick at the backs 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 off the dregs like a dog onto his Persian rugs every time I come around? 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 brushed off, 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 for so long. The only people who knew about our pairing 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 that he was mine to the world, I was pretty happy with it just being me and him, playing games or sitting in front of the television and watching 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’d said he loved me, even if we weren’t mated already. He’d told me after 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 with every breath in his body. The mating bond didn’t guarantee love, but it sure helped it along.

I didn’t care what Zach said—Artemis must truly loathe 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 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.

φ φ φ

We made plans to watch a few of our favorite movies together—we enjoyed much of the same genres, 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—a love story, comedy, heartbreak. I felt for Babs’ character because she really loved the man she fell for, but I wanted to strangle Jeff Bridges to within an inch of his husky tone by the end. Some men were so blind to the jewel they had under 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 to grab an overnight bag for my birthday. I wanted to be prepared for what was to come, and I didn’t know if the outfit I had in mind for my mating would survive an Alpha’s fierce claws if he got a little out of control.

In any case, I was ready for all outcomes, and it took me far longer to get 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, Lu. 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. The only thought 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 wasn’t sure. Scared? Worried? Upset?

If I had to guess, it was a mixture of all of those. 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’d 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.

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 day 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 off the link with my Lucy, and I wasn’t f*****g quiet about it. The tension in the 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 commanded 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 heard 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 Lu, but I was going to find out, and find out soon.

Stalking my way 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 come in, 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 a little 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 to 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 full 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 confessed, 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 replied to me shortly. “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 or 15. 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 humbler 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…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, however, and this is the only way to keep the two of us from warring over 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 even worse. The man had f****d up, and I was the one who would have to pay for his crimes, whatever they were.

“It… 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 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 actually feeling my bones crack and maneuver into their wolf form. Another second and I might have done so, seeking blood for his offenses against me and my mate.

“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 dropped back into skin. My claws retracted, and I felt my elongated teeth moving back in place within 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…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 to him, 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 man’s damn 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 angry little 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 me 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 unconvinced 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 iris, 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 yours. 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.

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

“I hate you,” I asserted, meaning every damn word. “From now on, I will always hate you.”