She Will Be Mine (New Horizon Book 2)

Chapter 3: Ronnie

Everything has felt so surreal lately as I’ve been packing up my things and preparing to move out of the dorm room I’ve lived in for all three years of my college experience. It’s strange because though I have felt the passing of every single day and every single year that I’ve been here, it also feels a bit like I just moved in with Aly freshman year, and then I blinked, and it was all over.

Although that’s not entirely true. There have been parts of this experience that seemed to drag by even though I could hardly wait for them to be over. The whole three months that I spent living with my second roommate, Stephanie, comes to mind. Steph, as she liked to be called. I made the mistake of calling her by her full name only once before I learned my lesson. I like my head where it is, but calling her Stephanie was a sure way to get it bitten off.

She was so moody that I couldn’t keep up. I would go as far as saying it was downright traumatic living with her, as I never quite figured out how to read her moods and decide whether I should talk to her or ignore her, feed her or keep food as far away from her as possible, or when it was safe to be in the room or better to stay away, just in case. That semester was a rough one. I don’t have time for drama, and she was nothing but.

My next roommate was nice and easy to get along with, but she was kind of a slob. I only lasted a semester with her too, but it took me months to fully get the smell out after she left. Thankfully, I had enough credits at the beginning of this last year that I could apply for a single room, meaning no roommate. The maintenance crew came and took out the other bed and all the extra furniture, leaving me with tons of space and blissful peace and quiet.

But even so, it somehow made me miss living with Aly more than usual. I got lucky with her, my first roommate who quickly became my best friend. When she left to move in with her mates and then eventually went home to her pack, I felt her absence. I’ve always been a loner, but it was nice having someone who understood that about me and gave me just enough space while also keeping me company.

Before her, I never had someone I could really talk to, not like I could with her. Our conversations were so in-depth, so rewarding, and I always felt like I could share anything and everything with her. With her gone, I really feel that loss. I got a taste of something good that I never knew I needed, and then before I knew it, she was gone.

And strangely, though she’s been away from here for years, as I stand here packing up the last of my things and preparing for my final exams, it’s memories of her on my mind. As I’m stowing away the silly little penguin figurines I’ve always kept on my desk, I remember when she first asked me about them.

We had barely been here for a week, and I didn’t even realize she was paying much attention to me or my stuff. It made me feel kind of special, like I mattered to someone important, and now whenever I look at them, it isn’t just my dad they remind me of. He may have given them to me, but she somehow made them feel more significant and meaningful than they already were.

I had almost forgotten the dent in my closet door from when Tyler was goofing around with Aly and accidentally tipped over a chair, but I can’t help noticing it as I’m packing up my clothes, remembering the sound of them laughing together here in this very room. I treasure peace and quiet, but the sounds of Aly and Tyler together always made me smile. And once they were gone, it somehow made the room feel empty, and that was back when there was still double the furniture.

I never mention this to Aly when we talk on the phone, though. I already know what she would say. She’d tell me to get my butt over there to visit them, and there’s a growing part of me that wants that more than anything. But the rest of me just can’t do it. I know he’s there, and I won’t be able to avoid him. He can smell me from several floors away, so there’s no hiding from him.

My mate. My werewolf mate. That still disturbs me to think about. But don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with werewolves. My best friend is a werewolf. So are her mates and even her best friend, Ryan. I adore all of those people and knowing that there are wolves within them has never bothered me.

Over the years, I’ve become increasingly more involved with the supernatural. I’ve done lots of studying about everything from werewolves, to vampires, to witches and other mages, and even some of the creatures that are straight out of the Brothers Grimm. My mentor is a werewolf-witch hybrid, and her husband is an ancient vampire. I’ve learned a lot of basic spells and incantations from her, and though my blood doesn’t possess the magical energy to do much more than that, I find it all infinitely fascinating. I love that it exists.

But I’m not a werewolf, or a witch. I’m human. I can’t reconcile that with the fact that I have a mate. Me, a human, has a mate just like a werewolf. And in fact, he is one.

Everyone assumes that my problem with him is that our first meeting was … less than ideal. But it isn’t even that. I’ve learned a lot about werewolves, and I understand the struggle of sharing a body with a whole other consciousness that has its own thoughts, feelings, and urges. No, that’s not the issue.

It’s what having a mate means that bothers me, what it represents. What it’s like to embrace that bond. Once I allow myself to get close to my mate, there will be no turning back. That bond only strengthens over time, and the pair of mates becomes increasingly codependent.

That’s not me. That’s not what I want. I have plans for my life, and they don’t involve settling down with some guy when I’ve only just turned 19 and I still have so much ahead of me. I’m graduating from college this weekend, and in the fall, I’ll be starting law school. I have a plan, and it doesn’t include becoming intensely attached to and dependent on someone who is basically a stranger.

If I accept my mate and embrace the life he is offering me, I’ll be trading one small town for another, one dead-end life path for the same somewhere else. I’ll be kissing my chance at a successful career goodbye and saying sayonara to making enough money to help my mom finally dig her way out of debt. I won’t be able to support myself let alone help her with my younger sisters, and I’m sick and tired of people telling me that with Jason, I wouldn’t have to worry about any of that. He’ll take care of me.

I grew up watching what happens when you give yourself over to the fairy tale of love at such a young age. I know what depending on a man to take care of you looks like, and how it can leave you broken and broke when the fairy tale doesn’t end the way it does in the story books. I don’t want that for myself, and I don’t care what anyone says about how having a mate is different. I’ve put in the time and done the research. Aly got lucky with her mates, but that’s not always the way it goes.

And besides, werewolves are as susceptible to the unexpected as the rest of us. My mother could write an entire series of encyclopedias about the devastating grief from losing a partner, and she’s only human. Her bond with my dad was only a human attachment, which pales in comparison to the strength of a mate bond. I’ve read what happens when you lose a mate, and it’s so much worse than what my mom had to endure. I was young, but I’m still haunted by the memories of what she went through, and how it changed her.

My dad was a soldier, and so is Jason. Werewolves call them warriors, but it’s the same. It still means that the person you care about goes off to fight and gets involved in dangerous situations that he might not come back from. It still means that someday, he could leave behind his family, kids even, and then it would be me stuck as a single parent and barely holding it together for the rest of my life.

No, thank you. I don’t want to allow myself to become so attached to another person that losing him might completely destroy me.

But even so, there’s something in me that won’t allow me to just call Jason on the phone and tell him I’m not interested, and never will be. It’s almost as if somewhere deep inside, there’s a part of me that hopes that I can have it all. Somehow, there must be a way that I can finish school, have a career, and still have a mate waiting for me on the other side, and somehow, we can manage to beat the odds together.

But in the end, I just can’t seem to reconcile my life with his. We’re too different, and we want different things from life. Besides, what in the heck would I even do with a law degree in a werewolf pack?