She Will Be Mine (New Horizon Book 2)

Part I: Two Years Later

Chapter 1: Jason

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Dinner with the family looks a heck of a lot different these days than it did a couple years ago. I think it’s only been about three years since I last lived under this roof along with my parents and younger sister. Then I moved into the packhouse after turning 16, but the obligation to come to the weekly family dinners never went away. And now that I’m living in my own brand-new house, I still come back week after week to sit down in our old dining room and catch up with the whole family.

There are some new additions, like Jeb, my sister’s new mate. She has me to thank for even meeting him, since he never would have been invited to dinner with us if it weren’t for me. He’s the youngest son of one of the high-ranked wolves from the new pack, Indigo Moon, and he and I hit it off right away. I like the guy, which is why I invited him in the first place, but I’m betting Sarah likes him even more. That’s as far as I’m willing to think about it, though, because yuck. That’s my little sister.

And then there’s Tasha. I’ve known her for years. We joined the warriors around the same time, but then Brian, my older brother, recently took an interest in her. He has yet to find his fated mate and apparently ran out of patience, so he asked Tasha to be his mate.

Honestly, it shocked me. I didn’t even realize that they knew each other all that well, but it wasn’t long after he asked that she moved into the place he shares with his best friend, who is now dating her best friend, so I have to admit that they do seem kind of perfect for each other.

On the one hand, it’s nice for my parents to have other kids they can start pestering about when they can expect grandkids, but on the other …

“So, has there been any word from that mate of yours?” my dad asks between bites of his steak, cutting through my thoughts to hound me about it yet again.

Right on schedule. We never seem to make it through one of these dinners without him bringing her up at least once. And now that I’m the only kid still left unmated, it’s only gotten worse. Brian and I used to suffer the third-degree together, but now it’s all on me.

“I haven’t heard anything,” I answer flatly, wishing for the millionth time that he could see how his questioning affects me.

He’s not lighting a fire under me the way he seems to think he should. It’s more like plunging the dagger deeper into my heart. I want her here more than anyone. I want pups. I want the life he has pictured for me. And if there was anything I could do about it, I would.

“Marjorie down at the salon was just telling me this morning that Silver Crescent is hosting a social event for all unmated wolves in the tri-pack area,” my mother chimes in unhelpfully. “You should go. Maybe you’ll meet someone.”

“I already know who my mate is,” I grit out with every ounce of restraint I possess.

I know she’s only trying to help, but Finn doesn’t appreciate her suggesting that we even consider someone besides Ronnie as our mate. And frankly, neither do I.

“A lot of good that’s done you,” Dad mutters under his breath before releasing a dramatic sigh. “It’s something not to dismiss lightly, son. Alpha Aly just had her first litter of pups, which means the countdown has begun. This family has provided a Gamma for every Alpha going back for well over a century, and it would be a shame to see it end with you.”

“I got it, thanks,” I mumble in response, dropping my fork on my plate and pushing my chair back from the table. “I have some work I need to be getting back to, but thanks for dinner.”

“You’ve barely even touched it,” Mom protests.

“I seem to have lost my appetite,” I explain, struggling not to have an attitude or take a tone with her.

I may outrank her, but I know better than to show her any disrespect. It has never been my dad in charge around here, and even though I’m a grown man, she’ll find a way to make me sorry for it. Instead, I lean down to give her a kiss on the cheek before turning to make my way down the hall to the front door.

“You can run for now, but you’ll have to face the music eventually,” my dad calls after me.

My parents could never understand how much I don’t need them to remind me of my mate woes, or how much I can’t run from it, not even if my life depended on it. They don’t need to remind me because I never seem to be able to forget.

*************************

That night, I lie awake in my bed, struggling to fall asleep for the umpteenth night in a row. Night? More like months, maybe even years. I can sleep decently enough once I get there, but it’s the falling asleep that gets me every time.

To fall asleep, I need peace of mind. To get peace of mind, I have to shut down the racing thoughts. And to do that, I need … her. But I can’t have her. She has made that abundantly clear without even saying a word.

And therein lies the problem. I haven’t heard a single peep from my mate in years. I know she’s busy, and I know she doesn’t want anything distracting her from her studies, but I just cannot even fathom how she does it. How does she manage to block me out and pretend like I don’t even exist month after month, year after year? Not a single day goes by that I don’t think of her.

It’s been so long since I’ve seen her that now amongst all my other thoughts and wistful longing, I can’t help wondering what she looks like. Whether she’s changed. Does she still wear the glasses, or has she gone with contacts? Does her hair still come down just far enough to tickle the tops of her shoulders, or has she grown it out? Maybe she’s cut it or gone blonde. Would I even recognize her if I saw her walking through the village?

Of course I would. I’d know her scent and recognize those eyes anywhere, even if she has ditched the glasses. Secretly, I hope she hasn’t. I hope she always wears big black glasses that simultaneously hide her eyes while making them stand out. And I wish for her to always love books the same way she did when I first saw her.

I only wish she would love them from right here, plopped in the overstuffed easy chair by the window, the one that I couldn’t resist buying because as soon as I saw it, I knew it would be the perfect place for her to curl up with a book. I want her to pack up what I imagine is her massive collection of all sorts of books and bring them here to display on the shelves I had the carpenter make for her. He custom fit them to the wall along the reading nook I designed and helped the builders bring to life around six months ago when my house was being built.

Years ago, when we were still texting each other a few times a week, she confessed that she hates to cook, so I’ve made a point of learning how to make some meals myself. Every time that I’m watching a cooking tutorial and practicing in my brand-new kitchen, I think of her. I picture the shy smile she would give me if I made us dinner, blushing as she thanks me while secretly appreciating that she doesn’t have to cook that night. I fantasize about what she likes to eat without really knowing. I never got a chance to ask before she blocked my number and stopped talking to me.

I really wish she hadn’t. There have been so many moments over the years that I’ve wished I could send her just one more text, or call her just once, because it would mean the world to me to have her here even just for a day. I desperately wanted to invite her to my high school graduation a couple years ago. School is important to her, and to me, and if she cares for me at all, I know she would be proud to know that I made it through. I did that, against all odds, even though everyone around me was encouraging me to give it up and focus on my warrior training.

And then mere days later, Aly came to me to invite me to be her Gamma when she became Alpha. That’s a pretty big deal since everyone assumed that position would go to Brian. He’s two years my senior, and my father’s eldest son. But no, it was me she wanted, and it was Ronnie I yearned to share that with.

It was bittersweet standing up there next to Aly with her mates, Ryan, her Beta, with his mate, and the Delta, Devon, with his mate. But me? No mate. There’s still no active Gamma female for the pack, and it breaks my heart a little more each time there is an official event or we receive guests and it’s just me there to greet them in place of the Gamma couple.

The only thing that keeps me going is that Ronnie is still friends with Aly. They were once roommates and close friends in college, and they still text and call each other occasionally. As her Gamma, I see Aly every day, and she gives me updates about Ronnie whenever she has them. I keep hoping that Ronnie will come here to visit again someday, even just to see her old friend, but it never happens. I guess when she told me she wanted to focus on her college education and avoid all other distractions, she meant it.

It was hard, but I accepted it when Alpha Aly denied my request to go to Ronnie’s college in Maine after I graduated high school. I wanted to be near Ronnie so that even if she didn’t ever make time for me, I could at least catch a glimpse of her every now and then. And I had this fantasy that if I was nearby, she might be able to feel the pull. She might decide she wants me.

But then I found out we were going to war with the local rogue packs, and Aly told me she needed me. She laid out a lot of good reasons for me to stay and be her Gamma, convincing me that Finn and I would be invaluable in the fight against the chaos and c*****e brought on by the rogues. She was right, and I don’t regret staying. When I think back over it all, I can come up with at least a handful of missions that could have gone much differently without Finn doing his whole berserker thing and tearing the enemies to shreds.

And if I’m being honest with myself, though it’s tough living day after day without her, a part of me is glad Ronnie wasn’t here for that. As much as I want a mate and pups, I’m glad I didn’t have them during all those days and nights when we didn’t know when the next rogue attack would happen or who they might try to hurt or kidnap this time.

A group of them came for Ryan’s mate at one point. I didn’t even know her very well then, but it was still terrifying. I just kept thinking, what if it was Ronnie they tried to take? At least Mindy is a werewolf and managed to claw the hell out of those thugs, and she knows enough about the woods around here that she was able to leave us clues to help find her, but Ronnie? She’s probably the smartest person I’ve ever met, but her natural instinct seems to be to freeze when she’s afraid. I shudder to think what a gang of rogues could have done to her.

But that was then. Now, I can’t take much more of this. Finn can’t take much more of this. He’s come a long way from how wild and feral he was for the months after I first came of age, thanks in large part to all the intensive training with the former Alpha, but he still gets agitated and lashes out sometimes. It’s those times when I really wish I had my mate here with me to comfort and soothe him.

And now, the war is over. The war has been over for a little over half a year. And if my math checks out, I think that around now is when Ronnie is supposed to be graduating from college. It made sense to be patient and wait for her to be ready back when she asked it of me, but lately, I find myself struggling to see the point in waiting any more.

I also fail to see how any of the things that were keeping us apart are still relevant, especially not when I know that Ronnie will soon be a college graduate. She’ll be all out of excuses, and I need to be there to remind her that she has a home here. All she needs to do is accept it. To accept me.

If I don’t soon do something to try to remind my mate of what she has waiting for her here and somehow convince her to give me another chance, I might just go insane. And if I wait too long, she might just forget all about me and find someone else, someone who lives closer and is less … werewolf.