Page 22 of Wolf Fated

The feeling stays with me as I put the finishing touches on my outfit for tonight. A pair of well-worn jeans that hug my curves in all the right places, and a cozy sweater makes the color of my eyes pop.

I realize these are my comfort clothes. Articles I wore when I hadn’t met Mark. When I’d finished my journalism course and worked those first few low-paying, step-up-the-ladder jobs I liked much better than the big-paying, corporate job I’d ended up with.

Then I’d worn uncomfortable corporate suits. Strange I’d passed them up for tonight. In the back of my mind, they might be a better choice considering I’m getting paid, but the suits didn’t seem right.

Not now, and I realize, not ever.

I never really liked myself in those clothes, not that Mark ever commented on what I wore or looked like.

He never really saw me.

I was little more than a means to an end, a warm body to share his bed and a steady paycheck to keep the bills paid and the refrigerator stocked.

He was completely indifferent to me. He didn’t just fail to see me–he failed to appreciate the very essence of who I am and now…now when I think of him, I only see him in a gray, washed-out sort of way. He’s an old photo of an era long-gone and another image overlays the old in bright, vibrant colors.

It’s Mitch!

His image burns bright and alive and it’s vivid and enticing, exciting and overwhelming. And as I concentrate on the image of Mitch something untamed awakens within me.

Something that has lain dormant.

A rueful smile tugs at the corners of my lips as I acknowledge the truth that has been staring me in the face all along. I would never have been happy with Mark.

I would have been settling.

I would have suffocated.

I would not have rediscovered a part of myself that had been lost if I was still grieving over our relationship.

A breeze whisks through the trees outside the window, and also flows through my mind, blowing away the cobwebs that have clung to the inside of my skull. I should be filled with grief over Mark, but I’m not. I hate what he did, there’s no question. But the man himself? I haven’t missed him.

Instead, with him out of my life, I’m…free. I’m…unexpectedly happy.

A surge of gratitude washes over me towards Tanya – the woman who, through her selfish actions, saved me from a life of something far less than I deserved.

Where there always should have been a spark in my relationship with Mark, there was absence. I went through the motions because I thought I didn’t know better.

After only one day of knowing Mitch, a fire of knowing burns bright. Still, the small voice of caution whispers in the back of my mind. A gentle nudge toward rationality and self-preservation. It’s too early to feel like that for a man I’ve only just met. But even as I acknowledge the wisdom in those words, and vow to tread carefully and guard my heart, I can’t shake the sense of rightness emanating from the core of my being.

With a renewed sense of self, I straighten my shoulders and hold my head high as I walk down the corridor from my hotel room. My steps are confident, no longer weighed down by the baggage of Mark’s indifference.

As I step out into the parking lot, the crisp mountain air fills my lungs, invigorating me with each breath. I glance toward the treeline, half-expecting to hear the haunting call of the wolf that had stirred something primeval within me earlier, however the forest remains silent.

I’m a little early, but the anticipation of seeing Mitch again has me practically vibrating with restless energy. As I round the corner of the Wolf’s Bite, my gaze immediately lands on Mitch’s cruiser, and my heart clenches. There he is, already waiting for me, his broad shoulders and muscular frame cutting an imposing figure against the backdrop of the setting sun.

A shiver of awareness races down my spine, raising goosebumps in its wake. It’s a purely visceral reaction, one I can’t control or rationalize away. Every part of me is hyper-attuned to his presence, as if he’s a lodestone and I’m the helpless piece of metal drawn toward him.

My gaze locks with Mitch’s, as that invisible tether binds us together, and then, like a bolt of lightning searing through my consciousness, a single word whispers through my mind–loud, insistent, and shocking in its intensity.

Mate.

It’s not just a word, but a truth. I stumble, my steps faltering as a tendril of doubt slithers through the cracks of my consciousness just as fast.

Surely, that word was nothing but a trick.

A fleeting fancy caused by exhaustion and the turmoil in my mind.

And the unshakable understanding that the fairytale Cindi told me may not be fictional at all.

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