Page 31 of Wolf Fated

Yet all I feel is a yawning ache of confusion and denial when I remember the word “mate” and that fleeting sense of absolute rightness that came with it. Like a part of me that was always out of kilter clicked into place.

I whirl at the sound of Mitch’s tread on the stairs, his expression utterly heartbroken. “Sarah,” he pleads hoarsely. “Please, let me explain...”

“Explain what?” I snatch up my clothes, shoving my legs into my jeans and wrapping my shirt around me when my shaking fingers refuse to do up the buttons. “That you’re...you’re some kind of monster? That you just slaughtered another wolf?”

He flinches at the venom in my words, eyes reflecting a soulful agony that guts me. “I’m not a monster. At least...I never wanted to be seen as one in your eyes. That wolf was feral. He didn’t know what he was doing. He would have taken you out into the forest and…”

“And what, Mitch?”

“He would have torn you limb from limb.” He scrapes his fingers through his hair. “I was going to tell you the truth tonight after we...” He swallows thickly. “After we celebrated finding one another. But then I felt the wards on our territory shatter. As Alpha, I had to go make sure none of our people were harmed.”

My eyes widen in shock at the plural use and make a massive connection. “You mean...everyone in this town is...”

The pained look he gives me is confirmation enough. Dear God...Sally and Cindi...all those friendly neighbors I’ve come to regard as human...

Suddenly it all makes sense – why this remote little town seems so insulated from the world. Why there was never any mention of people leaving or newcomers arriving, besides myself. Why everyone looked at me with the same mixture of wariness and speculation when I first arrived.

I’m an outsider. The only one here without this...this secret, uncanny existence.

“You’re all...?” My voice cracks like glass shattering on the last word. I can’t bring myself to say it out loud. To put that label on the people I’ve come to care about so quickly.

Mitch takes a half-step toward me but I instinctively cringe back, shaking my head in denial. His face twists with naked pain at the automatic rejection. “We’re wolf shifters, yes,” he says in a toneless rasp. “Both human...and something more. I never lied to you, Sarah. I just...hadn’t gotten to that part of the truth yet.”

A hysterical, breathless giggle bubbles up my throat. I clamp a hand over my mouth to stifle the slightly mad sound, tears burning tracks down my cheeks.

“This is all...completely insane. I can’t...I can’t do this.” I won’t look at Mitch, can’t look at him and see the inhuman secret roiling behind his handsome face.

“Sarah...” His voice is strands from cracking, wrapping around my name like a physical caress. I flinch away from the tenderness, from the sense of rightness it invokes.

“I have to leave,” I force out, choking on the hot knot of tears lodged in my throat. “I have to...to think. To understand...”

Except I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand this madness. To accept that the world–my world–is not what it seems, and never has been.

“Please.” Mitch tries again, reaching for me like a man grasping at air. I shake my head mutely, shrinking away from the naked yearning in his eyes. From the part of me that wants nothing more than to let myself be soothed and gathered into the shelter of his embrace.

“I’m sorry,” I force out in a choked rasp, dashing away tears with the back of one hand. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t. I can’t...”

I turn and flee before I can shatter into a million pieces. Mitch doesn’t try to stop me, doesn’t call out again as I bolt down the stairs and out the cabin door with the crisp night air clawing at my face.

Wolves watch me with glowing eyes as I stumble down the gravel driveway in blind instinct. Shadowy, silent forms that make my pulse thunder with fear and incredulity. Except what did I have to fear when the most dangerous creature I know is the one I’ve just left behind?

Up ahead, I see two dark forms detach from the tree line. One a sleek, petite wolf and the other broader, more solidly-built. My breath catches in my throat as the two figures shift in a rapid, organic flow. One moment, they’re wolves. The next, they’re Sally and Cindi emerging from the shapeshifting transition as easily as pulling off a coat.

I pull up short, staring at them in dazed disbelief as they approach with expressions of heartbreaking sadness and regret.

“Sarah,” Sally begins, her normally cheerful tone subdued. She holds up both hands in a placating gesture, as if trying not to startle a spooked animal. “We know this is...a lot to take in right now. But please, don’t go. At least let Mitch explain...”

A dry, rasping sound that might be a laugh hitches in my throat. “Explain?” I echo, my voice dull and lifeless. “How can he possibly explain being...being...” I can’t bring myself to say the words out loud.

“A shifter,” Cindi supplies in her usual blunt manner, but her tone holds a wealth of compassion. “Just like the rest of us in Willowbrook. I know it’s a shock, but this ability has been in our blood for generations, Sarah. We were born this way, just as you were born human.”

“Human...” The word falls from my lips with more bitterness than I intend. Because suddenly, that label feels more like a weakness–a lack.

Sally steps closer, her expression softening further. “Mitch will be an amazing mate for you, Sarah. He’s a good alpha who will love you with everything he has. You two are fated–the first new mating pair we’ve had in Willowbrook in over twenty years.”

“Mating,” I mumble numbly, uncomprehending. My gaze skates over Sally’s shoulder to where Mitch has appeared in the open doorway, his eyes reflecting twin wells of naked hope and longing.

The sight lances straight through me, rousing that same profound sense of rightness–of meant-to-be. I tear my gaze away, jaw clenched against the disorienting vertigo of having my entire reality upended in the span of a few earth-shattering moments.

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