But her wolf had been so starved, and perhaps mine had too.
So the fates and the moon goddess had chosen for us.
My wolf ached, wanting to pursue and caress and to care for Romy until the end of our days.
Romy shrunk into herself, as if she were finally able to breathe, as if she’d been waiting for this her whole life.
I wasn’t sure what would happen, who we would be, but I would never let her go.
The fates had chosen for us, and now I would learn to be the man I needed to be for this woman. For this wolf.
CHAPTER6
Romy
I had been bornin another century. I knew times long ago, before the adults of today had taken their first breath, I knew of that time.
Therefore, I knew how mating was supposed to work. You found the potential for who your mate could possibly be, and through a dance, a courting of sorts, you decided whether or not to mate with that person. To create a bond that was so strong that it could change the very idea of who you thought you could be in reality, in life, and with that person.
In the century that I had lived, I never thought I would have that bond. Not when my generation had been wiped out through terror, war, torture, and hatred. My friends, family—everyone I had grown up with—had been completely wiped off the map. Some had been sacrificed. Some had given themselves in sacrifice in order to protect the Pack and the world.
Some had been taken by choice, some against their will.
Anyone I could have possibly found true happiness, a genuine connection with, had been killed before I’d even had a chance to allow my wolf to breathe. To take a step into that new direction and realize who I could be with those people.
I had never had a chance.
And yet, I knew how mating worked. You found that wolf, you slowly led yourself into that temptation, into that need, and perhaps, one day, the moon goddess would bless you, and you would know.
You would have sex, make love, create that connection in the first step of the bonding.
And then, as long as one of them was a shifter, that person would mark the other with their fangs. A gentle sensation of pain that twisted into a blissful agony.
That mark would be seen by others, but only for a short while. Then it would heal, and yet everyone would know that you were mated. They would sense that mark was still there.
I even knew other wolves, such as our Alpha, would continually mark their mate as a sign of possession. Possession that person wore with pride.
Our Alpha’s mate, Brie, constantly wore outfits to show off her neck and shoulders, so she could show the world that she was proud to be mated to our Alpha.
She wore his brand, his mark, just like he wore the same mark on his shoulder and the scratch marks on his arms.
That was who we were. We were shifters. We were wolves. We were Pack.
One did not simply have uncontrollable, heated, best sex of your lives, and then get mated to another without a conscious choice.
But my wolf didn’t look down at me with confusion.
Instead, she preened like a goddamn peacock and walked around as if she finally had what she had been looking for, for her entire fucking life.
My wolf had been starved.
And I hadn’t even realized it.
I was mated to a Redwood. But I could still feel the bonds to my Talon.
I was mated to a man I didn’t know, a man that I knew I could respect, but I didn’t know how I could find the words to prove who I could be to him because I didn’t know him.
I only knew his last name because I knew his family. Not because we spent any length of time together. I had saved his life, and in essence, this mating had saved mine.