Page 1 of One True Mate

Kelsey

Chapter 1

“Mama,” I cried, laying my head on her lap. Blood was everywhere, and I could hear the snarls and growls outside as my father fought valiantly against the rabid wolves attacking the house. “Mama, please don't go. Stay with me, mama.”

The howl from outside the house nearly caused my heart to stop.

“Kelsey, run. Run, baby, and don't look back. Don't ever look back….”

I woke with a start, a cold sweat giving me goose bumps all over.

“Mama,” I said aloud, letting it sink into the night air.

It was only a dream. The nightmare that still haunted my every sleep. It had been worse since coming to San Marco, since I finally stopped running away.

For six years, I ran from foster home to foster home, never allowing anyone to get close enough to know what had happened to me that same night, the night the wolves attacked and killed my parents, leaving me with a ragged scar across my upper thigh. Werewolves, not wolves, I corrected my memories. I knew they were werewolves, because that very night I changed into one too.

I was so numb from the pain of watching my parents die before my eyes that I don't remember the feelings or the pain of that first change, but I remember running through the woods with the wind in my face. I remember cowering under a fallen tree while the rain beat down on me, and I remember waking up one morning, naked at the edge of the woods where I was found. I was twelve years old.

Before the next full moon, I ran away from the home for girls they had put me in, terrified I would change again with the moon. That's what they tell you in the movies, but the movies are wrong. I didn't change that night or again for a long time, but after several months in human form, I grew impatient and short tempered and my skin itched all over. I knew something terrible was wrong. I've since learned that's the sign that I've been in human form for too long. That's when I would run away into the woods and never return to the home I had been in. I would always wake up naked and alone and they'd always find me and put me in another new home. That was the cycle of my life for six years until I finally turned eighteen and they could no longer hold me prisoner.

My parents hadn't had much, but on my eighteenth birthday I was handed documents upon my release from the foster care system that contained a small trust fund they had left me. It was enough to get by for a few years, but not enough to pay for college and a place of my own to live, and I couldn't risk being stuck with humans all the time. It was too dangerous. I was too dangerous.

I wandered around searching for just the right place, finally stumbling into San Marco, nestled deep in the mountains. I felt at peace for the first time since before my parents died and as luck would have it, a small one bedroom cottage sat on the edge of a large forest for rent. And the best part of all, the house had an unfinished basement that the owner said I could do whatever I wanted with. I immediately set to work fortifying a safe room where I could change without worrying about what I did in wolf form or who I came across. I never wanted to turn anyone into the beast that I had become that awful night.

It didn't take me long to figure out that most of San Marco was owned by the Westin family, including the property behind my home that I had planned to occasionally allow my wolf to run in. I wasn't as scared of my wolf as I had been as a child. She gave me a sense of peace.

I felt optimistic about this new venture, and as soon as I was settled, I began searching for work in the area. I wasn't very comfortable around people, and at first no one in town seemed all that comfortable around me either, but still, I knew I was different and an outsider. I had always been, so I didn't let it get to me and kept my head up and continued searching for work.

No one seemed to want to hire me. I was turned down more times than I could count and worried that if something didn't come up soon, I'd have to leave the little house that felt like home. Desperate not to let that happen, I applied to everything and anything in the area I could find and one day my phone finally rang.

“Hello,” I said hesitantly.

“Hello, is this Kelsey Adams?” a bubbly voice returned on the other end.

“It is.” I was still hesitant, but something about the friendly voice put my anxiety at ease.

“Hi, Kelsey, this is Elise Westin from the Westin Foundation. I was just going over your application, and see that you are currently studying business online and looking for full-time work. It doesn't really tell me what kind of work you're looking for, but we have several openings. Would you be available this afternoon to come by our testing center for some placement tests, and we'll see what you could be a fit for?”

I couldn't believe my ears. They were going to give me a chance!

“Yes, yes of course. What time?”

I tried to reign in my enthusiasm, but I could hear the smile in her voice as she relayed the information.

“I'll be there. Thank you so much, Ms. Westin.”

I could barely contain my excitement as I quickly dressed in a conservative business suit I had bought just for interviews. It was dark brown and looked great with my long blonde hair, which I left down, and accentuated my brown eyes. It also highlighted my long legs perhaps a little too much. I looked down and frowned.

All I saw were chicken legs. That's what the other kids in several homes had called them. I couldn't help that I had long, thin legs. Maybe it was a werewolf thing. I didn't seem to ever put on weight, no matter what or how much I ate, and I knew I ate more than most because every foster family I'd ever lived with had complained about it. Still I was long and lean and muscular. The long runs in wolf form seemed to have made that come naturally. I wasn't exactly flat chested, I did have a figure, but it would never be considered curvy or voluptuous. I didn't mind my appearance except for those long chicken legs. I frowned in the mirror and shrugged. Oh well, nothing I could really do about it.

The moment I walked into Westin Foundation headquarters, I knew I had to work there. I felt an immediate connection in the same way I felt when I had first found the little cottage that was now my home. It wasn't sterile and impersonal like most offices. No, when you walked through the door you were met with warm browns and blues and greens. There were potted trees everywhere, and it smelled of pine.

I walked to the front desk and told them I was there to see Elise Westin. At first the receptionist looked strangely at me. I even thought for a minute she sniffed the air like I smelled funny or something, but then she moved on as if nothing had happened and I guessed I had just imagined it. I tried to discreetly smell my pits, trying to remember if I had put on deodorant.

Elise Westin was the friendliest person I had ever met. She hugged me immediately and welcomed me with open arms to the Westin Foundation. She seemed positive that the perfect job would be found for me there. As she led me to a small room with various office equipment, she explained the process. I would be given several tasks and asked to complete them.

“Don't worry if there's something you don't know or understand,” she assured me.

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