Page 1 of Unlearning

Prologue

October 2010

Samantha, age 20

I stalked the human while she browsed through the baby store aisles. She made it easy since she was completely engrossed in shopping, caressing her baby bump every now and then, blissfully unaware of her surroundings. The baby was probably nudging and kicking her from the inside, and she, like a good mother, was responding to the movements. I could tell the pup was male and smelled like my mate. Both of them carried his scent. My wolf wanted to gag. She wanted to spill blood. She had no qualms about attacking a pregnant woman, as all she saw wascompetition. My human side was much more rational – there was no competition between me and her. The best way to describe it was that she'd already crossed the finish line while I was sitting at home, looking at Google Maps to find the best route to get to where the race was being held.

I took a moment to objectively observe her, setting aside my blinding rage and jealousy; I imagined myself as a scientist observing the mating behavior of cheaters and mate-stealers in a lab setting. The human looked elegant and classy - her shiny chestnut hair was in a neat chignon, her beautiful knee-length maternity dress hugged her prominent bump. The rest of her figure remained untouched by pregnancy, and her face was radiant. I briefly wished she had been one of those pregnant women whose nose swelled and whose torso widened abnormally but then reconsidered. If I really could have wished for something, I would have wished that my mate hadn’t gotten her pregnant in the first place. But here we were.

I put on my best clueless face and cleared my throat:

“Er, sorry, hi, do you mind helping me for a moment? I need to buy a present for my friend's baby shower. She has no registry and you probably know more about this stuff than I do,” I said and smiled innocently.

She beamed at me: “Of course, gladly! I got a ton of baby books for mine and I consider them a great present that you can get a lot of use out of. If your friend hasn't registered for other baby items it probably means she doesn't need them – at least that is what I would conclude in such a situation.”

“Good point, I knew I should get advice from someone with actual experience! Thanks. Congrats by the way; how far along are you?” I subtly launched my interrogation.

She rubbed the bump again: “35 weeks, almost there.”

“Do you know what you are having?”

“A boy!” She smiled. “My fiancé is over the moon.”

A wolf would be able to sense and smell the anger and disgust rolling off of me at her words.

“That is beautiful, congrats. I hope to be a young mom like yourself, you look really great with your bump!” I managed to choke out without gagging.

“Well I am 30 so not super young,” she laughed, “and my fiancé is 25, can you believe it!” she laughed slyly, a woman proud of herself – and why wouldn't she be? My mate was an extremely handsome male. Like most werewolves, he had a body that only action movie stars could attain and maintain in the human world. Back when I hadn’t known that his insides were a festering putrid pile of rot, I could have told you a lot about his eyes, locks, jawline, big gentle hands, and honeysuckle scent that evoked carefree summer mornings. Now, there was no point in thinking or talking about such things, for that male was not mine, never had been.

It must have been some cosmic mistake, us being paired together. I guess he had seen it before I did. Granted, Brandon had more time to do so – see, he was four years older than me. Shifters can recognize their mates at 18, so he must have known back in high school. After seeing 14-year-old, braces-wearing-me, his response had been to leave for college, although it was rare for someone from our pack to attend. He’d managed to convince the Alpha that we needed an accountant for all of the pack's businesses, so the pack gave him a generous scholarship, and in exchange he signed a contract saying that after college he would come back and take care of the pack businesses.

“Well, thanks for your help, and good luck!” I told her and hightailed it out of there before I rage-shifted and tore the whole store apart. I needed to think. I needed to make a plan. The 6-hour drive back to my pack was the best place to do it. I pulled out of the mall's parking lot, and took a hard look back at the female I had been just fifteen days ago.

CHAPTER 1

Fifteen days ago, my mate returned to our pack after six years of absence. Well, the absence was so long only as far as I was concerned – he’d come down from Chicago every summer, always during the month I would spend in California at my paternal aunt's pack. I’d never noticed or realized this before because, honestly, I’d never thought about him at all. The day he returned though, I entered the dining room of our pack house to attend the party in his honor, and as soon as I opened the door, his scent hit me like a ton of bricks.

My entire body started humming, vibrating, and trembling with feelings I couldn't even begin to name. I only managed to lift my head in time to see him running towards me, taking my face in his big hands, and putting his lips on mine. It was my first kiss, and I was glad it was. I couldn't imagine anything else measuring up to the intensity of losing myself in that connection. The heat, the sparks, the all-consuming desire I had for the male, it was all so overwhelming. I wasn't thinking, Icouldn'tthink! All I could do wasfeel. At some point, I heard applause and catcalls, which caused both of us to sober up a bit, and we just stood there grinning at each other. One of his hands was on my waist, whilethe other gently brushed my hair out of my face.

“Brandon,” I whispered.

He cleared his throat: “Samantha, right?”

“Yup,” I grinned at him, falling in love with the sound of my name on his tongue.

He was here, he was finally here: my mate. My life could finally start now. Our mates were sacred, the most important bond in our society. From the time we are pups it is drilled into our heads that we are a species that mates for life, that each one of us gets only one mate, and that said mate is hand-picked for us, the perfect counterpart to spend our lives with.

Nowadays, many of our kind have stopped waiting for their mates, but at least in our pack, young wolves didn’t get into relationships with other shifters – they hooked up with random humans in big cities or in high school, but many simply waited. I was one of those. All I ever wanted was to find my mate and to live the domestic bliss that I’d seen my parents live. Not all pairings were happy, of course, there was still the occasional infidelity or alcoholism problem, but those were so rare and so far apart that one could not help but idealize the mate bond. Or in my case, build your whole life around it.

That night, my mate took me back to his room at the pack house where, after a heavy make out session, he pulled away from me, ran a hand through his hair and said: “Wait. We shouldn't.”

I, of course, laughed, and asked: “Why the hell not? I've waited long enough to have sex and I'm not waiting a moment longer.”

Something crossed his face so quickly that I had to blink several times in succession to make sure there was nothing in my eye that would cause me to see weird shadows on handsome faces. Brandon cleared his throat and said:

“If we have sex tonight, my wolf will come out and mark you. I want to do this properly, I want to give you a beautiful mating ceremony first”. I smelled some faint dishonesty in his words, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what he would be lying about and why.

I furrowed my brows: “A mating ceremony? I don't care about a mating ceremony. All I care about is that I finally found you,” I straddled him and pressed my forehead to his.

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