Page 17 of The Wolf's Prince
“Let us return to White Water.”
Botan raised a skeptical brow.
“How can you leave without your mate?” he asked. “Neither of you will handle it well for long.”
“He is a human,” Soren said stiffly. “And it was not a proper mating. It was nothing but a mistake.”
The day was bright with sunlight, but the early spring air was chilly. Inhaling a deep breath, Soren shifted.
After two days surrounded by humans, trying to keep his instincts at bay, it felt good, like a deep stretch after wearing clothes that were too tight.
He took off at a lope, a slow and steady pace, relaxing marginally as the others fell into step around him.
Running together helped to clear his mind.
Nikolai had disappointed him.
Fated mate or not, he was a human. He would never be able to run with Soren or truly understand him. We were from different worlds, and… he did notwantSoren. Nikolai had made that very clear.
When wolves mated, it was meant to be for life, yet Nikolai slept with anyone at a whim. For all Soren knew, he had been claimed by countless bodies before and Soren was only the most recent, not the most important.
And, notably, Nikolai hadn’t known to bite Soren back. That had surprised him at the time. In fact, Soren had found it quite sweet. He had planned to explain it to Nikolai in the morning and let him return Soren's bite while taking his knot again.
Now, Soren was glad they hadn’t finished the bond properly.
Silently, he prayed to the wolf goddess Suku that their bond would be temporary, watered down by Nikolai’s human genes and Soren’s unmarked mating gland.
But the further they traveled, the more Sorenfelthim and the more frustrated he became.
They were fated, lucky enough to have found one another in the physical world, and they had mated under the light of the full moon.
If Nikolai had stayed, Soren would have fought for him with everything that he possessed.
But Nikolai had chosen otherwise.
Now, even if Nikolai somehow found their pack, even if he begged for him, Soren would send him away with just as much cruelness and disinterest as Nikolai had shown.
That was a promise.
* * *
The journey back was grinding,but only because Soren wanted to arrive in pack lands as quickly as possible.
He hadn't wanted to leave to begin with, it had taken Alpha Jin ordering him to go for him to grudgingly leave while the older shifter was mostly bedridden.
And Kamon had remained.
Remembering his fear of leaving Alpha Jin ill and in the presence of the shifter who wanted his position as pack alpha made Soren itch with worry now that he was thinking of it again.
They had been gone for over twenty-four hours already. If Alpha Jin passed, the position of the next pack alpha had to fall on the strongest alpha present. Without Soren there, Kamon would have no competition.
It was with that thought in mind that they finally breached the White Water Pack lands.
Nestled in the morning mountainscape, White Water Pack was hidden from all but the birds and goats. They dwelled in caves that had been their homes for centuries.
Clearing the last path felt particularly hard on muscles that ached from unrest, but Soren pushed them to continue. The closer they got to home, the more he feared he would return to the worst.
But when they climbed to the flattened peak of their pack square, all appeared to be normal.
