Page 2 of Wolf Caged
I would have a mate, and a new pack.
“Are you wearing this?” Everlee turned away from my dressing table and I glanced at her hand, at the silver chain cupped in her palm, with a solitary charm hanging from it.
A gift Everlee had given me close to a decade ago. She had even had it enchanted, so I could wear it whenever I shifted and wouldn’t lose it. It was the same spell Lucas had used on mynecklace, performed by a witch in Quesnel, the nearest city to our pack lands.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” I reached for the charm bracelet, eager for it even as my hand shook a little, my nerves rising again as I stared at it and then felt the links beneath my fingers. I lifted it before me, studying it, and that feeling of unease grew within me, tinged with something like regret.
Everlee took the bracelet from me and set it back down. “Time to get dressed. If you delay any longer, people are going to start talking.”
“Can’t a wolf show up late to her mating? Brides do it all the time in the human world.” I stripped off my fluffy white robe, letting it pool at my feet.
“And humans talk about it. Arms up.” Everlee motioned with her own arms and when I dutifully raised mine, she was quick to snatch up the summer dress and pull it on over my head for me. She pulled a face at it before moving around to my side to zip it up. “I still think you should be wearing something more suited to a princess.”
I laughed, couldn’t help it.
The act alone lightened some heavy thing within me, and I was grinning when I looked over my shoulder at her. “Are you ever going to stop calling me that?”
Everlee grinned right back at me. “No. You’re a princess, whether you want to be called one or not. Or maybe a queen. Alphas are like kings, aren’t they? That makes you a queen.” Her expression turned serious and she came around to stand before me and took hold of my arms. “You’re going to have an amazing life, Saphi. You’ll be treated like a queen. You’ll want for nothing, and you’ll be deeply loved by your fated mate. Your future will be bliss… like your parents have.”
She loosed a long sigh as her gaze drifted to the window of my bedroom, growing distant and sombre.
“You’re one of the lucky ones,” she whispered. “I wish I knew who my mate was.”
It was my turn to take hold of her arms, and my hands lowered to lock with hers. I squeezed them and smiled. “You’ll find him.”
But I wasn’t sure it was the man she hoped it was.
Chase showed no sign that Everlee was his fated one.
I held on to hope that it was because Everlee hadn’t matured yet.
Usually, wolves only knew they were fated once both were sexually mature, something which occurred at around a century old. I was different. A witch and a spell had revealed I was Lucas’s mate soon after I was born. I had known all my life who my mate was, without all the worry I would never find him, or that he would be someone cruel and terrible.
So many wolves never found their fated mate.
Everlee was right. My future would be bliss.
But my eyes strayed to the charm bracelet on the dressing table, a gift Everlee had given me when I had found the courage to confess my secret desire to see the world, to have adventure and experience life beyond the boundaries of the pack. I loved my life and my role within the pack, but for the last thirty years, my gaze had started to stray towards the edge of the Harper pack lands, towards that horizon filled with unknown sights, sounds and so much promise.
She had told me she had seen online how some people who travelled had charm bracelets and they added one for each place they visited.
Mine still only had one charm on it—a wolf to symbolise me—despite how long it had been since Everlee had bought it for me in Quesnel.
A city that was close to my pack territory in Wells, yet I had never seen it with my own eyes.
Just like I had never seen the ocean.
And deep in my heart, I doubted I ever would.
“This will be a beautiful adventure.” Everlee took the bracelet and wrapped it around my wrist, fastening it for me.
I wasn’t sure this was the adventure I really craved, or that stepping into a mate bond wouldn’t be like locking myself into a life I wasn’t quite ready for yet.
As the mate of an alpha, I wouldn’t be free to travel and see everything beyond the boundaries of our pack lands. I would just be trading one life of duty for another, one set of walls for another.
I wouldn’t see beyond those walls as I longed to, to see what else was out there, and see how others lived. I wouldn’t know the scent of the sea or the feel of sand between my toes. I wouldn’t know the infinite horizon.
I would know another set of trees. Another group of people who would need my help with day-to-day chores, and if I was lucky, maybe Lucas would let me help with the running of the pack, or at least let me work as a healer, as my mother had taught me.
