Wolf Bite

Oliver

One of my favorite parts of the past couple weeks had been runs with Tala. Lya’s shifts were getting easier, and Tala lived for the chase. Tala was quite the small wolf, but exceptionally agile. She was able to stay remarkably quiet, too, which surprised me given how little experience she had in wolf form. And she was fast.

Adair assured me that this was just due to her lineage. Wulvers - genetically produced protectors and defenders - would of course have more natural inclinations to the traits warriors trained so hard for. Maybe she’d become a tracker once she progressed through training.

So much about Lya was defined by something she had no clue about. All we had was one book that didn’t even provide much information, and one person who provided equally little knowledge.

I wondered about the girl Trevor told me about before she came to the pack, because I certainly didn’t know her. I had heard about a lost little girl who acted akin to a feral cat someone got too close to, but the woman I knew was headstrong, feisty, and set out to get exactly what she wanted, and she was rarely selfish with her wants. All she needed to unlock that door was the permission to do so. It’d be easy to try and take credit for the growth she had experienced here, but all I had done was try to put some of her insecurities to sleep. She was the one who set out to fix herself.

The girl didn’t need a knight in shining armor, she just needed a sword. And from what I could see, she had found her excalibur.

Adair came screeching to a halt in Lya’s favorite clearing, nose in the air, trying to catch Tala’s scent. The little red wolf had given us the slip. Again. Some alpha we were.

The snap of a twig had us whirling around, lunging for our mate. Because let’s be honest, the chase was fun, but catching the prize was the best part.

Tala didn’t back down, though, instead lunging forward and meeting us headon. The wolves grappled for a bit, but Adair eventually pinned Tala. He licked her muzzle and nibbled at her neck until a giggling Lya lay underneath him. I quickly shifted as well, rolling to the side and pulling Lya with me.

I lost track of how long we laid there in comfortable silence. Slowly but surely, though, the crushing weight of anxiety crept back into my chest. The feeling had been omnipresent the past week, and I was hating it more and more by the day. It wasn’t a feeling I was used to, and I desperately hoped it would disappear when I got back from east river.

'That isn’t ours,' Adair’s voice rumbled in the back of my head.

'What?'

'It isn’t your fear,' he clarified. 'It is mate’s.'

I breathed a small sigh of relief, thankful to know I hadn’t just gone soft. I looked down, though, trying to get a good view of my weakness.

“Are you worried about the hunters?” I asked her, brushing a lock of hair out of her face. Lya nodded, but didn’t say a word. “You don’t need to,” I tried to reassure her. “We’re leaving the day after tomorrow, and we should be back just the day after that. You’ll be here and safe and we’ll be back before you know it.”

“We’ll see,” she said quietly.

“Really,” I insisted, tipping her head up to look at me. “There’s no reason why this should take that long or be that dangerous. It’s just a handful of hunters, and we are over prepared for them.” Lya’s eyes darted around, but she refused to look at me. “You’ll be able to feel if something goes wrong, too, you know.”

Her brows furrowed a bit. “What?”

I chuckled and brought her hand up to my mark, letting her feel the energy surge between us. “You marked me. We are connected, remember?” She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Everything will be fine, Lya. I promise.”

Lya breathed out a sigh and looked up at me. I could see Tala was just as present in her eyes as she was. “Let’s just not talk, please?”

A new emotion laced with the fear in my chest. It was one I was all too familiar with.

Sorrow.

It was a lethal combination.

When Lya kissed me, it wasn’t filled with the hot and fiery passion I had come to anticipate and look forward to with her. It was low and smoldering and communicated everything she couldn’t find the words to say. Her lips moved slowly, and her skin felt like fire against me.

I rolled over, supporting my weight on my elbows so I hovered over Lya. Looking down, I studied her expression carefully.

My gums tingled. It was a sensation I was growing all too used to. Every moment with her was making it harder and harder to maintain my grip on my self control. Marking was an intimate thing, almost always taking place during mating, but the need to do so surfaced when the connection was closest.

The mate bond doesn’t lie.

My soul was bound to this woman, and the way she had needed me the most was as a protector. In all reality, it had surprised me when the sexual desire for this little spitfire crept up on me. I wasn’t about to regret a single part of our bond, though.

Your mate is always who you need.

One soul, divided amongst two humans and two wolves, with the red string of fate pulling them together, just waiting for paths to converge. Of course the bond would supersede just the need to mate and produce offspring, but it made sense that the closeness, the intimacy of knowing thoughts, the willingness to lay down your life for them would also cause the burgeoning of love.

The mate bond, I was discovering, was not love. But it was designed to create love. The existence of our race depended on the mate bond. We were a dying breed, and we mated for life. Each of us needed a sworn protector, a confidant, our own personal judge and jury. Of course we had to be cut from the same cloth. She was mine and I was hers.

Skin on skin, hearts beating in time, electricity zapping through the air so palpable I was certain an onlooker would feel it, too.

I felt my canines elongating. I couldn’t even find the words to condense all of what I felt and thought, but the look in her eyes told me she knew.

Lya gave me a small nod and rolled her head to the side, exposing the delicately freckled skin on her neck where my mark would go. Will go.

I trembled above her, the reality of what I was about to do consuming me. It was Adair that pushed forward, bringing my mouth to her neck and sinking teeth into flesh.

Nothing would have prepared me for the freight train that hit. It was all consuming, sending my mind swirling around with the emotions and need that flooded it. Lya etched herself upon my soul, claimed permanently as mine. There was no going back, and I didn’t want to.

My teeth retracted and I pulled back away from her, anxious to see her reaction. I reached out, trying to search her mind for the reason behind her approval that now was the right time. I was met by a wall, though, blocking off all answers.

She reached up and cupped my face, running her thumb along my cheekbone.

“You just have to trust me, alright?” she whispered.

I just nodded once. She wouldn’t have to ask me twice.