The Unmarked Mate

Chapter 1

Hello, this is my first book, so please tell me what you think. I'll start by posting the first 10 chapters, then I'll update once or twice a week, a chapter at a time. I've written about 80 chapters so far, and I know how I want it to end, but posting at this rate give me time to edit, and keep on writing the rest. Enjoy =)

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Dahlia

I was looking at the back of a woman, she was quite large, not tall, but a good size and she had curves. Her long curly black hair was dishevelled as she was facing a tall, skinny but muscular blond man. I could not really see his face but I could see his teeth as he was grinning widely. Not a wholesome smile reaching his eyes but a smug one. He was clearly amused and proud of himself. I heard the woman whisper in a low voice "Lucius, why?" She had my voice.

I was captivated by the man, both aroused by his figure and disgusted by the very thought of him. As he gently brushed her face with the back of his fingers, I felt a tingling on my face. He was laughing now. He suddenly and violently grabbed her by her hair and forced her to turn around looking right at me and she screamed. Coming from deep within, her scream turned into a howl, a wolf howl. Her eyes locked with mine, and as I was looking at myself, I felt my cheek warm and wet as the eyes before me were tearing up. The man turned her, me, to him and showed his wolf teeth, slowly approaching them to the base of my neck. As the teeth made contact with my skin, I suddenly woke up gasping for air. I touched the base of my neck where his teeth had sinked in and sighed in both relief and sadness as I was feeling the bare and smooth spot no wolf teeth had ever marked.

Great! What a magnificent way to start this damn day! Why? Why did my head keep reminding me of him? Why did the Moon Goddess choose him? And why was I still asking myself this stupid kind of questions ten years after the facts? Writing that letter was maybe not such a great idea after all. Breaking up with this stream of pointless thoughts, I decided to get out of bed. It was way too early to go and see Orithya but again I would not have wanted to get back to these freaking nightmares. I got out of bed naked as usual and grabbed a long tee shirt to put on. I left my room and walked down the stairs to go get coffee. I knew I was supposed to join Luna Orithya for breakfast but without coffee I feared I would be poor company. As the coffee was starting to rise in my Italian coffee maker, I thought of the day I had ahead of me. I was to join our Luna at 8 am at the packhouse for breakfast and I was not looking forward to it. Orithya was great, she was my friend and I loved her, truly, but the mere thought of being stuck all morning and surely all day long in the packhouse, with a lot of people, who had very mixed opinions about me was not something I enjoyed very much. I used to be a people person. I used to be someone everyone gladly talked to, wanted to talk to, but I guess life had made me a bit too... honest. I was generous with myself this morning calling myself honest and not sharp tongued, brutal, and slightly rude.

The sound of bubbling coffee reached my ears. I took a giant thick glass, the kind one uses to drink lemonade or coke from the side of the sink and poured all the coffee I made into it. I took it and went to the living room. I switched on the stereo and put on music. Very loud classical music. Enjoying Mendelssohn's mastery for violins as the boiling liquid was making me feel better. I finished my glass fairly quickly, I hated to drink coffee cold or even lukewarm. I put the empty glass in the sink and, leaving the music on, climbed the stairs two by two. I took off the shirt I had put on twenty minutes ago and hopped into the shower. After the whole shower, hair, makeup thing I grabbed a dress I felt comfortable in: a burgundy dress that showed good cleavage, tight from the shoulders to the waist but then going into a large full skirt. I liked this kind of dress. I was heavy, fat some would even say, which was not this unusual for wolves who had pups, or were older, but not for someone in their prime who still took an active part in fights. But even if some mocked me, like I cared, no one would deny that I was very strong. And even being part of the larger body population of this town, I had a good figure, keeping a marked waist and large bosom and no one ever complained about that. The kind of dress I was putting on did not try to mask that, on the contrary. I was never trying to mask it and I think that what surprised some of them. Feeling comfortable, maybe a bit scary, I put on some shoes and left after switching off the music.