A Cold Wind Blows (Forgotten series, #3)

Chapter 31: Part 2

No one would ever dictate my choices for me. I had fallen prey to the bond before and I vowed never again. I would not break my vow, not in this life or the next. But it wasn't the bond that had my wolf surging forward like she had nearly five months before. It was me and my own emotions, it was her emotions and her choice. We didn't care for or need a bond. We had chosen without its influence.

I stared at him intently. My wolf tilting her head as I did so. A word rose up from the depths of my stomach and through my chest. Satisfaction and possession radiating off of it thickly

Mine.

The large Alpha that had given me a choice at the Alpha's Gathering had done what I thought was impossible. He made me want a male.

He did it through his actions. He took care of our children with tenderness, care, and most of all love. He never tried to convince me or my wolf that he was our mate, all he did was want us to acknowledge that he was a father. He had fought so hard to be in their lives, taking what I had given him out pause because it brought him closer to them. He had proven his strength and his loyalty again and again. He had given me no reason to deny him respect or my trust.

He gave my boy a place in his family.

He had done it without a thought, accepting the boy as one of his own. It didn't matter that he never met him, that he belonged to someone else. He heard of my boy and his first thought was to do as Damascus should have done nearly eleven years ago. He helped me bury my son. Gave me a chance to say good bye and he had given him a place in his family as he did so. Without a thought for what his actions would have said to me.

He was an Alpha who held pack members as they cried and put no bearing on bloodlines, talking about our boys as if they had every chance of inheriting his throne. He had learned patience and sought out the same books I read to help him better understand why I acted the way I did. He was everything that I had not expected to find.

He was a male who wore his emotions on his shirt sleeve while I held mine tight to my chest. He was a male who laughed and played in joy with our children while I couldn't find the ease too. He baked the cakes that I couldn't and ruined when I attempted, not saying a word as he helped me scrap the charcoal remains out of the pans. He spoke out to everyone in the pack while I stayed silent on the sidelines, he told them to let me be, to stay back until I approached.

He complimented me. His personality some how fitting perfectly into the broken and jagged edges of my own. He had an excess where I lacked and was fluid around where I didn't. I looked up to the moon as her light danced through Timothy's stone. We all had our paths to go through in life and Mene had drug me along mine because she knew the only person in our world who could break through to me and fit the broken edges that I had was the male standing in front of me. I returned my gaze back to him.

He gestured with his hand and I felt a bit stunned by the revelation that Mene hadn't being punishing me. She had been helping me, guiding me along, forcing me to see what was in front of me. She had helped me to a place where my grief could be taken and gave me a male to do it with. She hadn't dictated my choice but gave me the option of that choice entirely.

"Lace?" He shifted on his feet as he held out his hand. I shifted my face from studying his face to it. Such a harmless gesture but it made the world of difference to me because I was going to deviate from my normal pattern and it scared me. I slowly reached out, grasping his large hand in my own. His eyes dropped to where I had joined our hands, staring as I did before he gently tugged me forward.

I let him lead me, taking the time to study his form. He was strong, this was something my wolf already knew. She had chosen him the night of the battle. It had been his brutality and his strength and his loyalty. All of the traits her nature dictated she wanted. I was the difficult one. I had the longer list that I hadn't realized had even existed. Mine had been actions and personality and he had marked them all so I chose him. He was mine. But it didn't stop me from finally seeing his form as something more than simply an object like any other.