Mate of a Wild Wolf (SAMPLE)

Part One. Chapter Three. David

Four paws slipped upon the inconsistent damp earth where in some places the ground was too soft, other places it was boggy. Specks of mud stuck to the fur upon my legs and even touched upon my stomach where it had been flicked upward as I ran. Powering over wild foliage, around unmoving trees and leaping over rocks, I didn't know where I was going, didn't have an aim or location in mind.

Memories overlapped the locations that I ran passed. We chased rabbits to this location and crashed into each other. We lounged about in the summer sun over there. We happened to have a midnight date beside those rocks, which turned into a late night picnic of shortbread biscuits and rice cakes. I took a sharp left, to try and escape those memories, but there was no point. This whole woodland was filled with memories. The times we ran as pups, the times we hunted with our folks, the times we were training as wolves, the times we came out with our respective friends to do stupid things that teenagers do. The times that we were together as secret lovers.

She swore to me, she convinced me that I was definitely her mate, her wolf believed it as mine came to believe it. She was talking bullshit! She didn't know any better than anyone else, but she screwed us both over with her self convinced lies! Now she was mated to someone else and clearly didn't give a shit about telling me. That apology, given without explanation and given by text, that was all I was going to get from her after a relationship that spanned close to a year?! I wanted to grab her, I wanted to throttle her, I wanted to make her tell me that it was not true, that I was her mate and that this was all a joke!

My wolf howled inside of me and I joined him. Not caring who listened, not caring that they would question the obvious pain in our united voice, not caring that we continued until my throat tightened and my voice began to break.

We went home soaked to the bone as the heavens decided to join us and mourn our loss. Our fur was wet and muddy, puddles formed beneath us as we hovered in the hallway, standing on an old towel like a bad dog having jumped in a river after a stick. Mum was hovering over me, chiding me, while my wolf whimpered inside me. Eventually, we headed for the bathroom, swapping fur for skin, four legs for two and jumping in the shower. Great thing about showers, you can cry all you want to and no one will know better.

It was hard to get moving in the following morning, harder still to continue with my usual routine. I pulled a muscle thanks to pushing myself too far and earned myself a reprimand from the head warrior. It washed all over me, though and as soon as the discomfort eased, I was forcing myself through all sorts of pain all over again.

And then school started again. Our school was a private one, actually owned and run by the pack, but it was good enough that non-wolves attended it as well. The headmaster was a wolf from the pack and supposedly in charge. But from a student perspective, Marcus and his sub-pack ruled here. That sub-pack included me and the human Alex. It was our last year, we would all turn eighteen this year and some of us might even find our actual mates, not lying she-wolves who convinced you otherwise. At least... at least because she graduated last year, I didn't have to see her face around the halls.

The best mask to cover a heartbreak is one that makes you look like a completely selfish bastard. No one thinks you are hurting if you act careless and carefree. Stealing chips off of Alex's lunch plate when he wasn't looking, ogling girls like a typical brat, whose entire emotional quotient was about the same size as their peanut dick, giving out one liners that only amused the speaker.

"Animals." That came from some blond elven girl. Bitch, yeah I don't think much about your kind either right now. Okay so, I really shouldn't tar the whole species with the same brush, but seeing my oldest brother moping about the house, his facade completely shattered was depressing, not helping the moroseness surrounding my wolf and I one bit. It wasn't his fault, he had no blame in what had happened to him. I, at least, had to take some responsibility for my actions, even though I really wanted to lay all of the blame at her feet.

"Don't you know it baby!" I yelled after her, trying to keep in character and not let the girl get to me. I pushed it further, turning around to my friends and adding; "Ah, I hope my mate will look at me that way." That's right, I don't care about Tamara, what's-her-face! She means nothing to me! My mate will be more awesome and wonderful than her and worship me like I was a gift from heaven!

"What with disgust?" Charles joked, he reached for a handful of Alex's chips. It was lunch time at school and the rest of us had demolished the offering of steak and chips. Alex was slower than us when he ate. He always ordered too much food and couldn't eat it all himself, so we always helped him out.

"What are you saying?" I demanded. "She was gagging for me!" She was, the bitch, and once she had her fill, she dropped me like an old mobile phone that was no longer the flavour of the month.

"Exactly," Marcus said, knocking away Charles' hand away, claiming the chips himself. "She could barely hold her vomit down."

"I hope your mate rejects you," I snorted, but inwardly I winced. That was probably a step too far, even for the arsehole I was pretending to be.

"Doubtful," Alex decided to enter the conversation, as well as give up protecting his chips. I joined in the free for all as we ate them amongst ourselves. They were cold. "She'll be your Luna after all, won't she? And she gets a whole hunk of Alpha to boot."

"Damn, your so gay," I said, sourly, knowing that the guy only spoke the truth. No fucking woman with any brains or sense would reject the next Alpha of the pack. He had looks, he had muscles and he had status. What was I, a ragged, brown, miserable beast, compared to him?

"What?" Alex asked with a slight squeak to his question. "How does me stating the truth make me gay?"

"You're human," I pointed out the obvious. "It's not like you can't go get yourself a chick without worrying that you might piss off your future mate with baggage. Or have to do the whole breakup scene and hope they don't cling to your arse and hope you let them stay. So why haven't you?" Seriously, why hadn't he? I know I said before that our way was better, but after all the shit I had been through this summer, I was seriously doubting my own beliefs of late. I could claim my mate would be the best all I wanted to, but I couldn't know that for certain. And what if she found me lacking, just like my brothers mate... the uncertainty that I had never imagined I would ever feel was eating away inside of me.

"Let me remind you," Alex replied. "Half of the girls here are wolves themselves and there are also a few other shifter girls in the mix, all likely waiting for their mates. The rest think I suck up to you guys too much, like I want to be one of you or something so avoid me like a pariah. Otherwise, what with school and my part time job, where the only girls are over eighty, I don't have time for dating, whether they be girls, boys or unspecified." Alex worked in a care home after school sometimes. It wasn't that he needed to work, he was the only kid of two human doctors, they earned a fair bit between them, but he chose to do so anyway. He had some plan to become a doctor himself, following in their footsteps, but I know it made Marcus unhappy whenever he mentioned this. In Marcus' mind, Alex was an important part of the pack and he really wanted to keep the guy by his side.

"Ignore him," Marcus was saying to him now. "He's just pissy. His crush, Tamara, found her mate over the holidays. She moved to their pack three days ago."

"Did he need to know that?" I yelled before I could stop myself. Why the fuck would he say such a thing! I knew that they had some idea of my feelings, but to reveal it in front of Alex and anyone else who was listening, that was a shitty thing to do. "He did not need to know that!" I left the school dining hall before I did something that I would regret.