Claribelle's Mate

Prologue

**I recently added a book to my works called Updates that will let you know when a story may be delayed, put on hold or other interesting tidbits. It will also contain some story ideas that I've been playing with. If you want to know when updates will happen and what ideas I've been having, you should add it to your libraries :)**

I had dreamed of my mate for as long as I could remember. I grew up listening to the story of how my parents met and it set some goals in my mind.

The smile on my mom's face every time she told me the story, as if just telling me took her back to those moments of spectacular realization. I wanted that. I wanted the love so obvious between my parents.

She always started the story with my dad chasing a rogue through the woods, valiantly protecting his pack from the danger they presented. She would try to maintain a serious expression through this part of the story, but she always had a smile gracing her face by the time my dad reached the edge of the woods.

"He needed clothes before he could chase the rogue through town, Belle baby," she would tell me, her smile growing wider. "But in his distraction looking for them, he was captured by animal control and taken to the pound!"

She always laughed at that, and I would join her. No matter how many times she told me that story, neither one of us could help it. It never got old, never stopped being funny.

She would then go on to tell me that she was a spoiled girl and her parents had wanted to get her a dog that would protect her. "I could protect myself, of course," she always added. She was big on self-defense and raised me and my siblings the same way.

But my grandparents went to the pound looking for the perfect dog for their baby girl. They found my dad, agitated in his kennel and decided he was perfect. He looked strong and capable of protecting their little girl and they bought him.

According to my dad, he planned to bolt the second they opened the car door. They lived right next to the woods in his territory and he knew it would be no problem getting away from them.

"But then I saw your mother," he would say, glancing lovingly at my mom and wrapping an arm around her. "And I knew, deep down in my soul, that she was mine and I would never leave her."

As a little girl, I saw their love as the love of fairy tales and my perspective had yet to change.

My mom would continue on to tell me about him pretending to be the perfect dog for a month. He was protective, loyal and playful. He had a plan for revealing who he was, but fate sped it up.

A rival alpha targeted my mom and my dad revealed himself while protecting her from him. She'd tell me how she'd been terrified, but willing to believe him. She hadn't yelled at him when he told her he'd been pretending to be her loyal pet for a month "I still can't believe I let him off the hook so easily," my mom would tell me as she remembered that day.

Their relationship had it's trials, it's ups and downs, starting with that rival alpha, Bane Drabek, and ending with him killing my mom. I didn't learn that part of the story until I got older though.

Yes, Bane Drabek killed my mom. She had sacrificed herself for my dad when Bane got the upper hand in their battle. It completely crushed my dad; Uncle Eli described him as a robot at the time.

What my mom had been too scared to tell my dad or the pack was that she had dormant vampire genes. Vampires and werewolves had hated each other at the time and she was terrified that my dad would hate her as well, so she didn't tell him and planned on never doing so.

That wasn't possible after the fight with Bane. Him killing her triggered her dormant genes and she made the transition from human to vampire in a week.

Uncle Xavier went to get my dad when she woke up and he was elated she was alive, not caring that she was a vampire. He ignored the hatred between the species and stayed by her side as she transitioned, helping her bring the coven and the pack together.

That's the kind of love that I want. One that will last through life's obstacles and tragedies. I want a mate who will love me through anything, support me and be there for me always, as I will be for him.

I want a love that's never ending.

~~~*~~~Author's Note~~~*~~~

So there's the prologue for you guys! :) what do you think?

~Haley~