Chapter 24- Sloane As I dress, I don’t bother to wipe off the steam from the mirror because I already know how awful I look. Every time I cry, my face looks like the marshmallow man, and stays puffy for hours after. I sigh and pull out my make up kit though I infrequently wear it. I usually save it for our girls night out with Lark and Willow, and an occasional special occasion like a Birthday Party for an adult of the pack. I do it for myself to boost my sometimes fragile confidence. But most of the time, I just don’t care because what you see is what you get, and most of the mateless wolves here are after my uterus, not my face. Trying to date a human guy from my college campus is just too much of a logistical nightmare I don’t feel like dealing with. Not only are wolves territorial over their females, they are also naturally leery of outsiders. I would never be able to get a human dude onto pack lands undetected, and with wolves sniffing around, getting all up in our private busin
The answers come to me, and I complete my test fairly confident I didn’t bomb it. My microbiology class passes without a hitch, as we look at lifeforms under the microscopes, that grew in our petri dishes. Last week’s class, the professor made us take a swab sample of a commonly touched surface and see what grew from it. Just looking at the nasty bacteria that flourished in my dish from the handle of the school’s water fountain, made me thank the moon I threw out my birth control this morning after it’s dip in the porcelain throne.I’m excited when class lets out and I rush back to Shadow Ridge to see my baby. I talk to Iris for a few moments to see how his day went, she assures me he was a little angel, but I don’t think she would tell me even if he hadn’t behaved himself. Alder is out, not that I mind, because things feel a bit tense at times with my child’s grandfather. Maybe it’s because he’s not a very social wolf and tends to keep to himself. But sometimes I feel like the head be
Blaze is up to his old tricks again. He’s crossed a fucking line, outside of packlands watching me, in his wolf form, in a suburb of Portland, at my job. Further proof of my theory comes from the too-large wolf tracks I see out in the grass. I won’t stand for this. This has to stop, especially when his actions terrorize a frail old man and risk exposure of the pack. I’ll bring this matter up with Alpha Fennel, or my favorite Ironclaws to give the aggressive Beta, with serious boundary issues, another getting right with the moon talk.I can’t blame my client for being uneasy after what he saw. It doesn’t make my job tonight any easier and takes twice the time to get him settled. I have to prove to him all the windows in his room are locked, the curtains shut tight, several times. I have to give him tea and a dose of his melatonin and anxiety medications. I listen patiently to his ramblings of how the wolves stole his only daughter and she never came back. When I first started here las
I ran from my mate again like a coward with my tail tucked between my legs. But this time, I was not just trying to run away from her to avoid the fate the moon has made for me, but also because I do not want my mate to watch me die. Because I feel inside of me things are broken, and I do not feel I can be put back together again in more ways than one. I do not want her to break watching me pass from this life into the spirit world. I will not get the honor of joining the moon in the sky, because I will die a coward’s death, like I so deserve. I am truly broken now that I have finally been reunited with my mate and my time on this Earth is nearly over. My last thoughts are of her. And all the things I missed out on by rejecting our mating bond. I will never know the feel of her body against mine outside of our dreams, the press of her sweet lips atop mine, fall asleep making love to her, and awake with her in my arms the next morning, never see the way the sunlight shines in her blac
My bloody hands shake as I make my way back to my car. Leaving those woods without Slade, my mate, is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I’m terrified he won’t ever come back out again. Of all the things left unsaid and undone between us. I can’t feel the bond, and I did not take any of the calming tonic, so that could mean he is already gone. I pray to the moon the link between us is only weak right now because he wears his fur and is hurt. The woods blur beneath me as more tears come uninhibited. I stumble through the trees and to the road, my heart hurts, it pounds inside my chest so hard. All the years I thought I was crazy, it was because he was inside my head. Slade has been my mate all along. I am scared for him. But now the anger also comes, because he had to have known for some time now, had to have felt the full effects of the mating bond long before I did. And he left me. I sob. I can make out the bent-up hood of my car in the moonlight. And I nearly drop to my kn
I rummage through my drawers and grab out the first pair of panties and bra I find. I grab a t-shirt and a pair of sweats and I dress in record time, only half-dried off, and with my hair still dripping wet. CeCe moves out of my doorway as she knows I’m a woman on a mission. I can’t leave this house without seeing my son. When my world feels like it’s going to hell, Gauge anchors me and makes things make sense, reminds me of my reasons to face another day and go on. And now, moon willing, I’ll also have my mate as another reason to keep standing when everything around me falls apart.I walk into my baby’s room as quietly as I can. His cherub face glows in the moon shaped nightlight, his lips adorably puckered against the crib mattress, his little tush up in the air, his chunky legs tucked under him. He has favored this peculiar way of sleeping for as long as I can remember. One of his arms is draped over his firetruck pillow. My heart instantly softens at the sight of my cub, sleepin
When we reach the clearing on our packlands, River shifts back into his human skin. I do the same because I want to face my mate again when I can hold her in my arms. When I can use my words to tell her all the things I’ve been holding back for the past ten years we’ve been apart. Beg forgiveness at her feet. My ribs ache, every part of me hurts, and I would probably fall over if my cousin wasn’t holding me up, but still, I must get to her and nothing else matters.I lift my nose to the wind to try and catch the path her most recent scent leads. Her scent is imprinted in the air, on the very land it seems, my mate is very much a part of my pack, and I can’t fucking get enough of her divine smell. It’s intoxicating, and I’m already addicted. How had I ever left her? What in the moon was wrong with me when I fled all those years ago? Will she take me back? I will spend the rest of my life making it up to her if Sloane will allow me the privilege and honor.But she has already found ano
I want my mate happy and whole, but the selfish, possessive part of me, wants her happy and whole by my side and not find comfort or love with another wolf. Her fingertips graze my skin butterfly soft at first, testing the waters. Still, I shiver. Fuck, if my mate keeps touching me like this, especially so close to my cock, everyone in the room will know I’m turned on. There will be no hiding, my hard, naked dick from their eyes. I force myself to keep my eyes open and not moan as she spreads the salve beneath my navel, then follows the line of my hip bones. Then up my abs and my chest liberally. Back down south again to make sure she hasn’t missed a spot. I imagine the feel of those soft, pretty hands of hers much lower. Pumping my cock in her silk touch. I’m going to get erect with a fucking audience and I try and think of something to turn me off. Anything to distract myself from my mate’s wandering fingers, especially now that my pain is being dulled as the pain meds kick in.