AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One
Diana
Crain was not happy about my decision to take a girls’ trip before our mating.
I shouldn’t have been at all surprised by that, but he’d always been so easygoing that his low snarl caught me off guard. “Why do you have to go now? We can go on our honeymoon or, if you really want to go with your friends, make it next year after we’ve been married awhile.”
I studied him, his grimace, tight shoulders, and lowered brow in puzzlement. We’d been friends since we were very young, but he’d never reacted this way to any of my plans, and a lot of them were crazier than a simple pre-mating girls’ trip. Why, with humans it was apparently close to being a rule that a bride and her friends went out on the town or to Las Vegas or something to celebrate ending her single days. I didn’t know if other shifters did, but since our ranch was located in the middle of the High Sierras, we weren’t super close to Las Vegas or any exciting town.
Well…Reno wasn’t too terribly far, but it didn’t have the appeal of a trip over the mountains to the coast. It was a great little city, even called “The Biggest Little City in the World,” but I’d been there enough times to make it less than exciting. It was where we shopped for things we didn’t make, where we bought things like shoes and yardage and new clothes. We sold things there, skins and wild game sometimes. Anyway, for my girls’ trip I wanted something new.
And I’d never been to the ocean. How did Analise know it was a fantasy I’d held close to my heart for years. I suppose I’d thought we’d go at some point after we were married. Not for our honeymoon because he’d made it quite clear that he wanted to go to visit another pack about three hundred miles north, camp along the way, and just be alone together. And I’d have had fun, but going now? With my friends? It really appealed.
And Crain’s attitude was not winning him any points.
“I’m going now to have fun with the girls before we settle down together.” I tried to be firm, to show him it wasn’t up for discussion while still confused at how he was behaving. “You could do something similar with the guys,” I suggested. “Maybe go to Reno or something.” It wasn’t my dream, but he could go there or wherever.
“I don’t like it, Diana. It’s not safe.” So now he was doing this? “Women alone, anything could happen.”
“As our alpha female reminded me, we may be women alone, but we are also wolves. Apex predators, if I may remind you. I appreciate your concern, but we’ll be fine.”
“Is this how it will be when we’re married?” Outrage shook his voice. Who was this man?
But I wasn’t going to back down. If he hadn’t figured out by now that I was my own woman, he’d better figure it out. “If you mean do I plan to continue to live my life without asking your permission to do so, yes. So, if you want to back out of our arrangement, I’ll understand.” Doubts that had already been in my head since my conversation with Analise were rearing up again.
His face crumpled. “No, of course I don’t. We have a whole life ahead of us, and I just want to make sure we get off on the right foot.”
I studied him, considering. “Crain, we’ve known each other our whole lives. You’re one of my best friends, and I thought you understood me better than this by now. But I’m not going to be a clingy wife who runs to you every time she needs to make a decision.” He began to speak but I held up a hand. “While I’m gone, think about if you really want to mate me. I’m not going to change just because I wear your mark. I thought you liked me as I am.”
“Diana, of course I do.” He reached out and pulled me close. “But why do we have to wait to mate? We can do it today.”
“But we have the whole celebration planned for next month. Everyone is expecting it and we have guests coming from other packs.” Why was he being like this?
“The public part can wait, but the private mating? No one needs to know if we do it right away.”
I pushed on his chest until he let me go. “Crain, I feel like I don’t even know you. Why are you so upset about me taking a trip with my friends?”
“It’s not that…”
“Then what is it?”
“Nothing.” He hugged me again and bent to kiss me, but I was too uneasy to let things go beyond a quick peck. And as soon as I could, I left him to go find my friends and get things set up for our trip. Maybe being single forever would have been a better option.
***
My friends were as up for the trip as I’d hoped. Bunny, Sandra, and Wendy were all mated, of course, since I was the lone single in our group, but in each case, their very supportive mates agreed to watch their little ones and let them have a full week’s break. Since their little ones were between two and five, they needed the rest.
In a lot of packs, the males would not have agreed to let them go, but our alphas encouraged equality and any male who tried to run roughshod over his mate would find himself with a decision to make. Chill it down, or find another pack. Unfortunately, that would also put his mate in a very difficult spot—go with her mate or stay without—but so far, the few instances that had required intervention had successfully smoothed out.
Not that any relationship was perfect, even fated mates, but my friends were blessed with some of the nicest guys in the pack. Protective, yes, but not to the point where they tried to keep their mate at home and under their thumbs.
Many believed that mates couldn’t stand being apart for any length of time without some kind of horrible results, but that seemed to be an old mates’ tale. Wendy had gone to her parents’ lands to take care of her mother recently for three weeks and, while she missed Bargus terribly, her health did not fail.
And it hadn’t made her decline my invitation for the beach trip.
It would take a couple of days to get there, traveling in wolf form with basic necessities in a harness-mounted pack, and a couple of days back, but the travel time would be part of the fun. Camping out, hunting for our food along the way… The clothes we’d need for the beach at the end of summer, along with a few outfits for eating in casual restaurants, etc. didn’t weigh much. And neither did the dehydrated foods, snack bars, and small cooking/eating kits tucked inside. Water filters would make sure we didn’t have to carry any beverages, although our wolves were perfectly happy drinking directly from streams and never seemed to suffer any consequences like giardia or other water-borne illnesses. I suppose we could have just drunk only in our fur, but sometimes it wasn’t convenient to shift back and forth.
Nor did getting ready to go, so we set out the next morning. My friends’ mates were all there, babies and little ones waving and smiling. They were all eating cookies, which might have explained why they were so cheerful with their moms leaving, but before we shifted, I noticed a tear in more than one of the girls’ eyes.
