AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Fuck, she smells good.
My wolf nods in agreement, but he’s too busy taking deep breaths and practically drooling to add his own opinion.
What are the chances that my new neighbor would be my mate? She’s busy chatting away so she doesn’t notice me being preoccupied with my own thoughts.
“How long have you lived here?” she asks me and I blink, licking my lips to try to hide my elongating incisor teeth.Down, boy,I tell my wolf.
“About nine months now.”
“It’s so pretty. The view is definitely a lot better than anything we had in Kansas,” she says wistfully as she turns and stares at the coastline for a beat.
“You’re here because of Phoenix, right?” I ask as we continue toward downtown. The sunlight catches in her pale blonde hair, making it sparkle. I’m momentarily struck dumb at the sight of her. My beautiful, painfully precious mate. She’s here. Right next to me.
And I can’t fucking claim her.
“Yeah, she’s my best friend,” my mate answers easily, bringing me back into the moment. “I was missing her, but I needed a change of pace, too. The way she described this place seemed magical so I figured why not, you know?”
I nod and try to focus on what she’s saying instead of thinking of all of the ways that I could take her and claim her.
We’re not claiming our mate,I remind myself and my wolf. He whines inside of me and I swallow hard.We can’t take her. We’ll end up cursing her, too,I remind him and he just whines again.
I thought my wolf and I were in agreement, both resigned to the fact that we would never claim our mate. Having her here right now, right here next to us, has me wishing that things were different though.
I try fighting thoughts of the past, but they cloud my mind as we walk further into town. The story goes that when I was born, my parents pissed off the witch that lived next door to us and she put a curse on me. I was destined to bring nothing but pain and suffering to those around me.
It sounds silly at first. I get it. But I grew up hearing the story over and over again from my parents and my former pack. It was hard to come to terms with. I remember thinking that it was a joke, that I could somehow change my fate.
Decades later, and too many terrible things have happened around me for me to ignore. The curse is real, and it wouldn’t be fair to my mate to bring her into my life. Not when I am the way that I am.
My mom died when I was twelve. She was shot by hunters right in front of me.
My father died in a fire when I was seventeen. I thought he made it out of the house, but I was wrong.
After that, it was obvious that I wasn't wanted in my pack, so I left and joined the Army. I was hoping that I would be able todo some good, maybe prove to the world, to myself, that I'm the master of my own destiny.
That hasn’t happened. Instead, I couldn’t even protect my best friend, Griffin, the only other shifter in my unit. He’s still alive, no thanks to me, but he also has some scars and a bullet wound. If Griffin were human, he’d have been dead for sure.
So, I can’t risk claiming my mate. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself or survive if something bad happened to her because of me. Especially now that I know she’s human. The curvy little blonde bombshell with golden-brown eyes is extra fragile, which only solidifies my choice to stay away.
“All of the buildings are so charming,” she says, staring up at the clock tower in the center of town.
I grit my teeth, reaching out and grabbing her elbow before she can run into a group of tourists headed the other day.
"Whoops," she says good-naturedly and I wonder how often this type of thing happens to her.
“Where are you headed?” I ask her.
“The bookstore to see Phoenix, and then the hardware store. I need to pick up some supplies for the house.”
Panic races down my spine at the thought of this girl wielding a hammer or something even deadlier.
“What kind of supplies?” I ask, praying that she just needs some of those Command strips or something.
“Oh, a bunch of stuff. The house needs a lot of work. I’m going to try to fix that front porch step today. Then there’s the hole in the kitchen wall and the fireplace.”
All I can picture is her hurting herself and I can’t have that.
“Why don’t you hire someone to do all of that?” I ask her.
