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Chapter One
Oz
I’d kept my head tilted back to the heavens for as long as I could remember. Wanting. Waiting. Hoping. Cursing. Despairing. Craving. Dying over and over for someone who might not even exist.
Except I knew she did. She existed in this world and already part of her lived in my heart. The thought of her. The hope of her. It’s all I lived for.
“The stars have shown themselves tonight, Oz.” That was my dad’s cue for me to get some sleep. He acted like I was still a teenager sometimes.Get some sleep. Have you eaten?
I knew it was out of love but damn it, I was halfway through my twenties. Monitoring my sleep was something he didn’t have to do anymore, although I got so little.
“They have. I’m just not tired yet.”
He pushed out a long, weighted breath and slapped his hands on his thighs. “I just hope you’re not wasting your time, son.”
“I’m not, Dad. I’m not.”
Another long exhale. We’d been having this frustrating conversation more and more. “Well, goodnight then.”
I waved to him but was clutching my journal, waiting for him to leave. I’d accepted the lone part of this journey a long time ago. Yeah, my pack believed in the prophecies, but they used them like fairy tales, only relying on them and the lessons they taught when the situation called for it.
As for me, I hung onto every word of them. Ever since I’d stumbled onto the chronicles at the age of eight, I’d been engrossed in them. Obsessed. There were some about the circle of life, the waves of prosperity and want, the valleys of humility after the mountains of pride.
There was something for everyone in the Prophesies.
But it wasn’t until I was in my teens that I put the pieces together, or more correctly, connected the constellations that marked my birth.
And the birth of her—my mate—my fated soul mate.
I studied everything I could find, while many others were showing far less interest in reading.
And what did I learn? That my mate was out there, waiting for me.
I waited until my dad got inside and pulled out my inches-thick journal. I transcribed the positioning of the constellations every night, watching the patterns, letting my life be dictated by the movement of them, the reappearance of my old friends in the distance.
It hadn’t escaped my attention that I might be doing all of this in vain. The sign from the heavens might not even come or—the thought made me sick to my stomach— she might have already found a mate and decided not to wait for the sign. Or even believed in it.
No. That couldn’t be. She was out there, probably staring up at the same sky I was.
I scribbled down what I saw, checking above me as I did, not wanting to miss a thing.
And just as I glanced up, the shadow of despair, regret, and lost hope marring my heart took over.
If I wasn’t careful, I was going to be alone for the rest of my life. The rest of my pack all had mates. They took mates not based on the stars or waiting for their fated one, but instead, picking mates based on hormones and future financial security.
Choosing a mate would be like settling for less, in my mind.
Because whoever I chose from my pack wouldn’t be her. And even though I didn’t know a thing about her, she was made for me and me for her.
A noise like the cracking of glass pierced my ears. I stood, letting my journal fall to the ground, nearly toppling into the dying campfire my dad and I had been sitting around. A star, brighter and more vibrant than I’d ever seen, shot across the sky and stopped at dead north above me. It vibrated in place for a few seconds and then spliced into four stars, the tips of them still interconnected.
I inhaled, having held my breath while the vision took place.
This was it. The sign I’d been waiting for.
It was her, my mate, our mate. There was more than one of me in the world fated to her.
The only thing that mattered now was that I find her. I would follow that star until it led me to her.
It was time to go.
She was waiting for me.
And I had waited a lifetime for her.
