Tate shakes his head, and we spend the rest of the trip in silence. Tate’s pack was only a few kilometres from mine. When we get closer, I tell him to pull over and he does.
Hopping out of the car, I grab my bag. Tate hops out watching me.
“I can drop you home Drake” He tells me, and I shake my head.
I start stripping my clothes off getting ready to shift so I can run the rest of the way. Tate’s eyes roaming over me and my stomach knots under his intense gaze. “Can you not fucking stare” I warn him stuffing my clothes in the bag. He shrugs, not caring in the slightest that his stare is bothering me. I growl at him and he averts his eyes before I shift. My wolf comes forward and I try to fight against him as my wolf goes to him instantly. Tate runs his fingers through our fur before kneeling down and I fight the urge to shift back, knowing on foot it would take ages to get home.
Tate presses his head against us, and I can’t stop the purr that we let out loving his affection. My wolf whined wanting to go to his mate, not caring at all that he is a male like him. It sickens me, yet I can’t bring myself to hate him. We can’t help it if the Moon Goddess got it wrong and mated us to another man, at least she made up for it by letting us be mated to Lana too.
“Stop it Titus, we need to head home” I tell my wolf, trying to get him to stop rubbing our face in Tate’s warm hand.
“Go on Titus before Drake takes control” Tate tells him, kissing his head before standing. My wolf was reluctant to leave him and honestly so was I. I could never admit it to him, but his presence would always affect me no matter how much I deny it. Yet my father would never allow it, no matter how much it destroys me; how much it weakens my wolf.
“We need our mates” Titus growls at me as we take off towards our border. I tried to tune out his comments, my wolf was pissed off, but he also understood. Marking Tate wasn’t an option, no matter how much I wanted to.
“What if he doesn’t approve of Lana?” Titus asks me, as we come to the pack house.
“Why wouldn’t he, she is female. Can provide us with an heir” I tell him, but I could still feel his doubt. Shifting back, I head up the porch steps and open the door. It felt good to be home, but I also dreaded it because I would have to face my father. I had only just stepped into the foyer when he appeared leaning on the door frame of the living room.
“And where the fuck have you been for the last few days?” He asks, his eyes shooting daggers at me. Not many people knew other than my pack, my father hadn’t handed the pack over to me yet. Refused to when I was mated to another man. He believes I have brought shame to the family name; the rest of the pack just believes it’s because I haven’t found my mate yet. Little did they know I had years ago, which left two options for me, my father had to hand the pack over willingly or I had to challenge him for it.
“Fucking rip the bastard to pieces” Titus growls in my head at me. He loathed my father, but he was still my father whether I liked it or not. I wasn’t like Tate, I had a good upbringing, was raised right. I loved my father, respected him, I couldn’t kill him. Without him I would still be a rogue, we built this pack from nothing, I owed everything we had to him. He fought to build this; it didn’t feel right to me to take it by force. I couldn’t kill my father like Tate did to his, not that the bastard didn’t deserve it. Alpha Jedd was a right dick, killed his own mate, Tate did the right thing killing him.
Lana POV
Over Two years later
I haven’t seen them in two and half years, I managed to stretch out more time, telling them I wasn’t ready. But today was the day. Drake refused to wait any longer, saying I was weakening his wolf, weakening his pack. Tate was willing to wait till I came on my own and managed to convince Drake to wait. I had plans that didn’t involve being mated to two Alpha’s. I wanted to go to university, wanted to travel but not even my mother could delay them anymore. She believed I had made them wait long enough, tried to convince me this was a good thing, that once I had been marked that I would understand fully what it was like to be fated to someone and to feel the effects of the mate bond in full force. That scared me, I didn’t like having my future chosen for me. It seemed old and barbaric, an arranged marriage in a way.
I just finished packing and flopped on the bed beside my sister. She wraps her arms around me pulling me close. I was going to miss her; she has always been by my side since day dot. Now I was being forced to leave her behind. Arial still hadn’t found her mate, but I was hoping she would find the happiness she craved when she left for university, she was going on her own adventure leaving the pack to pursue her dreams of becoming a doctor. I had the same dream but that went out the window the day I met them; my future altered to fit them.
“We could always just run away, travel the world, be free” Arial whispered and I could hear the sadness in her voice. She didn’t want me to go either.
“No point, they will just keep looking until they find me” I tell her, and I feel her nod against my shoulder.
This had been my home all my life and now I was leaving it behind because the Moon Goddess thought it was a good idea to mate me with two people who hated each other. I spoke to them every Thursday on the phone but always refused to see them even when they travelled down. I managed to evade them. My mother was forced to deal with them, but they didn’t want to push their luck too much, knowing she could banish them from entering the pack.
I felt nausea build up when I heard a car coming down the long driveway. Hear it’s tyres on the dirt getting closer. Two and half years and now I had to face them, I was not ready. I wasn’t ready for what was expected of me. I may be nearly 19 but that didn’t mean I would want to start a family. I felt even though I was the same age as my mother that it was still too young. Most people my age were looking at university, partying with their friends, not getting ready to settle down.
The last two years I have had to watch everything I do. My mother drummed in my head that it would make matters worse if I dated or did things normal people my age did. So, in the end I broke up with Nolan. The worst part being I had to explain why he looked crushed. Humans didn’t really understand much about the mate bond’s of werewolves, hell I didn’t even understand myself being a Hybrid, but my father even Ryker said it would be a betrayal on them if I let another man in so instead, I steered clear of them. It was hard watching Arial get to do normal things wolves our age did, party, date. She even lost her virginity last year, she said sex was overrated.
Yet even If I wanted to, I couldn’t because Dad said even though I wasn’t marked they would feel it because the mate bond was in effect for them. The longer I went without them, the more I forgot about them. I barely even remembered what they looked like. It had been that long, now I was expected to go with them willingly. Seemed absurd that I was just being handed over to them and now my future seems uncertain.