WESLEY
I stared out the window above my kitchen sink, sipping my beer as I looked at the view of the lake from my house.
Soon, I thought to myself. Soon, this will all be mine.
Well, provided I found my mate. Or chose one. And, since it had been three years since I’d turned twenty-one and been old enough to meet my fated mate, the idea of having to take a chosen mate was becoming more appealing.
I let out a sigh and set my bottle down on the countertop, my hands gripping the edge and my chin dropping to my chest. Exhaustion hit me like a freight train, the same as it did every day at the same time.
My lycan grew more restless and agitated by the day. His constant irritation wore me out to where all I wanted to do after working all day was come home, have a beer, and turn the TV on, only moving to tell Netflix that, yes, I was STILL watching.
The only reprieve I got was the early morning workouts every day, and the interrupted sleep each night. His attitude was becoming a distraction even at work, and unless something changed—and quick—there could be some real problems on my hands.
My lycan bristled, and I let out an almost silent groan as I heard the front door open and shut, followed by the footsteps of the trio of fools who decided to trespass on my domain of peace this evening. I loved my friends, but they had poor timing.
“We are going for a run!” Reid declared without even greeting me.
I snapped my head to find him grinning like a clown in the kitchen doorway.
“What? No,” I said with a shake of my head.
“It’s Friday night, the moon is almost full, and my wolf is chomping at the bit to get a run in,” Reid said, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
I shook my head again and picked up my beer to take another sip. “Put the beer down and let’s go!” Reid exclaimed.
Nolan sighed. “Let the man finish it, at least?” he said, trying to compromise. “In fact, there is plenty of time. We can all have a drink before we go.”
Reid pouted, but crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Fine,” he agreed.
Nolan smiled and then walked to the fridge and grabbed a beer. Sebastian was right behind him. He grabbed two beers and held one out to Reid, who shook his head. Seb shrugged and closed the door, keeping hold of both beers as he joined me near the window.
I raised a brow at him as he used the edge of my white marble countertops to open both. He then proceeded to take one sip from each beer, smacking
his lips and sighing in satisfaction.
My brows flew up even more as he chugged the beer in his left hand, downing the whole thing faster than I could shift into my lycan. Nolan shook his head as Seb leaned against the counter with me.
Reid just smirked. “Now you will all need to piss during our run.”
The three of us looked at him and then burst into laughter. I gripped Sebastian’s shoulder for balance and he covered his mouth with his bottle. Reid looked at the three of us and sighed.
“You all laugh,” he said, pointing at each of us. “But there is a method to my madness. I, Reid Thomas, have never peed in wolf form.”
Nolan snorted, his head falling down to his chest as he kept laughing.
Sebastian looked at Reid with a mix of awe and disbelief.
“That’s quite an accomplishment, Reid,” I said. “Would you like a cookie?”
“Yes, actually. Do you have some?” He turned towards the pantry and pulled the door open.
“I-what? No. It-it’s an expression.”
“Well, fuck you and your expression. You don’t offer a man cookies unless you actually have some!” He slammed the door shut with a huff.
I downed the last of my beer to hide my laughter, but the other two didn’t bother to conceal their chuckles. Nolan reached for my bottle and grabbed both of Sebastian’s, setting them with the rest of my recycling by the back door. Sebastian put his arm around Reid’s shoulders and walked him towards my front door.
“If we hurry, maybe we can snag some from Maya and Levi’s party,” he muttered to Reid. “She was ordering some of those fancy ones.”
“Ooh, with sprinkles?” Reid said, lighting up again.
“Seriously?” I asked.
“What do you have against sprinkles, Wes?” Reid asked, glancing back at me.
“They’re for kids,” I explained, and Reid rolled his eyes. “And they feel weird in my mouth,” I added.
Sebastian opened his mouth to say something, but my phone rang. I looked at it and saw the same number that had been calling me for two whole days. I’d sent it to voicemail every time, and they’d never left a message, but they had called I don’t even know how many times in the last forty-eight hours.
I decided to suck it up and answer. It must be something important if they’d called this many times.
“Hello?” I sighed into the phone. “OH MY GOSH! FINALLY!”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and glanced at it again, double- checking the number in confusion.
“Lauren?” I asked.
The guys all stiffened and paused, turning to stare at me.
“What?” I mouthed, and they just exchanged looks with each other.
I turned my back on them and leaned against the porch railing so I couldn’t see their faces. They never liked any of the girls I dated. They’d probably hate my mate, too, if I ever found her.
“I’ve been calling you for DAYS!” Lauren screeched into the phone, and I had to move it away from my ear again.
“Sorry, I didn’t see your number coming through,” I said.
“I KNOW!” she exclaimed. “My phone broke because Cheyenne drove off with it on the hood of her car. It flew through the air and landed on the
other side of the highway, and then a semi ran over it, and well, I’m sure you can imagine what it looked like after that. I called my dad to tell him what happened, and he won’t let me get another new phone because this is the third one I’ve broken in two months, and…”
I lowered the phone to the railing as I gripped it, my teeth clenching at the grating sound of her voice as she kept rambling through her very long- winded explanation. My lycan winced as, with each sentence, her volume and pitch went higher. Why was I doing this to myself?
And then it hit me. We hadn’t spoken one word to each other for over two days, and I hadn’t even noticed. I wasn’t even worried about her or concerned that something might be wrong. I hadn’t tried to reach out to her either, or her dad or her brother.
I peeked at my friends, and Reid had this “I told you so, dumbass” look on his face.
I brought the phone back to my ear with reluctance and resignation.
“… so I was calling you on Cheyenne’s phone this whole time because I wanted to remind you that—”
“Look, Lauren, I think we need to end this.”
“Oh, ok, well I can call you back later if you’re busy, or—” “No, Lauren, not this as in this phone call. This as in, us.” Silence. I shifted my weight between my feet as I waited. “But, Wessy—”
“Don’t call me that,” I grumbled, rolling my shoulders back.
She’d heard Maddie use it once and latched onto it, thinking it would be a cute pet name. It wasn’t.
“Where is this coming from? We had something good! You said… you said—”
Giant, weepy sobs blasted through the phone, and I winced, and even the guys on my front lawn made faces, covering their ears.
“I know, Lauren,” I soothed. “I know what I said about staying together until one of us found our mate, but… it’s just not working anymore. I need
—”
I paused. I didn’t know what I needed, but it wasn’t her. My lycan grumbled in my mind, irritated with my confusion.
“I just think this is best,” I finished.
“Fine,” she sniffled. “Fine! That’s just fine! I don’t need you, anyway!” She grew louder, again, with each declaration. “I have alphas lining up to date me!”
“Great!” I said with a silent laugh. Reid snickered and covered his mouth, but I saw him and shook my head. “I hope that works out for you,” I told her, then I hung up the phone.
Sebastian lifted his arms in the air in a silent cheer, and Reid started singing:
“Another one bites the dust… Another one bites the dust…
And another one gone, and another one gone Another one bites the dust…”
My nostrils flared as I tried to keep my cool. Sebastian danced beside him, and as Nolan walked up to me, he attempted to keep a straight face, and remain serious, but failed.
“Sorry, Wes,” he chuckled as he grabbed my shoulder. “But you have to admit, he’s not wrong.”
The worst part was they were right. And I wanted to be annoyed, but I wasn’t. My list of ladies wasn’t anywhere near as long as Reid’s, but there
was a small string of brokenhearted she-wolves I had left in the dust. “Why’d you let this one go?” Reid called as I made my way off the porch
with Nolan by my side.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my brows furrowed. “Well, with Jane, it was ‘We didn’t click anymore.’” “Caitlin didn’t make him laugh,” Sebastian said.
“No, that was Katie,” Reid reminded him. “Caitlin wanted different things in life.”
“Oh, that’s right!” Sebastian laughed.
“Shannon talked too much,” Nolan added. “And Ashley didn’t talk enough.”
“And Beth was too agreeable,” Reid concluded. “So, we want to know, what was wrong with this one?”
My jaw clenched as I held in a snarl. My lycan didn’t like the teasing, but he—and I—also knew my friends weren’t wrong. With each female I’d dated, I had found some unforgivable, irreparable flaw. Something that was maybe tiny and insignificant to most but was too large a hurdle for me to overlook and move past. And Lauren was no exception.
“I didn’t worry about her safety,” I mumbled, shoving my hands in my pockets and looking at the ground as we walked.
Sebastian snorted.
“What?” I asked him with a glare.
“Nothing,” he said after a sharp look from Reid.
“Well, it’s true,” I continued. “I didn’t even realize we hadn’t talked in two days. I should have been worried or at least realized we hadn’t spoken, but…”
I trailed off at another snicker from Sebastian and shot him another glare. “What?!” I gritted out.
“Nothing!” he said again, lifting his hands in the air.
I narrowed my eyes at him, but he just gave me a cheeky grin, then said, “Look, Reid! Sprinkles!”
I stopped in my tracks as the two of them took off towards the cookie table at Maya’s party, and Nolan stood next to me, watching them and the rest of the party.
“Will you three ever like a girl I date?” I muttered, not expecting an actual answer.
“If she’s our luna, I’m sure we’ll love her,” Nolan murmured, crossing his arms.
“You mean if she’s my Goddess-given mate?”
Nolan blew out a breath and ran his hand over his buzzed hair.
“I mean… maybe?” He glanced at me. “Look, Wes. Chosen or fated, it won’t work if you keep holding these females you date up to some impossible, imaginary standard. You can’t hold someone at arm’s length and expect them to become someone important to you and, by extension, us. If you don’t connect with her, then we won’t connect with her.”
I mulled his words over in my mind while he walked to the table with the other two idiots and grabbed a cookie.
He was right. For the third time that night, he was right. Shit, I hated that. I hated when Nolan pulled his “I’m one year older and therefore more experienced and wiser” crap. And I hated even more that ninety-nine percent of the time, he actually had a point.
I kicked at a small dirt clod and then walked to join them, hoping maybe a chocolate chip cookie would ease my agitation.
My lycan pranced around in my mind as I moved towards the table, more excited about baked goods than I’d ever seen him about anything.
I reached for a cookie, but as was my luck, my little brother decided he had an urgent need for my attention and yanked me away from the table and towards the docks.
“Wes. I think you need to pinch me. Or get me a breathalyzer. Or, honestly, maybe both, because I swear to the fucking Goddess I just saw someone I most definitely should not be seeing on our pack lands.”
“Oh, fuck me, is it Katie?” I asked, looking around behind us at the party.
I didn’t want her to see me.
“No, no, not her,” he said, shaking his head. “But you wouldn’t believe me if I told you who, so I’m just going to…”
His voice faded as I kept moving forward, my eyes locked on the woman in front of me. Even from the back, there was almost no doubt in my mind who it was standing at the edge of our lake.
I wasn’t sure how she was there, or why she was there. All I cared about was confirming what I already knew to be true. What my lycan was telling me was true.
That red hair. Those long, graceful limbs and that pale skin. It had to be her. There was no way it could be anyone else.
The pebbles under my feet rattled, so I cleared my throat to alert her to my presence, hoping I wouldn’t scare her too much.
She made a sharp turn, and her deep blue eyes looked into mine. Time stopped as we took each other in, her eyes traveling over all of me and mine stuck on her face.
That face. I would know that face anywhere. I had a tiny, wrinkled, faded 2×3 inch photograph of the nine-year-old version of that face that I kept
along with every letter she’d ever written to me. It was a face I thought I would never get to see again.
She shook her head like she was trying to shake off the remnants of a dream, and my eyes widened just as hers did when we locked gazes again, and almost all of my doubts washed away.
But I still had to know for sure. Still needed to confirm it out loud, so I whispered with a shaky voice, “Haven?”
