I always had the tiniest inclination that the moon goddess hated me.

I just didn’t realize the extent of that hatred.

The day she took my moon chosen mate from me, was the worst day of my life. I was sure I thought I’d be next, I wanted to be next.

I had for so many years.

There was nothing on this earth that could prepare you for such a devastating feeling, it crippled me, stripped me completely of my youth. Like a sling shot I was ripped from all that I knew, grieving for someone I hadn’t even met, and yet feeling their loss as if I’d known them my whole life.

I wouldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and just the thought that I’d have to keep on breathing filled me with so much dread and despair. At that time, I couldn’t imagine an after, in anything it pissed me off to no end that people were still going on happily with their lives while mine felt like it just ended.

Especially at such a young and impressionable age, it fucked me up completely. There was no one I could turn to that would understand, no one alive that could help me. I was alone, and now, I would be alone forever.

There was no one else here like me, no one that to tell if it ever gets better, I had to learn everything first hand myself. Because all those who’d experienced the loss of their mate followed them shortly after, then to find out that the only reason I couldn’t follow mine was because I never got to meet her. Never got to claim her, never got to mark her.

I still think of her often, who she was, what she looked like, what her favorite color would be, or how she died. Why she died, and if she would have been happy to have me as her mate.

Was her dying as painful as it was for me?

I shuddered at the thought, I hoped she went quickly, no one deserves to to suffer.

I didn’t know her, but I knew she would have been the greatest love of my life. That we could have experienced something unmatched together.

As I grew older, into young adulthood, I searched high and low, with the help of my mother. Looking for all the Mia’s in the North American continent. Requesting population book after population book from the Elder Council on each pack in the North American hemisphere, but I came back empty every single time. Eventually, I started searching beyond American territory, but there was never anything to find.

The wondering, the not knowing, it was killing me, eating me up inside.

As the years past, I lost hope, I haven’t given up, but the obsession only ever set me back into a horrid dark place. I vowed never to forget, never to stop, the only thing that got me through those terrible times, was at night when I’d speak to her alone.

I doubt she heard me, wherever she was, but I carried on anyway. The empty dark air that I imagined was her, becoming my best friend.

Losing my mate was one thing, but having to see the disappointment on my father’s face, and the pity I received from my mother and packmates… it was pure hell.

To everyone else I was a wounded animal, and even to this day I remained as only that in their eyes. But to my father I was much much worse, he hid his contempt for me well, since I was the only one who could see it.

He never felt sorry for me, the only person he felt sorry for was himself. Without my mate, I will not be able to provide an heir to the pack.

I was losing my mind, losing my sanity while everyone and everything just moved on.

How could I move on? How was I supposed to find a will to live, a drive to keep going when all I wanted was something I could never have again?

No one let me forget what I had lost, this… thing that was supposed to be so amazing, so beautiful, so right.

And I would never get to experience it.

So I ventured out, I had to.

I ventured out of my world of responsibilities and regulations and into the human world where no one knew who I was. Where no werewolf ranks, titles, and rules existed. Another world where I could just… be myself.

Soon after my closest friends in the pack followed suit.

I started imaging what life could be like if I didn’t have my whole future planned out for me already.

I knew love of any kind was never an option for me. I couldn’t date a wolf, it’s forbidden and I could ask them to give up their mate, no matter how strongly we feel for each other, it would never be enough anyway.

Nothing trumps the matebond.

Humans weren’t a viable option either, I believed at the time that my world would be too terrifying for them.

It was also against werewolf law.

But then everything changed once I met.. her.

I would have never thought it possible, it wasn’t supposed to be possible.

To find something solely my own, untainted by the supernatural side of me.

Something I thought couldn’t be tarnished by my fathers stupid agenda or the power of the moon goddess herself.

She was my happy little secret.

Just when I finally found happiness, just when I found the rarity of someone who could accept me for what I was.

It all comes crashing down.

Having a human as a moon chosen mate is extremely uncommon, downright preposterous. So what were the chances that Keenan’s mate was the very girl I envisioned being mine forever? The very girl I was in love with?

In love.

It may be too soon but it was true, I am in love with her.

I haven’t even admitted it to her yet.

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Keenan proved to be incredibly elusive and surprisingly smart, smarter than I thought him capable of.

His entire group split up in every which way, each of them carrying a piece of his scent, successfully throwing off our trail from him.

On the third day nearly everyone was caught, all but Shane and Keenan.

Something was off, I could feel it, something was out of place.

Somehow, someway Keenan’s scent was everywhere on our premises, and yet, nowhere all at once.

Every lead was a dead end, every scent trail leading us awry. Keenan even had the wolves from both my father’s pack, uncle Drew’s pack, and the Elder Council guards and trackers continuously coming up empty.

These trackers are supposed to be the best in the western hemisphere.

And here we were being slighted by an amateur inexperienced alpha-to-be.

Time was ticking and I was only getting more and more anxious, six days had passed with no luck of finding Keenan.

As hour after hour and day after day it became apparent that Keenan was toying with us, spreading us away from each other so thin we realized too late that we were leaving the packhouse and town vulnerable.

Shelby mindlinked me in a panic, saying she caught sight of Shane’s dark brown wolf in town.

How did she slip past us?! We scoured that entire area from grassroot to tree, many times over, not even a slight detection of their scent was anywhere to be found.

I shook my head, my legs burning with exertion, sprinting in my wolf form back to town.

Someone else has to be helping him, he has to be using some other worldly resources. Something that can disguise a scent, suppress and alpha command, or stifle the draw of power of another dominant alpha nearby. I could not sense him anywhere.

Everyone can sense an alpha, even humans, other alphas will feel compelled to compete, and most others will automatically submit, but it was like he’d disappeared into thin air.

Keenan had all but abandoned his pack, Alpha Drew could no longer reach him through the link, there was a disconnect. It started the minute they decided to break from the pack.

I wonder what it was about him that would make Alan, Shane, and all his goons literally abandon their pack for him. Blackmail maybe? Threats? I can’t imagine them willingly leaving and risk becoming packless rogues.

I heaved a long winded sigh as I finally reached town. Through the link I could tell she was safe, but I needed to make sure for myself. Needed to check and recheck her surroundings once again.

She was being guarded at the moment by Shelby, Shelby’s mate, Lacey, and Josh. They spent the whole day distracting her, trying on prom dresses at the mall, watching a movie in the cinema also at the mall. I gave Shelby my card and demanded she get anything Angeline showed any remote interest in.

The shame, frustration, and guilt hit me all at once, I can’t believe I let them get this close to her. What was I thinking?!

I felt defeated, Uncle Drew’s pack was set to leave tomorrow and we weren’t anywhere near close to finding Keenan.

I have very little faith we’ll find Keenan by tomorrow, if that’s the case, then I’m never leaving her side, no chance in hell.

Not while he’s still out there, waiting for me to slip up just like now.

Daniel, we’re having an emergency meeting at the packhouse in 15 minutes. Elder Bane says it’s important.

Alright, on my way, I called back through the mindlink. On my way.

“You’re leaving already?” Angeline looked visibly disappointed. “I hardly got to see you all week.”

I felt the tension instantly melt from my shoulders when I took in her sad expression, her green eyes appearing dark in the moonlight.

I missed her too.

Taking her face in my hands, I plant a soft kiss on her full pink lips.

“I have a mandatory meeting to attend, but after, I’ll come right back okay?”

The corners of her lips tilted in a half hearted smile, “promise?”

“I promise.” I whispered, then leaned down to kiss her again.

Now we sat in my car in the mall’s parking lot, everyone else scrambled into Shelby’s car, mostly to give us a little privacy.

When my lips touched her, she winds her fingers into my hair to deepen the kiss.

With a sudden epiphany, I realized Keenan could probably feel all of this.

Every caress of her skin, every kiss to her lips, and the proximity of her body against mine… he could feel it.

Angeline gasped as I ran the tip of my tongue gingerly across her bottom lip, I took that moment to deepen the kiss even more.

Goddess forgive me for what I am about to do...

As if she weighed no more than a pillowcase of feathers, I lifted her with ease onto my lap, never breaking from the kiss.

I’d always kept it very respectful in my touches before, my hands never leaving her hips and waist, in caution of accidentally crossing her boundaries.

But now I wanted nothing more than to test those boundaries-with care of course-and claim her for my own once and for all.

She broke from the heavy kissing to catch her breath, but my lips continued, trailing the length of her jaw with gentle slow kisses, down her neck, then finally the crevice of her breasts.

She gasped again, pressing herself against me harder. My hands found the hem of her shirt, pressing and kneading her skin with my fingertips, ever so slowly moving upward, until I felt the wire of her bra.

Scooting lower, I placed her more firmly on my lap, so that she was directly on top of my now extremely hard bulge.

“Oh,” Angeline’s eyes snapped open in surprise, her lips now tinged red and puffy from our fervent kissing, a deep shade of crimson spread through her cheeks. She couldn’t quite meet my gaze, but she didn’t make any attempt to get off either.

I bite back a smirk, then give her another prolonged kiss on the lips, she moaned breathlessly.

I can’t help but groan in return as I notice a distinct heat and pulse emanating from her core, that was directing on top of me.

She was as aroused as I was.

Continuing my assault on her chest, she mewls as I suck harder on the skin of her breast, her hips rolling in a slow grind.

We both jolt as the sound of my phone ringing startles us.

”What?!” I answered, annoyed.

Oh yea, I’m supposed to be on my way there.

“We just caught Shane, but she’s not cracking, I estimate that it’s gonna be a long while before she does.”

“Where was she found?”

“She was sniffing around Angeline’s neighborhood.”

A harsh growl escaped my mouth, I suspected he knew where she lived, this just confirmed that.

It’s obvious he’s having her do his bidding, scouting the place out for him, securing a path for his return probably.

Beside me, Angeline looked wary.

“Elder Bane called in the Strega, that’s what the meetings about, apparently she has a solid plan.”

Finally some good news.

“Okay, I’ll be there in 10 minutes.”

“Alright, I’ll let them know,” he says and hangs up.

I turned to look at Angeline, who just finished righting herself.

“I guess you have to go now,” she said. I don’t think it was meant to sound as sad as it did.

I nod, her hand reaches for the passenger door, but I stop her to give her one last peck.

“I’ll see you in a few, don’t worry.”

With one last dreamy smile, she scurries out of my car.

As she left I felt a mixture of smugness and then immediately shame right after.

Smug, because I knew Keenan could feel every minute of that, but shame because he was the reason it even got that heavy.

The thought briefly crossed before I banned it immediately, I couldn’t do that to her or me. She deserved better than that.

I was letting Keenan dictate my actions and taint my relationship.

I shouldn’t have done that, especially not for those reasons.

I shook my head, once again disappointed in myself for the millionth time today.