I woke up to the feeling of something moving in my lap and the feeling of sharp bark digging into my back. I also woke up to the most incredible scent to ever grace my sense of smell. I opened my eyes and looked down, expecting to see the boy from the woods in my lap.

Instead, I found a small lynx stretching its little arms and legs like a cat as it yawns.

Naturally, I froze in shock. I could've sworn that I fell asleep with the boy in my lap. After a few dumb seconds of silence between us, I realized that the lynx on my lap was, in fact, the boy. A shapeshifter who can change into a lynx. No wonder he has little cat ears and a tail.

I relaxed as I looked down at the little cat. He really is beautiful. Silvery and dark brown mixed together. A tail that should be shorter than a regular cat's, was long and wrapped around my left arm like he didn't want to let go. I smiled as his little yellow eyes peeked open and took in his surroundings. I expected him to freak out when he realized he was in my lap, but his eyes met mine, the corner of his lips turned up in what appeared to be a smile appeared on his face, and he closed his eyes and snuggled closer to me.

"Beautiful..." I say as I lay my hand on his head and start stroking his silky back. A purr rumbled in his body as I kept petting him. We lay there together as the sun rises and the birds start chirping.

A sudden movement in my lap made me snap my eyes open, making me realize that I closed them in the peaceful moment. The boy had shifted in my lap into his human form. He looked into my eyes and lifted himself up. He shifted so that he was straddling my legs, his butt on my thighs. He was now eye-level.

"Yuki..."

What? Yuki? Is that Japanese? I furrow my eyebrows as I hear his voice. God, he sounds so adorable. If only I knew what that meant. He's looking at me like he's expecting something. Oh! Is that his name? It sounds awfully feminine for a boy's name.

I point at myself and say my name. "Damian". He suddenly smiles and nods.

Then he furrows his eyebrows. "Day-mee-ahn". He annunciates each syllable as to try and pronounce it correctly. I laugh and nod my head. He smiles really big and leans forward to look closely into my eyes. Then he flicks his eyes down to look at my neck. He then furrows his eyebrows, again, and leans down. He starts rubbing his head against my neck. He licks it once and starts rubbing his whole body against mine. Not in a sexual way, but like he was trying to rub his scent on me. A whine of pleasure escapes my mouth as I close my eyes in bliss. Nobody has cared for me in such a manner. I realized I let a whine escape when the movement abruptly stops. I open my eyes to look at him and he looks awed, like a child, as he looks at my face. He smiles and hugs me.

Then he says something in Japanese.

Huh?

He repeats it. I repeat it back to him. He smiles and jumps off my lap. He goes to the bush from yesterday and quickly began picking berries off. I skipped back over to me and put the berries in my hand. He looks as if he was waiting for some kind of praise, so I smiled and patted his head.

"Thank you, Yuki," I say to him. He seemed like he stopped breathing for a second, before a smile tore across his face. He looks so happy. A praise like that can make someone that happy? Wow.

He looked as if he were going to say something else, but then he sniffed the air once, and snapped his head to one direction. He fell to his hands and feet and his tail puffed up, ears going back. He growled once and looked back to me. He jumped to his feet and ran to me. He licked my cheek, from chin to under my eye, smiled, and ran in the opposite direction from where he looked toward earlier.

I stood there and smiled. I feel like a lovestruck fool. then again, it's worth it if it's Yuki. I started walking in the direction that Yuki looked toward. Something had scared him. I should check to see if it was my pack members or something else. I kept walking until I came upon two of the patrol wolves, sniffing about the forest.

"Hey," I say as I approach them. Zeke, whom I recognized from his wolf, nodded his big wolf head once and went back to roaming and sniffing. "Be careful out here. New territory can be unknowingly claimed, if you know what I mean. Oh! And if you see a short boy with brown hair and cat ears, do not chase him. This is a direct order. Do not approach him. If you smell his scent, which is all over that area over there, run the other way unless authorized to approach." They both nod their heads and look at me curiously.

I pay them no mind as I walk passed and head for the pack house with my bag. I need to change before I get to school, or some of the pack members will smell Yuki on me. Then again, Zeke and Nick, the other wolf with Zeke, have probably already smelt him on me. Hopefully it doesn't become gossip that I was with the boy in the woods. People might start following me to find out who he is.

Yuki had said that word. . . But what does it mean? Maybe I'll ask Liz later. Or check online.

I walked through the forest, smoothly and gracefully making my toward the pack house. I push branches and leaves out of my way along the way. While walking for some mount of time, the pack house finally comes into view. The boxes and trucks are gone. They must've finished moving it inside sometime yesterday or last night while I was with Yuki. Galen is probably pissing himself laughing as he thinks I haven't actually found our mate.

I walked through the front door and headed straight for my room. I walked passed the stairs and walked passed a few rooms before reaching my beige door. I opened it, but stopped abruptly when I immediately spotted Galen laying on my bed, tossing a ball up and catching it again. He stopped quickly when he heard me enter and sat up, holding the ball in his lap. I narrowed my eyes at him when I noticed his guilty expression. What has he done now?

"I'm sorry for being rude to you about finding our mate!" He blurted out before I could say anything. "I just- I just felt a little angry because you never accepted any of the women I've brought home and then you start talking about finding a guy as our mate. I know you're like, the gay twin and I am the straight one so I thought you were just saying that as revenge because you never seem to bring home anybody so-"

"Okay! I get it. Just shut the hell up before I throw you out the window," I say quickly. He started smirking and I knew there was a sarcastic reply coming.

"Technically, it wouldn't hurt much, seeing as we are on the second floor and the ground is like, right outside the window," He said with his little smirk, a sparkle gleaming in his eye. Unbelievable.

"Believe me, I can make it so it does hurt," I say as I walk toward my armoire that contains my underwear and shirts. He got up as well and walked toward me.

"You're too wimpy to do that, lil' bro," he says as he grabs my head and shoves it under his arm while rubbing his fist on the top of my head.

"Ow. Ow! OW! Stop that hurts! And you're only older by a few minutes! That doesn't count!" I say as I grab him by the neck of his shirt and flip him over onto his back. We both stare at each other for a few seconds before bursting out in laughter. We laughed for a few more seconds before he started sobering up. He then scrunched up his eyebrows, then he scrunched his nose up as if trying to determine a smell. He got on his knees before sticking his nose up in the air and sniffing. Then he turned to me, pushed me down onto my back and started sniffing all over my shirt and pants.

"Woah, is something wrong? Or. . . Is it Yuki that you smell?" I said, realization hitting me. A warm feeling started forming in my chest, maybe relief that Yuki really is my mate. Our mate. If his scent is what is making Galen act like this, then Yuki is most definitely our mate. He stopped sniffing, and just plopped down on me, chest to chest, his nose buried in my neck.

"You smell . . . Really good," He mumbles, his voice muffled a bit from being crowded up by my neck. I smiled.

"It's probably Yuki. I really think he is our mate, Galen," I say to him, my hand stroking his hair. He stays quiet.

"Yuki . . . That's a beautiful name. I think I could accept a male mate if he smells like this . . ." He says quietly. A feeling started rising up in my chest. A bubbly,suffocating feeling that made me want to jump and run and skip to let it out

"Really? Oh, you'll just adore him. I know I do. He has beautiful brown fluffy hair, pretty much the color of milk chocolate. It also has light brown streaks going through it. He smells like Earth. Not like filthy, muddy, stinky forest. More like, pine and fresh, fertile dirt. He has really bright green eyes. He's really slender too. Not like, skinny, but like slender. I don't know how to put all of his beauty into words. He also has cat ears and a cat tail. They're lynx features. But his tail is a bit longer than a lynx's tail. His eyes glow a bright yellow when he feels threatened. And when he isn't feeling threatened, he is the most innocent person you could ever encounter, from what I've experienced. He barely speaks English, which makes him sound all the more innocent. He knows a little Japanese, and said something which I don't know its meaning." Then I say what he said. "God, Galen. I spent one night with him and I already don't want to let him go. I think he trusts me, though. He even found me berries to eat. I really want you to meet him tomorrow," I say enthusiastically with a large smile on my face. Galen stays quiet, again, for a few moments. Then, he lifts his head up and looks up at me with soft smile, something very unlike him.

"I'd love to. He sounds like a beautiful person. From the sounds of it, he sounds like a god. Is he like, the male counterpart of Bast?" He asks with a laugh. I shake my head with a smile as well.

"There is no way he could be an Egyptian goddess, or god of cats. He's way too pale! But his pale is nice. It makes me want to bite his creamy-looking flesh and mark him." At that note, I lie down with Galen still wrapped around me. "We haven't laid down like this together since Mom was still with us," I blurt out. Galen freezes on me. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that out loud."

A sigh escapes him. "It's . . . Okay. We just, haven't talked about her for a few months. And . . . I really miss her. I wish she could meet Yuki. I want to meet Yuki. I want to see Mom. I . . . I don't really talk about things like this with you anymore," he says with a sad laugh. I smile too.

There was a pregnant pause before Galen spoke up.

"Tomorrow," he mumbled into my neck. I furrowed my brows in confusion.

"What?" I ask. He sighs into my neck. Probably out of exasperation.

"<>That word means tomorrow in Japanese," he said. Tomorrow? Oh! Yuki must want to see me again tomorrow. I see. There was another pause.

"Believe me, Yuki made me feel so happy. Just by being in his presence, he made me feel... Warm. I hope he'll have the same effect on you as well."

We were both quiet for a moment.

"So do I, Damian. So do I."