Filed to story: Wolf Crying Mate of the Alpha by Jazz Ford
‘The humans said your kind do awful things. I heard many stories. The worst one: how you rip children apart in front of their mothers and eat them,’ she says.
I place my hands on her face, and she flinches out of fear and from the s****l energy between us.
‘Maia, please look at me,’ I gently plead with her. ‘I told you I would never harm you, and I mean it. What you heard isn’t true,’ I tell her earnestly. She holds my wrists in her hands and looks at me.
‘It’s not true?’ She asks, her walls lowering as she begins to trust me.
‘We would never harm anyone unless we had to. But, even then, we don’t enjoy it,’ I explain.
‘I’m sorry. I thought–’ she mumbles.
‘It’s okay,’ I say, smiling at her.
‘What happens now?’ She asks apprehensively.
‘I know you don’t want to come home with me yet, so maybe I can stay here a little while, and we can spend some time getting to know each other?’
‘I guess. What if I still don’t want to go with you?’ She asks. I pause, not expecting the question.
‘We will worry about that bridge if we come to it,’ I say.
‘Okay,’ she agrees.
‘Do you want to show me around the forest? Your favourite spots, maybe?’ I ask.
‘Okay,’ she smiles and stands, and I take her hand.
‘Lead the way,’ I say, smiling.
We walk around the forest and climb a tree together; at one stage, racing each other to see who can climb higher. Of course, Maia is the victor when it comes to tree-climbing.
My feet, in my boots, constantly slip off the branches, and she laughs and shrieks when she thinks I might fall.
I carefully and awkwardly pull my arms out of my tunic sleeves and hang my tunic over a branch. I unbutton my breeches, lift each leg carefully out of them, and hang them over the branch with my tunic. Without warning, I shift into my wolf and scale the tree effortlessly, joining my princess at the top, where the branches are thinning out. My wolf knows how to balance.
Maia doesn’t know what to think, so I gently nudge her hand with my nose, prompting her to reach out and pat my fur.
We make our way back down the tree, and on firm ground, Maia, who is more relaxed around my wolf, pats me and puts her arms around my neck, embracing me.
‘You’re just a bigger version of Ember,’ she laughs.
I lick her face playfully and shift into my human form again. Maia hands me my clothes.
We walk to the edge of the forest, near Moonstone River, and stop at a field of sunflowers.
‘I bet you can’t find me in this field,’ she says, running ahead.
‘I’m sure I will,’ I say.
The smell of the sunflowers makes it hard to track her scent, but not impossible.
‘Found you!’ I announce, and she squeals and giggles, surprised.
We lie down on the ground among the sunflowers and stare into each other’s eyes. She is beautiful, and her violet eyes are almost luminescent under the sun. We sit up and savour the silence before she leans her head on my shoulder and sighs. The chemistry and magic between us do not go unnoticed by either of us, so I cradle her face in my hand and plant a kiss on her lips, our kiss growing more and more passionate. I lift her onto my lap, and she instinctively wraps her legs around me-the fabric of her long dress bunches up around her waist.
‘Is this okay? Are you okay?’ I ask her, breaking away from the kiss to see if she is comfortable with the pace.
‘This is okay. I’m okay,’ she says, smiling.
I put my hands around her waist, and she places a hand on my cheek. Her other arm is already instinctively around the back of my neck. I slide one hand up her long dress and caress her back, making her moan. I kiss and nibble her neck. We both feel the electricity every time we kiss or touch.
We then spend minutes gazing into each other’s eyes.
She pulls my face toward hers to kiss me, and I hear my wolf howling with happiness through mind-link. I want to stay like this forever with my love, mate, and Luna.
Maia
Damon tucks my long black hair behind my ear.
‘We should go to my cave,’ I say, and he lifts me and tells me he will carry me home. I have butterflies in my stomach, and Vivian mentioned butterflies. I put my arms around his neck and rest my head against him as he walks.
We sit beside the waterfall to watch the stars and admire the moon. Ember curls up on Damon’s legs and soon falls asleep. With our fingers, we draw pictures in the air by forming lines between one star and the next. Damon asks me to guess what he is drawing.
‘A fish?’ I guess.
‘No. How you got a fish out of that, Maia, I don’t know. It was a fox,’ he says, and we laughed.
The night is warm, so we both undress and leave our clothes near the cave while slipping into the pool beside it. Ember sits on a rock, watching us. I flick a heap of water at Damon.
‘You’re in trouble now, Princess,’ he says, laughing.
‘Really?’ I ask him playfully.
He splashes me repeatedly before ducking under the water so I can’t splash him back. I wait for him to resurface. A minute passes, but he hasn’t resurfaced, and I worry. ‘Damon. Where are you?’ I ask, wading through the water, hoping I can at least feel him at leg level. I hold my breath and submerge myself in the water. I swim underwater for about ten seconds before we resurface together. As soon as he does, I plant my mouth over his so quickly that he can’t breathe. We kiss passionately for a few minutes.
He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me into him. I wrap my legs around his waist.
‘My wolf wants to do several things to you right now, Princess,’ he says, in a tone, I’m unfamiliar with.
He grazes the skin on my neck with his teeth, making me moan. Then, he stops over my pulse, and growls desirously.
I push him from me with all my strength, as it feels like he is about to bite down into my skin.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask him, shocked.
He stands there, breathing heavily, with black eyes and fangs bared.
‘I want to mark you, and make you mine,’ he says.
‘What do you mean? You can’t bite me like you’re biting into an apple,’ I say. I rescind from him and get out of the water. ‘I don’t even know if I could love a….’ I explain, gaging his reaction, which isn’t a good one. He looks hurt, and his arms are crossed against his chest.
‘A?’ He says.
‘A werewolf,’ I whisper, and my shoulders drop, in self-disappointment, for fear I have offended the only person I have ever felt attached to. He stands in front of me and exhales. His eyes are their deep brown again, and his teeth have returned to normal.
‘I told you I’d never harm you. You say you don’t think you could love me. What do you think you’ve been feeling this whole afternoon?’ He asks, annoyed.