Chapter 3: A New Friend

AsaLynn

I step onto the bus full of unmated wolves from our pack.

Some of us would come home, while others would leave to start a new life.

As I load my bags, I wonder what group I belong to.

There are twenty-six of us total. Of course most are half my age or more. I go to sit in the only seat left next to a girl named Flora.

She is about my sister’s age but seems pretty cool. She is a social butterfly from my knowledge. She has beautiful, short black curly hair and curves for days.

She is pretty short for a she-wolf, but other than that, she is stunning.

I see her look at me slightly confused, and she sniffs the air.

“Hey, you’re Alpha Nathan’s daughter, right? Your scent seems a little off. You know that, right?” Flora says bluntly.

It’s not the first time someone has told me that.

My father told me as a child I smelled a little different from other wolves but it was nothing to worry about and to ignore it.

“Yeah, and you’re Flora. I have seen you a lot around the pack. You’re a pretty bad-ass fighter,” I reply, ignoring the scent comment.

“Thanks for noticing. Are you excited or what! The Alpha King! Oh my goddess, I get wet just thinking about being in the same room as him.

“I wonder if he will choose a mate at the ceremony. Maybe he will pick me. I would climb that man like a monkey and do all sorts of wonderful things.”

Flora exaggerates a moan at the end of her sentence and licks her lips.

I burst out laughing, unable to control my shock at her words, and my face probably flushes bright red with my pale skin.

I don’t think I have ever heard someone so blunt! I mean wolves are not shy by nature, and, well, most get around enough.

It isn’t frowned upon to have sex frequently before you’re mated, so that’s about all we do. Well, not me.

Almost two hundred years and I still haven’t lost my virtue. Closest thing to sex I have had is a smutty romance novel.

I’m pleasantly surprised that I’m able to get along with Flora so easily. She seems awesome and not at all what I expected. She’s actually a hybrid. Wolf and witch. Super uncommon but fascinating!

She has a bunch of beautiful moon and symbol tattoos I couldn’t begin to comprehend.

“I’m serious. I hear that man is delicious!”

“But it’s the Alpha King,” I say. “He’d sooner bite your head off than kiss you.” Or so I hear, anyway.

“Oh, you haven’t heard the rumors?” she asks, eyes wide with surprise.

“Huh? What rumors?”

Flora leans in with a smirk on her face, her voice a whisper. “Apparently the Alpha King is looking for a mate.”

Cypris howls in my head, and I flinch as I cover my ears in pain.

“What the heck is wrong with you?” I ask.

“What? I didn’t start the rumor,” Flora says defensively.

“Sorry, not you. My wolf is acting up.”

Flora just looks at me strangely, and I’m once again reminded of how I stick out. I smell weird, and I argue with my inner wolf. Yup, I’m a freak amongst werewolves. Quite the accomplishment.

“But the Alpha King isn’t interested in mates,” I say, trying to get the conversation back on track. It’s true. It’s one of the greatest mysteries in the werewolf world. Leviathan was the first to be created by the Moon Goddess, but she never deigned to bless him with a mate. Honestly, I thought it to be very cruel.

Flora shakes her head furiously, her short black curls flying around her head. “I know, right! He’s been alone for eternity, and it didn’t seem to bother him. But this year’s mating ceremony is at his pack house? Do you think that’s a coincidence?”

I frown, thinking it through. He’s spent thousands of years alone, concerned only with protecting the werewolf species as a whole. In fact, there are fewer and fewer werewolves finding their fated mates nowadays. That’s why the Alpha King himself created the mating ceremonies, where unmated wolves all around the world would gather somewhere once every ten years.

Not that it helped me at all.

And Leviathan himself doesn’t even bother to attend. Too busy with his kingly duties, I guess. What a sham!

But now he’s hosting the ceremony where he lives…

“The Alpha King’s probably just bored,” I say dismissively. “I doubt he’d be interested in normal werewolves. The Moon Goddess will probably just handcraft him another gorgeous immortal.”

Cypris growls in my mind.

~“Don’t you start again. The heck is up with you?”~ I think.

“You’re probably right,” Flora says. She sighs and deflates into her seat. I feel a little guilty about how I seemed to suck the fun out of our conversations.

“But…,” I begin, “who knows? Maybe one of us will bag a hot piece of Leviathan.”

She squeals and hugs me, and I laugh at how enthusiastic she is.

“I’ll make a deal with you. If either of us is his mate we’ll share him. Just for one night.” She fans herself, making a show of her stupid joke. We both know that no sane she-wolf would share their mate. “It would be so hot.”

I laugh, ignoring the ferocious snarl from Cypris in my mind that makes me wince.

“How very un-werewolf of you!”

“Hey, I’m half witch!”

We both start to laugh as the bus approaches the private airport. It’s fun to joke around with my new friend, but I don’t believe any of the words I’m saying.

But hey, maybe I’m the Alpha King’s mate! That way I won’t be alone, and my father won’t have to worry about him killing us all.

I roll my eyes at the thought. There’s no way the Moon Goddess has a sense of humor that twisted.