The Reluctant Mate

Porter

It was progress.

Maybe.

It was impossible to tell with Amanda.

Drunk Amanda had always been way more open with me than Sober Amanda ever had been. Drunk Amanda was wild and unrestrained and reckless. Sober Amanda was more reserved, although she was just as stubborn as Drunk Amanda. I supposed stubbornness was one of my mate’s innate traits in any situation.

It wasn’t a bad thing. I liked her mulish streak. She was hot while she was trying to boss me around and glaring at me.

But I wasn’t going to get my hopes up just yet. She’d fallen asleep in my arms, which was about as vulnerable as she’d ever let herself be with me. The episode we were watching finished, and I picked her up and carried her to my bedroom. I didn’t know how she’d feel about that, but she probably wouldn’t freak out if I slept beside her innocently—at least in action, my imagination was harder to control.

Her clothing didn’t look very comfortable, but I wasn’t going to touch her under the circumstances. Better to let her be uncomfortable than get in trouble in the morning. I rummaged around in my drawers and found a pair of shorts and a t-shirt to wear. I usually didn’t bother with anything at night, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

I worried that she would reverse everything that she had said tonight when she woke up in the morning, but even that couldn’t help me keep my eyes open with the comfort of her on the other side of the bed. The two foot gulf between us felt insurmountable, but the sound of her breathing and her scent bridged the gap, and I firmly kept my mind away from anything I would like to be doing to her.

I slipped off to sleep hoping I wouldn’t wake to another three-sixty degree shift from my mate.

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Eventually I emerged from the black into a place I recognized. It was indistinct, but the occasional details were quite recognizable, a nightmare amalgamation of the lost two decades of my life in my birth pack. Foreign wolves stalked out of the darkness, and slaughtered my pack mates one by one. Ruthless and senseless.

Each snap of our connections ran through me like fire along my nerves, burning and building my growing fury. My wolf tore out of my skin, and I went for the first unfamiliar wolf. I tore through his throat like it was tissue paper, and then I whirled on another and another and another, until the bodies piled up in a grisly mass. Alone with the dead, I began to search for anyone who was still alive. I could feel the connection although I couldn’t hear any of them, they had to be somewhere, and I had to find them.

Only eerie silence reached my ears, only the metallic tang of blood hit my nose, and my eyes could find no one. Even the bodies had disappeared, although that detail was irrelevant. I knew exactly where I needed to go with irrational certainty, and I sprinted forward. If only I could find it—them—something in time, then...

I didn’t know, but I reached an unfamiliar place in time to see the blank face of my alpha as he fell. His eyes met mine, staring in unspoken judgement that I had failed to do my part to protect the pack, and then the bond snapped. My wolf spiralled into a feral rage. My heart pounded as I ripped through the enemy wolves, but then I was overwhelmed and slammed to the ground and held prone by the enemies, forced to watch as the lead intruder strolled by as if he had some right to invade our pack lands.

With a ferocious growl, I knocked off my captors and rushed the alpha, teeth bared, mind blank of anything but purpose. My powerful jaws wrapped around his neck, and I wrenched, half ripping his head from his body. My wolf loved the sound of his distress, and even more the sound of silence that followed after we tore and severed, feasting on our kill, revelling in our revenge.

But I wasn’t done. There might be more intruders, and I stalked through the forest, my senses on alert, but the enemy pack were like ghosts I could not detect, creatures of shadows, flitting out of existence whenever I turned to look at them.

And then from the darkness, cruel dark blue eyes sprung, his jaws ripping into my throat.

I gasped as my eyes flew open. My heart was pounding so hard I was surprised it didn’t wake the human beside me.

I ran my hand through my hair and tried to will myself to calm down. It was just a dream. It wasn’t even a memory, because it bore little resemblance to what had really happened. Killing so many of the invaders and that alpha was pure wish fulfillment, and he definitely didn’t come back like some sort of shadowy specter, and it didn’t take a psychologist to know that the experience of helplessly watching so many people be slaughtered had had a lasting impact on my mind. The worst part was the lingering feeling of helplessness that clung after the dream.

Amanda was still lying there, oblivious to my presence. Her hair spread out on the pillow and I wanted to touch it, her, for the comfort of knowing she was there, but I had no right, not really. It would be so easy to lose the ground I’d gained with her.

I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. I was making progress.