White Fur

Chapter 3

Kanto’s POV

“I’m sorry, what?” My mate’s voice sounded confused but her voice was sweet and melodic.

“No I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bump into you. May I ask, what’s your name?” I hope she’ll ignore how Zenith called her mate and think I just misspoke. She tilted her head to the side, still seeming a bit puzzled.

“My name is Skyler.” She held out her hand. I instantly grabbed it and sparks radiated from our touch. I felt the electricity vibrate over my skin, I wonder if she could feel it too?

“My name is Kanto.” I smiled back at her and slowly moved her hand towards my lips to leave a light kiss. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Skyler.”

Skyler’s eyes went wide and her cheeks started to turn red under her freckles. It made me smile to see how she reacted. She quickly took her hand back and looked away from me. I instantly missed her touch but knew I couldn’t be too forward, I can sense she was human. She knows nothing about my world.

“Can I help you with something Kanto?” She asked trying to regain her composure, me enjoying her saying my name. “Do you need help with a craft?” She lifted up a paper bag hat with flowers on the brim to show off the crafts the other attendees of the festival were making.

“Oh, no thank you.” She gave me a confused look again still trying to figure out why I was here. “I was wondering if you would like to grab a coffee sometime?”

Her eyes went wide again and the blush returned to her cheeks, she seemed shocked at my offer.

“Im sorry, but I don’t drink coffee.” She gave me a limp smile and walked past me back towards the tables. Is my mate rejecting me? I just found her and already it’s over? Did I come on too strong? She probably thinks I’m a stalker or something. In the werewolf world, when you find your mate, mates usually finish the mating ritual within 48 hours. Did I scare her off? What do I do?

“I like pizza though. And I’ll probably be a bit hungry after the festival tonight.” I was too in my thoughts to have noticed that she stopped a couple steps away and turned to face me again. She had a small, sweet smile across her lips.

“Really? Yea pizza sounds great! When should I meet you?” I responded. She is giving me a chance and I’m not going to blow this.

“Um the festival finishes at 9 tonight, but I have to clean up a bit after. So how about we meet by the ticket booth at 9:30?”

“That sounds great, I’ll see you then, Skyler.” I grabbed her hand again and felt the same pleasure sparks I felt earlier. I place another kiss on the back of her hand with a smile before I walked away from the tent.

As I was walking away and when my mate thought I was out of earshot I heard her whisper my name under her breath. Hearing her say my name sent pleasurable chills through my body.

Skyler, my beautiful human mate. I finally found you, after 10 years I found you and there’s no way I’m letting you go. I glance back and I see her busily helping a group of kids with the crafts. Suddenly a puff of glitter erupted from one of the kids hands and I could haer Skyler’s laughter above the crowd.

What are you doing? We should go back! Zenith didn’t understand why I walked away from the tent. Wolves are more primal and currently he only has one thing on his mind, our mate.

We have a date setup after she is done working. You need to cool it, she’s human and doesn’t understand the mate-bond. We need to take it slow. I try to calm Zenith down but there was no calming him down.

I want her to be helping our pups, so we need to make some. Zenith seeing Skyler helping the other kids was not helping to calm the situation. And slowly I found myself thinking the same.

No. Calm down. We just met. She’s human. We need to go slow.

Zenith, if we rush her we might ruin this. We need to go slowly, just trust me. I felt Zenith roll his eyes. It’s hard to tame a wolf that’s been thirsting for his mate for the last 10 years, but I have to keep him calm.

“Alpha, are you ok? You just bolted away.” Brett snapped me out of my thoughts and back to reality. Brett’s face looked panicked and I could see Iliana a couple paces away trying to get to us. “What happened, bro?”

A smile began to creep onto my face. I could see Brett’s panicked face turn to one of confusion.

“I found her.”

Brett’s eye widened and a smile began to grow on his face too.

“Found who?” Iliana asked a bit too sharply as she finally caught up to us.

“I finally found my mate.” I authoritatively stated trying to condemn Iliana’s tone. Her eyes squinted as she tried to hide her discontent.

“That’s fantastic!” Brett practically yelled as he patted my shoulder in congratulations. “Where is she? Why isn’t she here?”

“She’s working over there in the crafting booth, I didn’t want to interrupt her work any further.” I used my head to point in the direction of my mate. She seems to be busy with the kids at her tent but just in case she looks up I don’t want her to see me pointing at her. It might freak her out and she might change her mind about the date.

“Damn Alpha, she’s too good looking for you.” I let out a growl at Brett’s comment but I know he only has eyes for his mate. “Wow already so possessive over our future Luna.”

“A human can’t be Luna.” Iliana mumbled with disapproval in her voice.

I growled at her. “My mate will be the future Luna of our pack. Werewolf or not. You better show her respect.” I used my Alpha tone to issue my warning. No one is going to disrespect my mate. Iliana bowed her head under my commanding tone.

“I mean no disrespect Alpha, I’m just worried what the council and other pack members might say about a human for Luna.” Her words still sounded too bitter for my liking but she was backing down. “I’ll respect your decision, Alpha.”

I still glared a Iliana for her comment. Skyler is my mate so she will be Luna and I will make sure of it.

“You have my support as always Alpha.” Brett still had a huge grin on his face as he gave me a slight bow. This is why Brett is my beta, he always has my back. But to be honest, I think he’s just happy that he won’t have to take orders from Iliana if she was my chosen mate.

“If you don’t mind, Alpha, I’m going to find my brother. He said he’s at the festival so I’m going to check on him.” Iliana raised her head from her bowed position. I nodded my approval for her to leave.

“I’m so happy you found her man. I haven’t seen you smile like this since we were kids.” Brett was right, I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this happy. “So when are you going to see her again?”

“I’m actually going out with her after the festival ends tonight. She wants to get pizza when she’s finished working.”

“Hahaha what did I tell you? Pizza is the best!” Brett sounding triumphant after remembering the initial goal of why we walked in the direction in the first place.

But he was right, pizza is now my new favorite food.

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Skyler’s POV

The rest of the festival went by in a blur as I was stuck processing my meeting with the most gorgeous and confident men I have ever met. Honestly when I ran into him I thought he just got lost. I was shocked when he asked me to go out with him. I was even more surprised when I said yes. It was like all of my Stranger Danger training went out the window because the dictionary’s definition of perfection asked me on a date.

Ahhhh, what was I thinking? This god on earth was way out of my league. Maybe he left his glasses at home or forgot to put in his contacts. Oh well at least I get another opportunity to see him again. Just thinking about him made my face burn up. Kanto, you beautifully tanned dream of a man with the most intense hazel eyes I’ve ever seen. I could easily get lost in those eyes.

Focus Skyler. You are still working. Only a half an hour or so then you can clean up your station for the night and go drool over your late night snack. And the pizza.

The festival started to slow down towards the end of the night. I was able to clean up a bit of the crafts early since there were only 2 or 3 kids still working on their masterpieces. I made sure to carefully stash my flower hat so I could use it again for the rest of the festival.

“Hey Sky, still doing alright?” Andrea walked up to my tent and I did my best not to laugh. My bestie was no longer the composed person I knew her to be. She now matched the crazy lady that she is when she talks to herself and frequently zones out. I walked away from the kids and their parents so they couldn’t hear our conversation.

“I’m alright, but how are you? You looked a little bit stressed.” I couldn’t resist the sarcasm. Andrea smirked and rolled her eyes. To which I laughed and said “Hey you were the one who said they wanted to run the festival al this year.”

“I know, I know. I may look like a crazy person but I’m fine. Not everything crashed and burned so I’ll call that a success.” She let out a small sigh of relief.

“Think of it this way Andi, the festival ends on Sunday. Just gotta hold out until then.”

“Very true. Anyways I came to remind you to put your craft stuff in the storage truck so nothing gets stolen.” I giggled to myself at the thought of two big thieves wearing matching flower paper hats, one showing off a lanyard, the other their dream catcher. That would be a sight to see. Andrea continued “Once you put everything away, make sure to sign out at the ticket booth then you are good to go. Any questions?”

“Yes, will you be providing the first round of drinks at the end of the festival? Because all this crafting is really hard work.” My sarcasm back at it again, lucky for me my bestie is used to it.

“Girl, if I survive to see Sunday, I’ll let you know.” We both laughed at Andrea’s comment.

She waved me goodbye and I returned to where the kids were working. I kept cleaning up as the crafters finished up using the supplies. But one of the kids kept purposely using the freshly cleaned up supplies. I glared at them each time they reached for the newly cleaned up supplies but it didn’t deter the kid. When 9 o’clock finally hit, I told the kids to wrap up their crafts. That’s when the same kid grabbed a new craft and started working. I was about to assertively talk to the child but luckily their parent stepped in this time and dragged the kid away saying they could come back tomorrow. Something for me to look forward to.

I put all the supplies that was still out back into their respective boxes. One of the boxes refused to close which made no sense to me since it closed earlier and now there’s less stuff in the box so it should definitely close but it wasn’t. I ended up rearranging the box about 5 times until everything finally fit. I then proceeded to take a box at a time and bring it to the truck. Luckily the truck wasn’t too far, but I had 7 boxes to load up so 7 trips for me.

I was about to take my third box when I heard a deep voice from behind me.

“Need some help?” I whipped around to see Kanto standing there with a smile across his face, his perfectly white teeth glimmering at me. He was already taking off the navy blue blazer he was wearing and rolling up his sleeves.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry, was I late? I didn’t notice what time it was.” I looked down at my watch to see it was 9:50 already. Cleaning up took a lot longer than I thought. I instantly felt guilty, he probably thought I stood him up for a bit before he found me.

“It’s fine, I was waiting for a bit but decided to see if you needed help with anything.” He reassured me. I still felt guilty but I’m happy he didn’t think I stood him up. “So do you need help?”

“I got it, I just need to move these boxes then I’ll be done.” I go back to grabbing the box I was going to lift before Kanto showed up.

“Ok, no worries.” He walked over and grabbed 2 boxes like it was nothing. My jaw dropped at the strength he was showing. He laughed at my reaction “Where to, my lady?”

It took me a couple seconds to form words. “This way.” I led him to the truck where I slid my box in first followed by his boxes. When we got back to the tent, he tried to take the last 2 boxes for himself.

“Let me take one of the boxes, that way we can each have one.” I insisted

“No I can carry them, it’s not a problem.”

“I appreciate that you can carry them. But I want to share the work with you, I don’t want you to do everything for me. It’s called teamwork. Besides it is my job as the person in charge of this station.”

I thought he would insist he carry both boxes or get offended, but instead he gave me a big smile and bent down a bit so I could take the top box. We started walking to the truck one last time.

“Thank you. I didn’t mean to offended you or anything. I just don’t like feeling useless. I want to help when I can, I don’t like making others do work while I sit back and do nothing. So thank you for not being mad.” I tried to explain.

“I actually appreciate what you said. Of course I have no issue holding boxes, but I like that you don’t want a free ride, that you are willing to help with work. To me, it shows that you are compassionate towards others as well as a hard worker.” I let out a sigh of relief that he understood what I meant.

We put our boxes in the truck and headed back to get my bag. Then I signed out at the ticket booth and was free to go on our date. It was now past 10, I hope he doesn’t mind how late it is.

“Kanto, do you mind if we walk to the pizza place?” I asked “It’s such a beautiful night and it would be a waste to drive there on a night like this.”

Kanto smiled again like I just said the best idea he’s ever heard. “Of course, I’d love to walk. Do you want me to carry your bag?”

“No offense, Kanto, but I did just meet you a couple hours ago. I don’t want you to run off with my bag, not that I think you would but just to be safe.” This time his face turned a bit red as if he forgot we just met and was embarrassed that he forgot. In his defense I do feel strangely comfortable around him even though we are practically strangers. He brushed a hand through his hair and a small chuckled before he motioned to the sideway.

“Well then how about we get to know each other so we aren’t strangers anymore?” I nodded and we started walking down the sidewalk towards the pizza place.

This man already had butterflies stirring in my stomach and I’ve only known him for less than 3 hours. This man is going to be trouble.