The Alpha's Hybrid Mate

Chapter 2

“No, dad, I don’t understand your position at all, but I am done talking to you about it!”, Raffaele shouted, exasperation audible in his voice. He had tried to restrain himself, to listen to his father and his reasoning, but he just couldn’t agree with him at all. The old Alpha was too lazy, that was the truth. He comfortably rested on the treaties he made years ago and the sense of security their seclusion in the mountains gave them and that’s why their warriors, hell, their entire pack didn’t even train properly anymore. They were utterly unprepared, should any threat ever arise. Raffaele knew that once he took over, this would be the very first thing he’d change. The problem was… at 20 years old, he didn’t want to take over just yet. While he was upset with the way things were going at home, he didn’t want to take on the added responsibility of becoming Alpha. All he wanted, was to finish his studies, settle down, maybe find his mate if the Goddess was generous, and live a regular life. But apparently, the stars didn’t align for him, and he knew that he would be forced to take his rightful position sooner rather than later.

He decided to go for a run to calm down a little bit, and approached the forest behind the pack house. The sun was about to set, and the evening breeze was cool, but he took off his clothes, hid them behind a tree and shifted. Sighing, he turned away from the packhouse and gave control to his wolf, who seemed to be very quiet tonight. Lucio, is everything alright? I don’t know, something is… off. I just feel like something is about to happen, and I don’t know if it is going to be good or not. Well, that wasn’t soothing at all. Undeterred, Raffaele kept running deep into the woods. He crossed the pack border, trying to let out some steam by running as fast as he could. His paws raking up dirt as he barrelled his way through the trees and bushes, a blur of green and brown. Fall had started, and the first leaves were falling down, covering the ground and dampening the noise of his steps. Their pack territory started just east from the school grounds and was very extensive, mostly because nobody else was there to challenge them. Yet. He knew it was just a matter of time, until the packs that lived closer to them would make a move. Raffaele tried to shake off these thoughts, after all, that was the purpose of this run.

Once the sun had set, and the sky had gotten dark, he was thinking about turning back, when all of a sudden, this wonderful smell hit his nose. Stone pine. He knew the smell, because a friend of his mother used to make little pillows stuffed with it, and there was a time when he was younger when he couldn’t fall asleep, if he didn’t have one of those close to him. Sniffing intently, he slowly followed the scent, treading lightly on the forest ground as to not make any noise. The stone pine smell mixed with the smell of fresh blood, which caused Lucio to run in circles in the back of his mind, wincing and breathing heavily. Was someone hurt? When he broke through the last bushes, he could see that the blood smell came from a dead deer. Someone had already eaten his fair share of it. Close to the carcass sat the most beautiful creature he had ever set his eyes on.

The wolf was small, her fur black as a raven, but it looked so incredibly soft he longed to caress her. Her eyes were deep red, an unusual colour for a wolf. The smell of stone pine radiated off her in waves, urging him to come closer and nuzzle his nose into her neck. Still, she didn’t make any move, and he took that as a sign that she wasn’t scared, but also not completely comfortable with the situation, still deciding whether she should stay or run away. His heart ached at the thought of her running away, without him having the opportunity to find out who she was. Carefully, setting one paw in front of the other, he approached her, until barely a leaf could fit between their faces. He inhaled her scent deeply, it calmed him down more than he thought the run would. He couldn’t resist anymore, he had to feel her fur. He walked to her side and caressed her with his snout, trying to hold back from dashing out his tongue and grooming her. Raffaele could hear her hear beat a little faster, and he dared to think that she was excited about their meeting, but he wasn’t sure. She still hadn’t moved a bit. He tried to think of the next step – they were unable to communicate in their wolf form, but shifting wasn’t an option. Although he didn’t mind not wearing any clothes in front of others, he didn’t know if she was comfortable around him like that, and he couldn’t risk her running away. But he also couldn’t nudge her back to his pack, so that they could get dressed after shifting. Where was she from? Maybe they could go to her place? But again, how comfortable was she with him following her to her home?

It seemed like she was also pondering about the situation they had found themselves in and wasn’t sure about the next step. She had turned to face him, her head c****d to the side and her eyes glistening with interest and full of questions. And it seemed like she had understood that he would respect her decisions and didn’t want to force her into something, as her gaze got softer. Turning around, she started walking away, but she looked back at him and shook her head, inviting him to follow her. Raffaele didn’t hesitate, he quickly stepped closer to her and kept up the pace, when she ran at a comfortable speed through the forest.

After a while, they came to a small opening with a quaint cottage. The she-wolf sniffed around a little, but then seemed to deem it safe and approached the building. She turned to him and motioned for him to wait, so he sat down and watched her disappear behind what he now assumed to be her home, and after a few moments, a young woman wearing yoga pants and an old faded hoodie, holding a men’s shirt and some worn out shorts came walking toward him. He took the clothes she offered, walked behind the nearest tree and shifted back. Quickly pulling on the borrowed clothes, he emerged to take a good look at his mate. Her wolf form was breath taking, but what he saw now made him stop in his tracks; this had to be the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on. Her skin was like porcelain, shining in the moonlight. Her hair was so long it reached the middle of her back, and as black as her wolf’s fur. Briefly, he wondered if it would be just as soft. Her eyes were red, something he had never seen before in a werewolf.

His brain seemed to stop working at the sight of her, and as much as he wanted to be poised and secure, he knew he should just stay quiet and spare her from the undignified blabber that was bound to come out of his mouth. But he so desperately wanted to know her name, just so he could taste it in his mouth every time he would say it when she wasn’t with him. Trying to pull himself together with all the strength he could muster, he quietly asked “Who are you?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” she answered, and her voice seemed to be that of an angel. Her lips were slightly coiling upwards, as if she was aware of his internal struggle. She should be, after all, if she was his mate, she would feel the same. He found himself starting to smile at her words, she wasn’t wrong. Neither of them had met the other before, it seemed. At least, not as far as he could remember.

“My name is Raffaele,” he finally said. “And yours?”

“I’m Vanessa”

Vanessa. That’s what his dreams were going to be made of from now until the day he died, he was sure of that. 

“I want…,” you, he wanted to say, but he held himself back, not knowing how she would react to such a bold statement. “I want to get to know you. Please. Allow me to take you out, we can go for dinner, perhaps?” Lucio was laughing at the back of his mind at his pathetic attempts to ask her out, but Raffaele shoved him aside and waited breathlessly for her answer.

“Dinner would be nice, I guess. You can pick me up at seven tomorrow.” Her eyes glazed over for a split second. “You need to leave now. I will see you tomorrow.”

With those words, she turned around and vanished inside the cottage. He stood still for another second before turning around and making his way back home. He didn’t bother shifting anymore, it wasn’t far and the short walk would give him more time to think about what had just happened. All he knew for sure was, that he had finally found his mate and she had agreed to go out with him. And that was all he needed to be happy for that moment.