Howl: I Met My Mate

Chapter 6 The Mark

I didn't make it back to the packhouse.

Halfway through the woods, my legs gave out.

The shift had taken everything out of me. First shifts are supposed to be done lying down, surrounded by your pack, with your family chanting to keep your wolf calm. Not after dying, being reborn, and running five miles as a giant glowing wolf.

I collapsed against a pine tree, wearing only Cade's huge pants that kept sliding off my hips, my naked chest covered by my hair. My mark — that silver crescent on my forehead — was burning like ice.

We are weak, my wolf Luna whimpered inside me. She wasn't smug anymore. She was tired too. We used too much power too soon. The Goddess warned us.

"The Goddess warned me I'd have to choose," I whispered out loud, my teeth chattering. "She didn't warn me choosing would hurt this much."

The wind moved.

I wasn't alone anymore.

"Took you long enough to fall."

Selene stepped out from behind a tree. She was back in her human form, wearing a Blackstone guard's jacket that was way too big for her. Her silver hair was messy from our fight. Her lip was bleeding where I had hit her.

But she was smiling.

"I knew you would run here," she said, walking closer. "White Moon girls always run to Moon Lake when they are scared. Your mother did too, you know. Right before she died."

My blood went cold.

"What do you know about my mother?"

Selene crouched in front of me, the way she had crouched in front of me when I was dying in my first life. Same smile. Same eyes.

"So much. Did your precious father never tell you? Your mother wasn't wolfless, Elara. She was a White Wolf too. A dormant one. Just like you. And do you know what happens to dormant White Wolves who are too weak to control their power?"

She leaned in, her voice a whisper.

"They die in childbirth. Just like she did."

The world tilted.

My mother... a White Wolf? My father had always told me she was a normal wolf who died because I was a big baby. He lied?

"You are lying," I said, but my voice shook.

"Am I?" Selene pulled out her phone and showed me a picture. An old, faded polaroid. A woman with my face, but older, with the same silver crescent on her forehead, holding a newborn — me — and smiling. Behind her, standing with his arm around her, was Alpha Edward. And next to him... a younger Cade's father. And a small girl with black hair. Selene.

We knew each other as children?

Before I could grab the phone, a low growl ripped through the forest.

"Get away from her."

Cade.

He was still half-naked, his pants on, his chest bare and heaving, his eyes pure gold. He had shifted back to human and run after me, and he looked like he was about to kill.

Selene stood up quickly, putting on her fake scared face. "Alpha Cade, I was just trying to help her, she—"

"Don't," he snarled, and his Alpha voice made Selene drop to her knees, choking. "Don't you ever touch her again. Don't look at her again. If you come within fifty feet of White Moon territory again, I will rip your throat out myself. Fated or not."

Selene's eyes filled with real tears this time. "Cade, you can't—"

"I rejected you," he said, each word like a bullet. "Two years ago. In front of the Goddess. We are nothing. She is my mate. She is my Luna. Whether she wants me or not."

He didn't look at Selene again. He came to me, kneeling in the dirt, his hands hovering over my shaking body, scared to touch me.

"Elara," he whispered. "You are freezing. You are burning at the same time. Your first shift—"

"I know," I whimpered. "It hurts."

For the first time in two lives, I let him touch me.

He picked me up like I weighed nothing, one arm under my knees, one behind my back. My head fell against his chest. His skin was so warm. His heart was hammering so fast it matched mine.

Mate, my wolf Luna sighed happily, despite the pain. Mate holds us.

"No," I whispered against his chest, but I didn't push him away.

He carried me through the forest, back toward the packhouse lights. Selene was left kneeling in the dirt, watching us, her fists clenched so tight her nails bled.

Halfway there, I felt it. His thumb brushing the back of my knee where his pants had ridden up.

And then — a spark. Like lightning. White-hot and gold.

I gasped.

On the back of my knee, where no one could see, a faint golden mark was forming. Like a bite. Like a crescent.

A mating mark.

But he hadn't bitten me. He hadn't marked me.

My wolf was marking HIM through me.

Cade felt it too. His whole body jerked. He looked down, saw the faint golden glow on my skin, and stopped walking.

"Elara..." his voice was pure shock and awe and possessiveness. "Your wolf... she just..."

I looked up at him, my white-gold eyes meeting his gold ones.

"She chose," I whispered. "Before I did."

And far behind us, Selene screamed — because every wolf in the territory had just felt the bond snap into place.

The dormant Luna had just marked the Alpha of Alphas.

And there was no going back.