Lycan's mate

Chapter 3

“You need to get out more. Have some fun.” Her mother eyed her with a critical gaze. “You’ve lost weight are you eating enough?” she looked pointedly at the mess of papers spread over the kitchen table. When she moved forward to start cleaning up the stacks Kelly held out a restraining hand.

“Don’t. You’ll mess up my system,” she cautioned.

“Your system is chaos. You need to be taking better care of yourself Kelly. You’re not a child anymore, and your father and I can’t be there to watch you every moment.”

Kelly felt her ire rise. Her mother meant well, but the last thing Kelly wanted or needed was a lecture. “You’re right Mom I am an adult; I have been for a while now and I don’t need you to tell me how to run my life.” She tried to keep the anger out of her tone but judging from her mother’s stern look it came through anyway.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to snap at you,” Kelly sighed. “I’m just tired. I’ve been busy.” She waved a hand in the direction of the table at the piles of research and notes.

“You work too hard honey. I’m worried about you. I’m sure if you spoke to Ryan He’d -”

“He needs an answer, Mom.” Kelly cut her mom off not wanting to hear how Ryan would accommodate her if she would just tell him what she needed.

“Yes, but I’m sure he doesn’t expect you to find one single-handed. He does have other people working on it. You never liked science and all this research growing up.” Her mother waved a hand towards the jumble of research. “You wanted to be an artist. What happened to that creativity?”

Kelly felt a pang of longing. She had loved painting and drawing as a teen and even into her twenties but lately, she didn’t find joy in it. She couldn’t explain that to her mother though. Ellen Redding would never understand that part of her daughter had been changed when she was only fifteen and that it was far too late to do anything about it now.

Kelly pushed her bangs off her forehead trying to hold in her irritation “This is more important.” She pressed her lips together until they formed a tight line sealing in anything else that she would have said.

“Nothing is more important than your happiness, Kelly. I swear sometimes I think you believe Ryan is a monster. He’s alpha honey and part of that role means caring for his pack members.” She nodded not trusting her voice while her mother put away the last of the groceries that she’d brought over.

Kelly wanted to cry long after her mother had left. Ryan wasn’t a monster. He was a good alpha he had been since he’d taken over for his dad. He ruled fairly and except for the declining birth rates the pack had prospered under this leadership. He just wasn’t a good alpha to her.

Kelly Age 15

A few of her older friends had tried to tell her what the heat was like. Even with their warnings, she wasn’t prepared for the searing arousal that ripped through her, making her want to rub against anything that she could find. She hadn’t been prepared for the onslaught of desire and sudden awareness of the opposite s*x in a way that she hadn’t experienced before.

Unaware of the effect that her pheromones would have on available males of the pack, Kelly wandered towards the ritual clearing, drawn there by a rich masculine scent. She paused at the edge of the familiar grove her heart beating heavily.

“Looks like the nursery let out early,” her cousin Carl sneered. She ignored him; his jibe didn’t bother her. They’d never gotten along, and he’d always been immature for his age, but Ryan’s reaction cut her to the core. His nostrils flared as if breathing in her scent, then his gaze turned cold as his eyes narrowed.

“Where’s your babysitter?” Carl asked, laughing as if he’d told the funniest joke, while looking to Ryan for approval hero-worship shining in his gaze.

Her hormones surged, making anger crest inside of her like a tidal wave. Her wolf clamored to be released so that she could exact retribution on her cousin. Her need to be seen as strong and confident in front of Ryan was suddenly paramount.

“Get out of here!” Ryan spat the words at her his teeth clenched tight.

It made her pause as the rich scent coming from him intensified. He was an alpha. Currently training to lead their pack since his father’s accident the month before, an illegal trap on their land had snapped his ankle and even with their advanced healing abilities, he would never be as strong as he once was. He had chosen to step down, his powers were shifting to Ryan his eldest son.

“Leave!” Ryan’s shout reverberated in the air around her and she shrank back in fear. “Now!” Kelly didn’t wait for him to tell her again, instead she turned and ran as quickly as her legs could carry her.

By the time she reached home, her chest was heaving with the exertion and the heat was riding her hard. Kelly ran up to her room and slammed the door before throwing herself across the bed and sobbing into her pillow.

Kelly pulled herself out of the painful memories. She was twenty-seven now. No longer the naive kid she’d been over a decade before. The memory was a harsh reminder that her heat cycle would be coming again soon.

She dreaded the four times a year she went into heat. The other months she had a regular menstrual cycle like any human woman would, but four times a year her Lycan physiology demanded that she try to breed.

Thankfully their species had developed heat suppression drugs which were now regularly taken until the age of at least eighteen by most Lycan females. Kelly shuddered thinking about what it would have been like for females before the suppression drugs were created.

The drugs were only meant to be taken for a few years until the female had reached s****l maturity. Usually by then she’d found a mate, or at the very least a partner to ride out her heat cycles with. It was rare that mates were found so young, and most Lycans didn’t wait to find their mate before their first s****l experience.

Kelly hadn’t realized it at the time, but the reason Ryan had smelled so good to her that day was that they were mates. Her wolf had known it instantly and she’d been paying for it ever since.