Captured by the wolf mate

We parked in front of a row of townhouses. There were five of them, and they glanced nice. A lot nicer than the niche I lived in. “If you have homes, why are you guys camping in the normal of the work week?” I asked Nico, not getting out immediately. He shut off his truck. “We live in the forest. The houses are to keep our wolves settled, in case we meet our mates.” Oh. That was… Thoughtful? Ish? Thoughtfulness? “You don’t believe your mates will want to live in the forest?” I opened my door when he unlocked his. “Do you like to live in the forest?” he asked. I frowned at the thought. “Exactly.” He strode up to one of the houses in the standard of the strip. “This one’s Axel’s. Beta wolves are known for having short mate hunts, so he probably won’t stay wolfed out for more than a few weeks, unless he can’t bite you. I’d suggest not leaving the house. We’ll bring groceries and have a friend bring you some clothes.” “I told you, I have to go back to the valley,” I reminded him as I followed him up the three stairs that led to the porch. Axel stayed right beside me, his side pressed against mine. I left my hand on his head since he seemed to like that. “Staying isn’t an option.” “Look.” Nico opened the front door—it was already unlocked, which was not safe—but leaned up against the doorway so I couldn’t go past him. “I don’t know anything about how demon relationships work, but werewolves are possessive. Betas even more so than the rest of us. If you work somewhere that other men might be, stay home, or they’ll probably get attacked. If somebody looks at you for too long, Axel will try to kill them. If somebody tries to flirt with you, they’ll be dead before you can scream. My packmates and I live in the forest because we’re closer with our animals; the town calls us feral for it.” I snorted. “No one’s looked twice at me since I was twelve. Believe me, I’ll be fine, and so will everyone else. Now, can you move? I have to get back home.” He reluctantly stepped to the side. Axel growled at him, and Nico quickly crossed to the other side of the porch. “At least consider putting more clothes on before you risk anything?” Nico asked. I flipped him the bird, stepped inside the house, and shut the door behind me—locking it, too. And then I was alone with the wolf. My eyes scanned the space. It was nice—especially compared to where I lived. The floors were dark brown wood or wood-looking tile. The walls were white. The cabinets were light gray, and the countertops were white with more gray. It was also huge, compared to my apartment. The living room was to my right, the kitchen to my left, with a pretty dining table and a sliding back door, too. I liked it—but it wasn’t home, I didn’t think it ever would be. Living outside Mist Valley wasn’t an option. My hellfire was pretty much impossible to control, which meant I could accidentally burn the place to the ground at any given second. There were other uses for hellfire magic (mainly, it could be used to change moods when added to certain drinks, hence the demon-owned bars) but I’d never learned any of those other uses. In Mist Valley, the whole city was protected by witch runes. The runes prevented anything from being burned to the ground, or smashed by dragons, or… well, pretty much anything that could happen, the runes protected against. The place was made to keep us all safe. I only felt trapped because I didn’t have the required magic to qualify for a better job, a better house, or anything better. Something told me that showing up with a werewolf beside me wasn’t going to help that in any way. There was a paper folder sitting on the kitchen island, so I headed over to that. My eyebrows lifted when I opened it and found a large picture of the whole pack. Or rather, what used to be the pack? There were six men in the picture, and I recognized Nico and a few of the others I’d met in the forest. They looked younger in the picture, and happier too. Two of the men had an X drawn over their bodies, and someone had scribbled above their heads, ‘not interested in being feral pack’. Two other pictures had been added to the folder—one of the cute little curly-haired kid, and another of the guy who had been laughing in the forest. Below each of them, there was a name written. The main picture had Kai, Enzo, Axel, and Nico. The little boy was Lucas. The man in the extra picture—the one who had chuckled—was Finn. I moved the picture aside and found a typed sheet of paper. It listed out the werewolf mating process first—the mate hunt, where the werewolf is stuck in animal form until he transforms his woman. The mate chases, where the transformed female wolf watches her man, studying him until she’s satisfied that he’ll be a good mate, and then bites him back. And the c****x, which contains… lots of climaxes, unless you decide to ignore it and go the torturous no-s*x route. The torturous route was a hard pass for me. Most mystics were pretty free with everything s*x-wise. The more magic someone had, the more attractive they were considered. So basically, I was unattractive to everyone in Mist Valley. I’d only had s*x a couple of times, but I’d enjoyed it for the most part. Having a permanent partner didn’t sound terrible, at all. Then again, we weren’t going to be living together or anything. He’d want to be by his pack, and I needed to be in the valley. So… I probably wouldn’t have a permanent partner. That was a shitty blow, but not any shittier than everything else I had going on. I skimmed the page.