Two Halves of a Whole

Chapter 4

Lugos had been fighting with his wolf since he had walked into the party. If Sattira had known what she was everything would have been so much easier. When he arrived at the party and caught the most wonderful scent of peppermint his wolf wanted to take what was his and worry about the consequences later.

The moment their eyes met his wolf started chatting, “mate, claim mate.” He had waited so long for his mate it was almost impossible to hold his wolf back. It was so hard leaving her to mingle at the party. His wolf had wanted to rage when those power hungry she wolves had disrespected his mate by flirting with him right in front of her.

The only thing that soothed him was seeing how she was already affected by the mate bond. He could feel her eyes on him throughout the night. He tried not to give away that he was aware that she was watching him because he didn’t want to upset her. He knew humans were more self conscious than wolves and could already tell from just the short time he had spent with her that Sattira had learned this behavior from the humans that had raised her. Making her uncomfortable around him would only make claiming her take longer and not being aware of what she was already made everything hard enough for him.

Sleep was impossible so he packed enough clothes for the time he would be at the lake house and put them in his truck. He left to go grab enough food for a few days as everything else he would need was already there. It was still too early to pick Sattira up so he took everything and dropped it off.

When everything was taken care of he knew it was still early and normally he would go for a run to burn off some energy but he was afraid if he gave his wolf control he would end up at her house in wolf form and that would definitely not help his case. He could just imagine the fear in her beautiful eyes as she saw his giant alpha wolf trying to break down her door so he could drool on her.

I wouldn’t scare mate, mate was made for me to love. Mate already loves us, his wolf protested at the thought of Sattira being scared.

She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know who she is, much less what a mate is. No matter how draw she feels to us, she was raised to be afraid of us like most humans are, he tried reasoning with his wolf.

His wolf didn’t answer back but he felt the sorrow of his wolf as though it was his own at the thought of his mate being afraid of him.

It’s ok, we will help her understand, he thought to his wolf. He felt bad for his wolf because as important as his mate was to his human side a mate was everything to the wolf side of any shifter.

Every shifter was only ever born with one mate. If something happened and your mate died after you met them there was only one way to get another, you had to pray to the moon goddess. The only way she would consider answer was if your mate’s death was something beyond your control.

All these fantasy novels about rejecting mates or parents killing their child’s mate are complete fiction. If we reject our mate we lose our abilities as shifters, all of them. If parents kill your mate thinking they will get another chance to gain a mate they approve of their child never gets another chance at a mate and they slowly become a human. Being a human is worse than death for a shifter.

Oh, and for the record, a shifter only ever gets a mate of their own kind. This isn’t meant to sound harsh but how many panthers do you see in the wild mating with wolves? The moon goddess gives all shifters mates that complete their animal half. That is, after all, why she created mates in the first place - so our animal side wouldn’t be punished for being bound to our human side.

And don’t take that to mean that all shifters wait for their mates. There have been some shifters that have ended up pregnant with babies that did not shift into the same animal as their moms, and even some that never shifted at all. Most of the time those end up being sad stories as once the shifter finds their mate they might not want the living reminder of their life before their mate. A lot of these children end up in pack orphanages or raised by grandparents. Lugos’ Mom grew up in an orphanage and for this reason he promised her he would never intentionally put his own child through that life. Not that he would ever let his child go through anything like that anyway. Shifters who did that to children who didn’t ask to be born were lower than scum in his opinion.

Lugos had found myself stripping down at the edge of the lake. A swim would help burn off some energy and eat up some time until he could go grab his beautiful mate. He walked to the end of the dock and dove into the ice cold water before he could change his mind. Soon the sun would heat the water enough to make it enjoyable but at the moment he needed the cold to help with the thoughts his wolf kept having. Knowing where his mate was and not being able to claim her was worse than not finding her in some ways.

By the time Lugos felt he could show up at Sattira’s home he had exhausted himself enough his wolf settled down to a more controllable presence in the back of his mind. He walked to the shore and grabbed the towel he had left by his clothes so he could dry off enough to put his clothes back on then hung the towel on the back of a chair sitting on the back deck. Once he made sure the rest of Sattira’s group could get into the house if they got there before he got back, he climbed into his truck and drove down the long drive and through the gate that exited the pack territory on that border.

For the safety of the pack there was a huge rock wall that had been built along the border of the pack hidden in the trees and undergrowth of bushes marked with no trespassing signs to help keep out humans and make it hard for rogues or other groups to invade their territory. He was proud of how his father had upgraded the security system over the years. His pack was more secure than most government facilities. The gates situated along the furthest edge of each border was originally built in case the pack had to evacuate for safety reasons but with all the security upgrades over the years they were now more for convenience purposes so pack members didn’t have to go all the way around the border to get places outside their territory.

One of the pack’s companies held contracts with the human government that allowed them to justify the security measures and allowed the pack to keep an eye on a lot of the weapons being developed by the government. This helped give the Council of Mythical Beings a way to get into government files as well, which gave the Red Sky Pack a lot of standing.

Just being the next in line as Alpha gave Lugos a lot of sway but also a lot of responsibility. This was yet another reason he had to be careful with how he dealt with his mate. It was the reason he wasn’t yelling from the rooftops about finding her. He was as good as a celebrity in his world and he knew his mate was no where near ready for the kind of attention she would have if others knew who she was to him.

He pulled up in front of her house and climbed from his truck just as she was leaving the house with a couple of duffel bags in hand and a backpack on her back. He was stuck somewhere between asking her if she planned on going to Paris for the whole summer after all and wanting to gather her up in his arms and bury his nose in her neck. Instead of doing either of those things he walked over and took her bags for her as she made sure the door was locked then followed him to his truck.

He helped her into the truck, enjoying the tingling sparks from the mate bond where their skin touch, then closed her door before climbing in on the driver’s side. The truck roared to life and started down the road before the comfortable silence between them was finally broken.

“So how far away is this lake house?” Her voice was like music to his ears.

“Not that far. It is very private though, my family owns thousands of acres in the area.” He answered her question and caught the shocked look on her face.

“So your family must be rich like Nina’s and Kim’s?” She sounded a little nervous at this point.

He wasn’t sure how to get back the comfortable feeling that had been between them before so he tried changing the subject. “Did your parents make it home yet?”

She noticed he had not answered her question but decided it might be rude to dig any further if he so obviously didn’t want to talk about it. “No, they left for the whole weekend. They won’t be back until tomorrow.”

“You already told them that you were going to be gone for a couple of weeks though?” He was asking more to keep her talking than because he really wanted to know.

“Yeah, I told them I was going with Nina and Kim to hang out before they leave for the summer. They would have let me go to Paris if it was what I really wanted but we would not have been back but a couple of days before I have to leave to go to college.” She wasn’t sure why she felt like she had to explain but she didn’t want him thinking her parents were controlling or that she couldn’t stand to be away from them. “If I went to Paris I would have to come home then spend my time packing for college. I wouldn’t have time to relax and spend any time with my parents before I leave. It just feels like once I leave for college everything changes, you know? It’s kind of a milestone for becoming an adult.”

“I understand what you mean,” he reassured her. “Before I left for college life still felt carefree. When I came back for my first break my Dad started including me in decisions with the family business.” He remembered his Dad asking his opinion about pack matters for the first time when he came back for break his first year of college. It truly did seem like Sattira was right.

“Then you understand why I can’t just leave them for the summer like that.” It was more a statement than anything.

Hearing the finality in her voice he decided to ask her about something else. “What do your parents do for a living?”

“My Dad is a police officer and my Mom works at the Capital Building. She is kind of an aid to the Governor.”

He could feel her watching him as she answered and wondered if she was expecting some kind of reaction but they had reacted the gate at the border of the pack territory so he didn’t have much time to think about it as he entered the proper code and stared at the facial recognition device hidden above the keypad without revealing that it was there.

“Wow, your family takes security seriously,” she said. “Did you give the others the code so they can get in?”

Lugos almost choked at her question. He hadn’t thought about what she might think of the security at the gate. “They have been here before since our families are so close. They already have the code.” He was thankful for the quick recovery.

“Oh, will I need the code to get out if I decide I want to go home early?” He was sure she asked because she was nervous about being trapped, no wolf liked feeling trapped, but the idea of her leaving at all made him feel sad.

“You only need the code to enter. The gate opens from the other side based off proximity sensors,” he forced a smile and gave her the simple explanation leaving out the software that was used to make sure it didn’t open for wild animals or young children (not that parents would let young children that were not yet able to shift and protect themselves run around unsupervised but it was better to be safe.)

They pulled in front of the lake house to find Nina and Kim were carrying their bags inside. Lugos was slightly disappointed that he was no longer going to be alone with his mate.

“Wow, this is the lake house?” She was watching out the window as he parked the truck, leaving room so Danny and Jacob could park as well without blocking anyone in.

“Yes, this is it,” he was unbuckling his seatbelt and getting ready to take in their bags.

“It’s so big,” there was awe in her tone. “And it’s so beautiful here.”

“Wait until you see the back, the view from the deck is breathtaking,” he replied.

She is breathtaking, His wolf insisted. The view from the deck doesn’t come close to her.