You Have Always Been Mine

Chapter 2 ~ Rewind

(Around a year prior…)

“Oh, look! Ginny’s guard dog is here.”

Max growls under his breath but otherwise ignores the teenage pup who said it. He has just finished doing an errand for Alpha Timothy, discussing something with the School Principal’s secretary and he hasn’t much patience left. “Ready to go?”

Ginny groans. “C’mon, Max…it’s Friday and Rupi’s team is playing for the finals. I want to watch them win!”

“The alpha ordered me to make sure you don’t linger after school because you have things to do at home. Your mother is expecting you to be back in time for your Luna lessons.”

Fourteen (nearly fifteen) year-old Ginny blushes deep red as her friends laugh, teasing her about the luna lessons. With a baleful look at Max, she turns to Rupert with a sweet smile and a flirtatious flutter of her eyelashes. A sure way to getting what she wants. “I’ll be cheering your name from the courtside if you tell your coach I’m your good luck charm so I get to watch the game up close, deal?”

Defiant minx!

Before the clueless, enamored pup could respond, Max stomps toward her and grabs her unceremoniously by the waist, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and walking away without a word while Ginny screams bloody murder for him to put her down. She pummels him on his back with her fists, and he winces. It doesn’t really hurt but it’s rather distracting and he’s worried she might hurt herself, and then the Alpha will have his hide.

“Stop it, Ginny, or—”

“Or what!? You’re gonna smack me on the ass too!? Go ahead! You’ve already humiliated me in front of my friends! My life is over!” she slumps in resignation, hanging her hands as if she’s boneless.

He rolls his eyes and sighs at the melodrama before slowly putting her down when they reach the car. “Of course I’m not going to hit you, don’t be ridiculous. Instead, I’m going to tell your very strict and overprotective father you just got yourself a boyfriend.”

“ARE YOU CRAZY!?” Ginny hisses at him in indignation. “I don’t have a boyfriend! I’ll be grounded for life if you tell him that!”

“Then you better explain that to your Rupi because I don’t think he understood his place when you gave him those puppy eyes and tried to make a deal with him!” he snaps, opening the door of the car—the one Alpha Timothy lets him use in order to drive Ginny to and from the school.

He goes to the community college next to her high school. Both schools are for shifters from different packs around the area. Max is three years older than Ginny, but as the son of a humble servant in their pack, he is lucky enough to be granted a full sponsorship—as long as he looks after his alpha’s precious daughter. That’s the deal Alpha Timothy offered. Her older brother Theo graduated last year, so from now on, it’s up to Max to take care of Ginny. He doesn’t mind, really, except for when Ginny is hell-bent on making things difficult for him to do his job.

However, he’s not going to fail, just because the pack’s princess is throwing tantrums. Whether she believes it or not, he only wants what’s best for her, and young Rupert Hawthorn is not that person. The pup is arrogant, just because he’s a varsity player and future alpha of the neighbouring pack. That his family is well-off too only seems to convince him he has the right to be an ass.

Ginny pouts, crossing her arms rebelliously in front of her chest, glancing at the gym building, probably calculating the odds of outrunning him before finally relenting and getting in without another word. She knows he would just drag her back to the car, uncaring about what everyone else thinks. He has Alpha Timothy’s blessing to act as he sees fit and to make sure Ginny follows her routine.

Once he’s certain that she has put on her seatbelt, he closes the door and goes around to the driver’s side.

“I was almost hoping you’d make a run for it,” he teases her as he starts the car. “Woke up late today and I could use a good exercise.”

Ginny rolls her eyes. “What’s the point of running? You’d be dragging me back before I even reach the gym. I’ve had enough indignity for the day, thanks to you.”

They drive quietly for a few minutes, but in the end Ginny breaks the silence, as if she’s too restless to just sit there watching her side of the road.

“Are you worried about your…spirit beast?” she asks, trying to sound casual, but Max knows her intention is to nettle him. “It’s almost your eighteenth birthday.”

He shrugs, pretending not to care. “I’m not stressing about it if that’s what you want to know. I have more important things to worry about. Like my studies and making sure I don’t lose my sponsor because my charge is being a brat.”

Ginny narrows her eyes at him suspiciously, as if trying to ascertain that he’s telling the truth. She scoffs when she sees nothing betraying his inner turmoil before turning to her window again to stare blankly outside.

“Rumor has it that you’re not even a wolf shifter,” she mutters as if to herself, but it’s clear she intends for him to hear it.

He stiffens but refuses to acknowledge her words, just focusing on driving smoothly so he can bring her home safe and sound.

“They said your father was a dog.” Ginny turns to look at him again. “I heard someone from Mintwood Pack say that your mother was in heat while her mate was away and to relieve herself, she shifted into her wolf form and mated with a dog!” she snickers, as if she finds the whole thing wildly amusing.

He says nothing, pretending not to hear her.

“Maybe that’s why you haven’t shifted into your wolf yet,” she adds with a smirk. “Did you secretly shift into a dog instead but you’re just too ashamed to let everyone know?”

He takes a deep breath, praying to the Moon Goddess for an extra dose of patience. “Is this what you learn in school, hanging out with those new friends of yours? Gossiping and making up stories that could end up hurting people?” He glances at her with a raised eyebrow. “I get that you’re mad at me for taking you home, but did you not even consider what would happen if this baseless gossip gets to my mother? Do you not care that she will be terribly upset? Is that what you want? To make the woman who took care of you since you were a baby feel like s**t? That’s really low, Imogen, even for an immature and spoiled teenager who’s just desperate to fit in with her peers.”

Ginny’s face turns red with shame, and she quickly turns away. “Stop calling me Imogen! I hate that name, it makes me sound so old!”

Max says nothing and Ginny doesn’t bother him again. They finally reach their territory and he parks right in front of the pack house.

“I’m sorry, okay?” She mutters without looking at him.

He doesn’t answer, letting her stew a little bit more.

“I promise not to speak of it again. I love Lettie, I don’t want her to be upset. I’m just really pissed at you. You could have let me stay a little bit with my friends. Dad trusts you. He wouldn’t have minded me staying out late as long as you were there with me.”

“Your father trusts me for a reason, Ginny. He knows I won’t be pressured into compromising,” he tells her in a firm voice. “My education and my future depend on how well I do my job. And you’re not making it easy.”

She sighs. “My schedule is just too stifling! I know my duties, but I’m fifteen now, I have new friends and new interests. If you just help me explain it to Dad, maybe he’d give me more freedom.” She looks at him with pleading eyes. “I’m not asking for too much, I just want to enjoy my life as a teenager! My routines go way back to when I was in kindergarten! Heck, I’m the only one who has never ever been on a sleepover in another pack’s territory!”

“Your father is just making sure you’re safe. Rogue attacks are not uncommon during the night and it’s too easy to lose young ones in the mayhem. But you’re right,” he says as she opens her mouth to protest. “You’re a young lady now and you deserve a little bit more flexibility and independence. I will talk to him.”

The expression of delight on her face is priceless. But her reaction to his words stuns him more. She shrieks happily before pulling him for an embrace and giving him a kiss on his right cheek, her soft pink lips nearly brushing against the corner of his. Her hazel eyes are bright as she stares into his coffee-colored ones.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She sings happily before letting him go and getting out of the car, not waiting for him to open the door. “You’re the best, Max!”

He stares after her in stunned silence as she rushes into the house. What just happened? Such a mercurial mood! First she hates him, now she’s calling him the best, all in a matter of a few minutes.

With a sigh, he restarts the car and drives it to the garage before heading home, his thoughts filled with worry about the rumor she heard. Lettie, his mother, believes that that past has been buried and forgotten, but apparently it has started to resurface again. If nothing is done to stop it, that ugly past will haunt them again.

No, that can’t happen. His mother doesn’t deserve it, she has been through enough.

He growls as he stomps on the path to the small cottage by the woods that he shares with his mother. Whoever is spreading that rumor, he’ll find them and make sure they keep their thoughts to themselves and their mouths shut.

He looks forward to the day his wolf would finally show up so the rumor would finally die a bitter death. It won’t be long now but this rumor better die down quickly before it reaches his mother. He really doesn’t want to see her get hurt again.

Max drops his school bag on the floor of his tiny room and immediately changes into his training clothes. Now he has more reasons to train harder. To defend his mother’s reputation and to protect Ginny from the bad influence she considers friends. Oh, and yes. To finally beat Alpha Timothy in arm wrestling. It has been their little annual tradition and he has yet to win.

Ginny’s kiss still burns on his right cheek and he feels a boost of energy like never before, which makes him grin. It will be his eighteenth birthday soon… and it could be that day he finally gets the alpha to give him his approval.

“Mine…” he vows as he imagines the day. “Always and forever.”

Little did he know, forever has begun a little earlier than expected.