Wrong mate, p.1
Wrong Mate, page 1
Published by EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ® at Smashwords
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2023 Sam Crescent
ISBN: 978-0-3695-0837-9
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Lisa Petrocelli
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
WRONG MATE
The Alpha Shifter Collection, 19
Sam Crescent
Copyright © 2023
Prologue
“You cannot be serious about me helping that … that thing!” Leah looked at her parents and knew before they even spoke a word that there was no chance of arguing her way out of this.
“Don’t call him that, sweetheart. It’s not nice,” her mother said, always trying to be the reasonable one.
“Why do I have to be nice to him when he’s been a total dick to me?”
“Language, Leah.” This was her dad, attempting to keep the peace.
Even though she was twenty-five years old, she couldn’t help herself and stomped her foot in annoyance. She had stopped being a child a long time ago. Inheriting her magical ability at a young age had kept her from enjoying any kind of childhood. Her magic was powerful and dangerous, which put her at risk. She couldn’t enjoy the normal, everyday human world. She and her parents had no choice but to take her back to the coven to be raised around magic, with her lessons constantly focused on controlling her abilities.
Leah didn’t mind. She knew her parents loved and cared about her dearly, but they had hoped she would have some kind of normal life. Instead, she was taught by several good witches and warlocks intent on keeping her safe. Being one of the most powerful witches foretold, a great many people wanted her dead at a young age. She couldn’t remember the prophecy exactly, but interpretation suggested she would come into her power at eighteen, and be one of the best witches for the side of good, not evil. They had been so wrong, because that hadn’t happened at all. She didn’t get to wait until eighteen for her magic—that came sooner.
There were a lot of Latin and double meanings, and, well, she was nagged by many witches and warlocks to just follow their lessons and do as she was told. Including traveling with a pack. Yep, her very first werewolf pack that wanted a protection border in place, from humans.
Protection happened to be her forte, there was just a little snag—Killian. The alpha wolf. Yeah, she had no wolfy blood or anything like that, but she had known the moment she met him, they were (vomit) mates.
There was no reason to vomit. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Killian. Yes, he was much older than her. He looked forty years old, but he was probably a lot older, as wolves tended to keep the same appearance even as they aged. That pesky little immortality they all enjoyed.
Killian, though, was pure muscle. He had thick brown hair with a few hints of grey, and the prettiest blue eyes she’d ever seen. Only, she had never seen Killian smile. No, Mr. Killian Werewolf didn’t like the fact she was a witch. He denied their mating, even though everyone saw it, and his rejection had stung. This kind of caused a little pesky rainfall that lasted the entire trip. She was casting a protection spell around their town. She hadn’t been a bitch to him, though. She hadn’t weakened the spell, in fact, it was bound tightly, because Killian aside, the rest of his pack had been awesome.
Now she had to go on some kind of quest with Killian. The coven and her parents demanded it, which was so unfair. She hated being around Killian. She hated crying over his rejection, and when she was emotional, controlling her magic became difficult.
“Honey, I know his rejection hurt, but after this, trust me, you’re going to feel better for it.” Her father came toward her, grabbing her hands and holding them against his chest.
“People will say I’m a little lapdog for following him around like a damn puppy. I can’t do it,” she said.
“No one will think that, sweetheart, trust me. Your presence has been requested and you know the coven can never turn down a request for help. He needs help. Please, do not embarrass us and let us help.”
She blew out a breath.
The point of their coven was to constantly do good. To be good. It fucking sucked. Not that she’d say that out loud. She knew the whole coven would have freaked out if she had turned into a bad witch.
Leah wasn’t bad and she wasn’t mean. From time to time she got angry, upset, and frustrated, but she made a point of not using her magic then.
“Fine. Fine. I’ll do it, but I’m not going to be nice to him. Not at all.”
“You leave immediately,” her father said.
“Yay.”
****
Ryan watched his daughter go and knew Vivian, his wife and soul partner, didn’t like this.
“We should have told her,” Vivian said.
“You know that would have been bad.”
“And allowing her to go off on some quest to do this is … better? They’re going to dark magic, Ryan. You know how fine a line Leah walks. This could push her over the edge.”
Ryan closed his eyes and clenched his hands into fists. When Killian had requested a meeting with him and told him what he had planned, he had nearly done the unthinkable. He wanted to kill that man, that alpha, but he knew Killian was a good man who had his reasons.
“Can he really do it?” Vivian asked. “Can he really sever the bond of mating to give Leah her freedom?”
He opened his eyes and gazed into his wife’s. “If he does, I hope it doesn’t destroy our daughter.” He only hoped that during their quest, Killian would realize that what he was doing was wrong, and would live his life, miserable, cold, and lonely. He knew Leah being mated to a wolf wasn’t ideal, but it was what the fates had decided.
Everything was now set in motion, all he could do was hope.
Chapter One
One day.
Twenty-four hours.
Leah was never good at math, so however many minutes added up to twenty-four hours, was how long she had spent with Killian. This was the longest she had ever spent with a man who didn’t like her. Her mate who had rejected her. Good times. A lot of fun times.
Actually, at Killian’s request, she was not to talk or perform any kind of magic. That had lasted for a couple of hours but then she got bored of cursing him out inside her head.
“Where exactly are we going?” she asked, not for the first time. “And don’t tell me that it’s none of my business, because having to go on this journey with you makes it my business.”
“What did I say about not talking?”
“In case you didn’t know this, I’m not a dog, Wolfboy, and I don’t have to take orders from you.”
Killian stopped and spun toward her. “I don’t give orders to dogs.”
“Fine, little wolves, whatever.” She rolled her eyes and couldn’t help but smile because she knew her little act of insolence pissed him off, and that did make her incredibly happy. “And why does our quest have to be in the damn forest?” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. He stayed perfectly still. “You do know this journey of yours will go a lot better if you learn to be nice.” She hated this.
“Your parents told me that your … abilities are still quite fragile. There are other things out there that would love to turn you evil, or harness your abilities, or just plain kill you.”
Leah smiled. “Yeah, there’s that pesky little problem.”
“I’m an alpha, my scent is strong, and we have a better way of hiding your scent by sticking to the woods and forests. There’s a risk you’re always being tracked, but as it is, a wolf’s scent is somewhat repulsive to many different things.”
“You’re telling me you’re stinky, aren’t you?” she asked, and couldn’t help having a big smile on her face.
If she’d not been staring at Killian, she would have missed it, but right at the corner of his lips there was a twitch. So subtle, but she had seen it. She had made him smile.
“I can hold my own,” Leah said. “You don’t have to protect me. Wait, if you stink, like badly, why am I not affected by it? You don’t smell to me.” She moved closer to Killian and took a sniff. “You don’t smell.”
Any hint of a smile faded and Leah knew why.
“Because we’re mates, right? That’s why you don’t smell to me.”
“We should stop for the night. It’s late and the light has all gone.”
“I can fix that,” she said. She drew light from her hand and flooded their path for them to see.
“Damn it, stop that!” Killian grabbed her palm and thrust it against her back, pushing her up against a tree.
“Hey!” She was tempted to shove him off, but she didn’t think that would end well, and seeing as he’d already upset her by not answering her question about them being mates, she wasn’t going to allow her emotions to consume her.
The pain in her chest meant nothing to her. She didn’t care that he rejected her at every turn. It was fine. She handled rejection like a piece of cake, she ate it.
“Part of your life is valuable to many and we could be tracked, don’t you get it? Do not draw attention to us. Not only are we at risk from fellow witches and warlocks, there are wolves who would take you, vampires, and many other pieces of shit that go bump in the night.”
“If this mission is so important, why did you ask for my presence?”
She hated that she loved the feel of his hard body against hers. Why did she have to crave his touch?
Killian hated her.
He let her go and she spun to look at him, tempted to rub at her wrists. The light was gone.
“Because I need the most powerful witch ever born,” Killian said. “It’s important to my pack. Trust me, I wouldn’t have risked your life if it wasn’t important.”
At least he needed her, for business.
“Fine. We camp here.” She moved past him and grabbed one of the sleeping bags from the sack he’d been carrying. Rolling it out, she sat down, crossed her legs, straightened her spine, and focused.
The last thing she wanted to do in front of him was cry, but each time he rejected her and her magic, it was like he took a dagger straight to her chest. Dealing with her emotions was easier back at the coven, but not now.
Taking a deep breath in, and a long breath out, she focused on a puppy. A small, tiny, Jack Russell puppy. Ever since she was a child, she had wanted a puppy, but because of how erratic her magic was, she was never allowed to have one. Her main focus had always been magic and controlling it. One of the teacher witches had told her that to ease the troubles of her mind, she should focus on what her heart desired most. At the time, a Jack Russell puppy had been what she wanted, and since then, that was all she had wanted—a small dog of her own.
Once she felt focused and calm, she opened her eyes to find Killian sitting opposite her. Seeing him now didn’t help her thoughts. Averting his gaze, she stared down at the ground to find a brown package.
“Food,” he said. “Eat it.”
She picked it up and opened the package to find a couple of sandwiches. One sniff and she knew it was peanut butter.
“How did you know?” Leah asked.
“I talked to your parents.”
No, she refused to be happy about this. This did not make him in any way a great guy, nor acting like her mate.
“Thank you,” she said, which was the polite thing to do before taking a large bite of her sandwich. She was starving. “What did you have?”
“Cheese and pickle.”
“Is that a favorite?”
“Yes.”
“Ah.” So she could learn a little about him while they were on this mission together. Not that she could do anything with knowing he enjoyed cheese-and-pickle sandwiches. “I thought wolves were all about meat.”
Killian rolled his eyes. “Eat your sandwich.”
“You’ve got to stop treating me like a child.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
“How is asking about your food preferences acting like a child?”
He glared at her and remained silent. He’d gone back to being a dick, this time a silent one.
Leah ate her sandwich and ignored that stabbing pain slicing through her heart. This shouldn’t be hurting, but it was. Being around her mate, the very one that rejected her, was testing her last nerves.
She wrapped up the brown paper bag and handed it back to Killian. Stepping around the perimeter, she stared off into the night, not seeing anything that might freak her out. Leah was not about to tell Killian she had a slight problem with the dark … she was terrified of it.
Without him seeing, she held her hands out and chanted a quick protection spell so if anyone came close to their camp, she’d be alerted.
“It’s time for you to sleep,” Killian said. “We need to rest as we’ll be moving at first light.”
It was moments like this that she realized he was in fact a lot older than his forty years.
“How long have you been alive?” she asked.
He was already inside a sleeping bag. Moving to her own, she kicked off her shoes, stuffing them in a bag so no spiders could crawl in. She shot out another invisible slice of magic, one that repelled all bugs. She was not going to have those little things crawling all over her while she slept.
“Long enough,” he said.
He wasn’t going to add anything to it.
Infuriating man.
She climbed into her sleeping bag, and as she did so, she felt the chill of the night envelop them. He refused to build a fire so they didn’t draw attention to their location. Great, she was going to freeze to death.
Glancing over toward her … mate, she had to wonder if he felt any pain or wished he could be holding her, if he felt anything for her at all.
His instant rejection had stung harder than she could have imagined. Each day and every single night, she would replay his rejection through her mind—the sneer, the glance up and down, and simply telling her no.
****
This was supposed to be easy.
At least, Killian had assumed it would be easy but the past twenty-four hours had been the hardest he’d ever lived, and he’d lived through a lot. He looked over toward Leah, and she was curled up, her gaze not on him as she tried to get warm. He heard her teeth chattering from where he lay.
One of the perks of being a wolf was he didn’t feel the cold, even when it was snowing. He tried to ignore her. This was not supposed to be a journey for him to care about her. The point of this mission was to sever whatever bond he and Leah had, due to the mysterious bonding that had occurred. Leah was his mate. She was young, immature, and above all else, a witch. There was no way he could ever be mated to a witch. They were constantly balancing on that precipice of good and bad. So easily swayed by bad magic.
He had a pack to protect, and he didn’t have the time or the energy to train her, or help her. So, terminating their connection would be painful, and he’d go through life knowing what he’d done, but in the end, it would be for the best.
That was what the seer, as well as an elder, had warned him about. What he sought could be found. Mates didn’t have to be for eternal life. Provided both parties were present in front of the witch, she could strip the bond, but it didn’t come without a price.
As he was the one who sought freedom, he would pay the ultimate price—he would only know emptiness. He would never find another mate. Leah, on the other hand, would find a different mate. There would be one created for her, as she didn’t have a clue what was happening.
Her parents knew what he planned, and they didn’t agree with him. Why would they? They didn’t believe the prophecy foretold to him many moons ago. The one where a witch would be his and his pack’s undoing. He would protect the pack at all costs, even if that meant sacrificing his happiness with his mate.
Leah was an interesting woman. In the last twenty-four hours, she had abided his command to not speak. He knew it would be easier to carry out this mission if he didn’t get to know her, but that didn’t stop him from being curious about her.
His gaze was constantly drawn to her, and as for his wolf, he wanted her. No, not just his wolf, but he did as well. Leah’s scent was highly addictive, citrus, and yet sweet.
He wanted to strip her naked, spread her open, and fuck her until they both forgot what she was. Not that she’d shown any signs of being evil. Far from it.
He found Leah absolutely charming.
“For fuck’s sake,” he said, climbing out of this sleeping bag and stepping toward her.
“I’m f-f-f-fine,” she said. “T-t-t-tot-t-t-tallly warm.” She let out a little growl.
“Budge over,” he said.
She did some kind of wriggle. The sleeping bags he’d chosen were not exactly suited for two people.
He bent down, opened the zip, slid in, and then opened his own sleeping bag and laid it around her. Wrapping his arms around Leah’s waist, he pulled her in close, and even inside the sleeping bag, she was freezing.
“Y-y-ou d-d-d-on’t h-h-h-have to do this,” she said, rushing out the last so she didn’t keep stumbling over her words.
