The Wolf's Mate Book 2: Linus & The Angel (22 page)

“You let me win,” she murmured against his
mouth, wriggling in his arms.

“Prove it.”

“You’re not even breathing hard.”

Busted. Chuckling, he set her down and said,
“We only have an hour.”

“I know. But I missed you today and I wanted
to just sit and talk for a bit. You’re going to be gone all night
and then we’ll have the ceremony and the party that lasts all day.
We won’t get to be alone again until tomorrow night when the
sunsets.”

It was going to be a very long night and day.
“Good thing there will be coffee.”

They sat together on a comfortable leather
sofa in the front room. After a long, gentle kiss, she said, “What
do you think of everything you’ve seen so far?”

Where to start? “Karly, I love it here. I can
see why you hold this way of life in such high regard. The sense of
belonging and family is just amazing. And your parents, hell your
whole family, is just incredible.”

“My brothers are so excited to have some new
blood in the family. I wish we had more time to spend here so you
could get to know them better, but being away from their packs at
the full moon is hard for them. In the summer, they’ve always come
here for a few weeks. We could join them, if you’d like.” Her
fingers slid through the hair over his ears slowly, a warm smile on
her face, her eyes shining with happiness.

He pulled her into his arms. “I’d love that.
I want our family to be a haven for our children, the way that you
feel here I want to have that back in Allen. Will you help me,
love?”

“Of course, my sweet wolf,” she sighed,
rubbing her cheek against his. “I’m going to miss you while you go
hunting.”

“I’ll catch you something big, okay?”

Grinning, she tipped her face up for another
kiss, and he willingly obliged until the time slipped away all too
fast and they were on their way to the pack’s full moon meeting
place.

The Tressel Pack had less than 40 adult
members. The Soualit Pack had 21 members. When Karly said small,
she meant it. But somehow, standing next to his mate in front of
the small pack as they curved in a circle around the blazing
bonfire, he felt like he was in the presence of a pack that would
go marching into hell for one of their own and never think twice.
It wasn’t a camaraderie of friends the way that the Tressel Pack
was, it was more of a large family led by a father figure in the
alpha who would never let his people down. Similar in kind but
different in way of life. He wasn’t really sure which was better,
except that he wanted his and Karly’s children to know both worlds
and then make their own way.

The pack consisting of 8 females including
Karly’s mother and 13 males watched the alpha intently as if
everything he spoke was liquid gold. With a booming voice, he said,
“The moon spirit beckons us this night, to pay homage to our
kindred that have gone on before us, remembering the ways of our
past and our lineage. The taking of life is as sacred as the
creation of it, and we do so tonight as we do each full moon, in
full thanks for the animals that will give their lives in sacrifice
to our pack.

“It is a great honor to extend our hunt
tonight to include Linus Mayfield and his grandfather Eugene
Jackson in our hunt. Linus is the chosen mate of Kamren’s daughter,
Karolyn. This hunt is for their pack welcome tonight. We hunt with
them in mind.

“Forget not the claw that does harm tonight,
that it should do good tomorrow for the sake of our souls. Cast
your mantel from your body and show your true form!”

With a howl like something out of a horror
film, the Alpha shouted to the moon, stripped and shifted in a
blink to reveal an enormous black wolf, much larger than any Linus
had seen before. Karly smiled at him and he pulled his jeans off
and shifted. She came close to him, gathering his things from the
ground and he nuzzled her cheek and licked her jaw before darting
off after the rest of the pack, his grandfather hot on his tail,
ignoring the arthritic aches in his joints for the night.

Hunting with the pack was incredible. The
terrain was rocky and rough, the trees so thick that there was bare
space to get between them, but his instincts were so finely tuned
that it felt like he’d been part of the pack his whole life.
Karly’s brothers were dark gray like Kamren and they all hunted
together, racing towards a herd of deer that had been drinking from
a partially frozen stream. With his heart pounding in his ears and
a few millennia of wolf instinct coursing through his veins, he
barreled through the herd towards one of the bucks, the moonlight
highlighting the curve of horns just seconds before it took off.
Linus was faster than it’s attempt to get away, snagging it on the
haunches with his claws and tumbling it to the ground. As he’d done
for as long as he hunted, he snapped his jaws around the writhing
beast's neck and choked the breath from its lungs. As the creature
gave up and its life slipped away, Linus disengaged from his kill
and would have had a big grin on his face if he’d been human. It
felt good to kill quickly, to know his instincts were right where
they should be. For a mated wolf, it meant that the whole pack
would have no doubt that he could take care of his mate.

Wolves appeared around him, including Pops,
and helped him begin the long trek back dragging his prize. The
woods were filled with dragging sounds and grunts of exertion as
others including Kamren, Alpha Krayne, and one of Karly’s brothers,
dragged a buck, and her two other brothers had a black bear between
them.

By the time they made it back to the lunar
meeting place with their kills, enough time had passed that they
were all able to shift back to their human forms. Dawn was three
hours away. The caretakers appeared and began to butcher the kills
along with most of the males.

Linus didn’t know how to butcher anything,
and fortunately it wasn’t his job. “Come, son,” Kamren said,
gesturing for him to follow, “you’ve got some things to do to
prepare to take your angel.”

They walked back to their home, Kamren, his
three sons, and Pops, and Kamren sent him off to shower and dress
in the clothes that had been laid out for him in one of the guest
bedrooms. The room was small and tidy, with a full sized bed
covered in a blue quilt and matching curtains on the window.

Linus showered, still exhilarated with the
hunt. He’d not taken down a buck in a long time. Their pack hunted
in groups of three or four. This was the first hunt he’d been on
since he turned at 16 that he hadn’t been with Jason, Michael and
Bo. It had been strange to hunt with Karly’s family but also
familiar in a way he hadn’t expected.

Drying his hair, he dressed in the clothes
laid out for him, what he assumed was traditional for the Angel
ceremony. Hand stitched buckskin trousers hung low on his hips,
with a matching embroidered vest. On the front of the vest, Karly’s
tattoo was stitched with shiny black and gold thread.

Opening the bedroom door, he walked down to
the front room where Kamren, Pops, and his three brothers-in-law
were wearing identical clothes, minus the embroidered tattoo on the
vest.

He noticed none of them had shoes on either,
so he didn’t mention the lack of them. “Did Karly explain the
ceremony?” Kamren asked.

“Kind of.”

“Well, it’s pretty straight forward. My wife
will officiate over the angel part and then alpha Krayne will
welcome you into the pack as the mate of a member, which gives you
the status of honored guest for the span of your life. Then the
pack will walk by you single file and they’ll embrace you one by
one. It’s a way to cement your scent into their memory as well as
welcome you. When that’s done, you’ll be presented with the gifts
from the pack in the form of the hides of the kills. The meat will
be cooked, and you’ll have a chance to rest before the evening
meal, but you’ll have to rest alone and without Karly. After the
meal, you’ll have to stick with the party until sunset and then
you’ll come back here and stay in our home for the night. Sophia
has made up the largest guest room for you to make yourself
comfortable. In the morning, there will be a large breakfast at the
alpha’s and then you can head home afterwards.”

They began to walk out towards the full moon
meeting place. “You could always join this pack, you know.” Rico
said, falling into step next to him. “If you wanted, I mean. We all
have our own packs and all, but your Pops was telling us how modern
your pack is. Alpha Krayne would welcome you and Karly as full
members.”

Linus was a little speechless. It had crossed
his mind, because Karly was so happy to be home with her family,
but he had responsibilities to his own pack, not to mention his own
family.

“Now, now, don’t rush the boy,” Kamren chided
his son. “There’s time for life altering decisions another
day.”

Glad he didn’t have to say one way or the
other what he thought, he kept his mouth shut and followed them to
the open space and tried not to think about how frozen his feet
were getting already.

The sky was the most possible black it could
be just before sunrise as he stood alone in the center of the full
moon meeting place. The bonfire had been extinguished and all the
wolves around him were quiet in anticipation. A torch dotted the
darkness, drawing closer, Karly’s mother’s face shining in the play
of light and shadow.

He could just barely make out Karly walking
behind her mother through the trees and into the sacred circle.
Sophia dipped the flaming end of the torch into the bonfire and it
roared to life, laid heavy with new wood soaked with an accelerant
to burn quickly, and then she placed the torch in a tall holder
next to a small wooden stand with a book on it.

As Karly drew close to him, Linus was simply
stunned. She looked like a vision. A real angel. Wearing a plain
white long gown, her shoulders were draped with a cloak made of
pure white rabbit pelts that trailed the ground. She reached her
hands out for his and he took them, finding hers trembling and ice
cold. Immediately he wanted to pull her into his arms and warm her
up, but he fought the urge and tried reasoning with his wolf that
this was tradition and important.

Sophia wore a similar gown of plain white but
her cloak was gray like fox fur. In her hands, she held a length of
green vine full of white flowers that smelled like oranges. With
quiet care, she wrapped the two of them up in the vine, threading
it across his shoulders and down both arms and their clasped hands
and tied it around Karly’s shoulders. The whole time, he was only
barely aware of anything except the sweet, love filled look on
Karly’s face as the sun began to rise and cast the woods in amber
light.

Sophia stood behind the small stand and
opened the book. Clearing her throat, she looked up at the sky and
then at the two of them.

“When the first wolf was created, too full of
his beast to be man, the great wolf spirit felt pity for him and
his misery and sent him an angel. She was his salvation; a
perfectly made mate for his beast and his human natures twined
together in one being. The Angel Mate was created on that day, so
the werewolf would not have to choose between his beast nature and
his human nature. Because of the Angel Mate, the werewolf could
live in society as he was meant to: a protector of innocents, a
leader of his kind, a father to his cubs, and most importantly,
mate to his angel.

“We celebrate the joining of the last Angel
Mate to her wolf this morning, as the sun rises on this first new
day of their life together. May the wolf spirit and the spirit of
the first Angel shine down on you for the span of your lives and
bless you with cubs and angels to fill your home with love.” Sophia
paused for just a moment, tears shining in her eyes, and as the sun
broke through the horizon and rose silently in the sky, she said
with a loud, clear voice, “Fentrita Kil-arne Postur. May the love
you share between you keep you warm for all eternity. Angel, Wolf,
Family.”

Without a signal, the wolves in the pack
lifted their heads to the sky and howled. “What has been joined
together this day,” Sophia said as she undid the vine of orange
blossoms from around them, “let none destroy.” Plucking two
blossoms from the vine, she tucked one behind Karly’s left ear and
put the other in a small stitched loop in his vest and then turned
to the fire and cast the entire length into it. With a cheer, the
wolves clapped and shouted their approval and Sophia turned with a
smile and said, “You can kiss your mate now, son.”

Not wasting a second, he pulled Karly into
his arms and claimed her mouth, feeling as if it had been weeks
since he’d enjoyed the sweet, hot taste of her. When the ruckus
from the wolves died down, they pulled apart and his family and
hers were standing around them.

“It’s time for the pack to join you, son,”
Kamren said, “and then we’ll take you back to our home for the day
to rest.”

His family and hers hugged both of them, his
mom and grandmother with tears in their eyes and his grandfather
looking as proud as he’d ever seen him. Alpha Krayne welcomed him
as an honored guest of the pack for the span of his life and in a
move that surprised him, hugged him and clapped him on the back.
Nodding but saying nothing, Linus held Karly’s hand tightly as the
pack filed by, including his new brothers-in-law and their wives.
Congratulations were offered, but all Linus could think was that
he’d have to spend the day without her. They hadn’t been apart this
much since her abduction and it gnawed at his beast. He tried to
hide his displeasure, but the moment the last of the wolves had
hugged them both and committed his scent to memory, he had to let
go of her hand and it felt like a part of him was being left
behind.

Kamren, Pops, and Karly’s brothers surrounded
him and began walking and after glancing back and seeing her being
led away as well, he frowned and tried to concentrate on what his
new father-in-law was saying but it was difficult. He missed her.
He needed her. Damn traditions!