Chapter 2: Chapter 2

HARLAN

~It was her.~

~I’ve been telling you it’s her,~ my wolf scoffed. ~You never listen to—~

I blocked him out, because he’d been known to lead me into trouble on several occasions. Her dark ebony hair lay on her shoulders, dying for me to sink my fingertips into the roots and pull. Her flowery scent felt like sunshine after a rain, and her hazel eyes were sultry and full of laughter.

All of it heightened out of nowhere. She was nearing eighteen, and I knew what that meant. She’d find her mate soon, and she wouldn’t have to look far. She felt something, too. Ever was never nervous or uncomfortable around me. We’d grown up together. We weren’t blood related, but we’d grown up together in the same house, down the hall from one another.

I dropped water balloons on her from the balcony while one of the other wolves tossed flour at her. She was my sister…yet she wasn’t. When had she filled out like that? Had her jeans always hugged her curves?

I clutched my fingers into a tight fist and ground my molars together. The pull was growing stronger, but never spilling over to the point that I couldn’t control it. Not like I assumed finding your mate would. ~Not yet~…

But I knew it was her.

Everlee Allaire was my mate.

The evening dwindled to an end, and I found myself leaving before everyone else, with a bone-deep need to get away from her. My wolf became restless, and I needed to be alone.

I took the stairs two at a time. Speeding down the hallway, I walked into my bedroom and shut the door behind me. I braced my palms against the wood and let my head hang low between my shoulders. My body heated as if I stood underneath a hot lamp, and pins and needles formed under my skin.

This was intense.

I felt out of control.

The party was two days away. I doubted I could stand to be away from her until then. Until she officially turned eighteen, I wouldn’t know for sure, but I doubted it was anything other than a mate bond.

I cracked my neck and jerked my shirt over my head, needing air. The balcony doors felt cool against my palms as I shoved them open, feeling the humid breeze hit my bare skin.

Someone’s footsteps traveled down the hallway. I knew it took Everlee thirteen steps to get to her door, so when they continued, it meant it wasn’t Everlee—or she was coming to my room.

I prayed it wasn’t the latter.

I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands to myself.

The knock was loud, and I smelled Alpha Allaire on the other side. Which was bittersweet. I loved him. He’d taken me in as his kid, and though I didn’t call him Dad, he felt like it to me.

Which meant he knew me well enough to know when something was wrong. I swallowed my nerves and opened the door. His gaze swept over my room as if some she-wolf or lycan was hiding in here.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d caught one sneaking up my trellis.

“I’m alone,” I answered, smirking when he rolled his eyes.

He shoved his way inside, making his way to the bed where he stopped by the post and rested his palm above his head, putting his other hand on his hip.

He knew.

I knew he knew.

When he glanced up at me, his dark eyes were blazing a familiar honey color, and I sensed his wolf’s aggravation. His wolf was pissed his daughter found—or would find—her mate. “We need to talk,” he said. “You’re Everlee’s mate.”

“Jump straight to the point,” I chuckled half-heartedly, rubbing the back of my neck.

He scoffed, dropped his hand, and began to pace back and forth in my room. He mumbled to his wolf and closed his eyes. “Savannah is too busy preparing for the party to notice, but I sensed it in the hallway. The way you two were looking at each other—God, what a nightmare.”

I furrowed my brows, not understanding the problem. “What’s wrong with Everlee being my mate? You don’t think I’m good enough?”

It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about it. Savannah and her father had killed my dad. The kingdom had been taken out from underneath him. He’d been an ass, apparently, but I prided myself in being better than him.

I wasn’t my father’s son.

With my mother dying during childbirth, I was adopted into the kingdom, raised by some lycans until Dax and Savannah were old enough to take care of me alone. Then Everlee was born, but nothing changed. I was still treated as their son, but that lingering thought never faded.

Alpha Allaire’s face softened, and he stopped his pacing, stepping closer to me. He braced his palms against my shoulders. “No, Harlan. I’m just—you two were raised together, you live right down the hallway from one another.”

“You think I’m going to take Everlee’s innocence?” I asked, watching him swallow down the disgust at the thought of his daughter having sex.

“~No,~” he said, dropping his hands. “I raised you better than that. You don’t sleep with your mate until you mark—”

“Mark them. I know. Look,” I said, sliding my palm down my face. “You know I wouldn’t pick her, right? Like, I love Everlee, but not in that way, at least, I didn’t, but now, I’m starting to feel out of control.”

“Yeah, I remember that feeling all too well,” he mumbled, running his palm down his face roughly. He sighed and put his palms on his hips. “Her birthday is this weekend.”

“Yeah, it is,” I said, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. “My wolf is…persistently trying to get me to go to her.”

He shifted his gaze uneasily. “Well, ~don’t~. If you go see her before the party, it’ll be hard to keep your hands to yourself,” he said, walking toward the door. He stopped in the doorway. “And I suggest you keep your hands to yourself.”

He shut the door behind him, and I chuckled into the silence. When her scent blew in from the slammed door, I knew keeping away from her would prove harder than I thought.

***

~Go to her.~

I thought a run would help my wolf’s endless desire to be near Everlee. Boy, was I wrong. As soon as I shifted and made it past the tree line, he started fighting me, and that was two hours ago.

~I can’t. You heard Alpha Allaire. I’m not going against his wishes.~

~Screw Alpha Allaire.~

~Hey, he saved us. Can it.~

My wolf dug his paws into the ground and slung up dirt around us, refusing to run any farther into the woods.

~Stubborn bastard.~

We fought for what seemed like forever before I gave up and let him take me back toward the kingdom. I shifted the first chance I got, my wolf tripping me during the shift, and I landed flat on my face.

“You’re gonna pay for that,” I said, laughing humorlessly. I stood up in between the infirmary and the schoolhouse, naked, trying to find some clothes when I heard Everlee’s voice.

~Of course, my wolf took me here.~

She was outside of the schoolhouse, standing with Bryiar in a short skirt that made my insides melt.

“Tomorrow is the day you find out,” Bryiar said, tossing a softball into the air and catching it. She moved back and forth, blocking my view of Everlee every time she swayed. “Do you want it to be him?”

Everlee’s soft sigh slid over my skin, and I found myself gnawing on my lip in anticipation of her answer. “I ~dunno~, Bryiar. He’s been like my brother. I know it won’t be weird if we’re mates, but it might be weird for my parents.”

Bryiar caught the softball and scoffed. “You were just ogling him from your balcony last night. Who cares what your parents think about it. You think he’s hot without the mate bond. With the extra tug toward him, I think he’s your mate. Just think, you won’t have to decide whose house to go to for holidays.”

Everlee laughed.

“On the other hand,” Bryiar said. “He’s kind of a hound, ya know? He’s brought several she-wolves into his room over the years.”

~Kill the blonde,~ my wolf growled.

I wanted to toss a rock at the back of her head. They couldn’t hold me accountable for being a horny teenage boy, as long as I never touched or looked at another girl once we mated. Which I would never do. I respected Everlee too much, and as badly as I wanted her now, without the official bond, I knew that nothing would keep me from her after.

“Dude, where are your clothes?” Kellan stood behind me, munching on an apple, while I spied on Everlee and Bryiar.

“Stop,” I hissed, but Kellan had the filter of a five-year-old.

“What are you doing over here? There are some clothes in the schoolhouse you can change into,” he said. His gaze moved over my shoulder, and I realized quickly who stood behind me.

Covering my dick, I turned to face Everlee and Bryiar. A deep-red color crawled up Everlee’s cheeks, and her gaze dropped to the rocks beneath her tennis shoes. She’d seen me naked before. I’d seen her naked before, but things were different now.

My blood pumped wildly in my eardrums, causing a rushing river in my veins. “I was just going to the schoolhouse to grab myself some clothes,” I said nonchalantly, noticing the look of entertainment on Bryiar’s face. “If you’ll excuse me,” I said, walking past Bryiar and shoving her toward the ground.

“Hey!” she shouted as I walked up the stairs of the schoolhouse and grabbed a pair of shorts from the office. My body relaxed, and I listened to Kellan and Bryiar pick up a conversation about the dance when Everlee’s scent hit me.

“Can we talk?” she whispered.

I turned around to face her, and everything Alpha Allaire said to me danced around in my mind. I needed to run for the hills, because my fingers were twitching to sink into those luscious dark locks, and part her mouth with my tongue.

“I’m kind of busy, Everlee.”

“I think we’re mates!” she blurted out, gnawing on her bottom lip, tempting me to do it myself.

I closed my eyes, thinking maybe she’d disappear before I opened them again.

No such luck.

“Everlee, listen. We’ll find out tomorrow,” I said, stepping closer, my body pushing me to my limits. “I need to leave.”

She sidestepped me as I did her in the hallway, her chin lifted to angle her face toward mine. “Please tell me I’m not feeling this way for no reason, Harlan. Please tell me I’m not some love-struck girl that is falling for her…whatever you want to call us, before I find my mate. Please don’t lie to me.”

My wolf pressed against my skin, burning me from the inside out, lurching me forward, trapping her against the nearest wall. Everlee’s breath left in a soft gasp, the taste of her mouth so close to mine.

“You’re not crazy, Ever. There is a very thin guard keeping me from devouring that sweet mouth of yours right now. But I promised your dad I’d wait. So please, dear God, please stay away from me until tomorrow.”

I clutched my hand into a fist above her head, and my gaze dropped to the small slit in the top of her shirt. “If you can wait until tomorrow,” I said, “I’ll do everything you want me to do ~and much, much more~.”