by James Wolfe
Condemned Mates
James Wolfe
Contents
Copyright
1. Cecil
2. Lyle
3. Cecil
4. Lyle
5. Cecil
6. Lyle
7. Cecil
8. Lyle
9. Cecil
10. Lyle
Epilogue
FREE Fates Mates Excerpt
11. Daniel
12. Alexander
13. Daniel
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Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by James Wolfe
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
1
Cecil
I began to cut up vegetables, preparing to make dinner for my mate and me. This was what I usually did in my evenings. My mate worked every evening in the fields, so it was up to me to make dinner. He often made breakfast.
It was a simple routine we had going. We had a calm, steady life, which most people in my pack would really enjoy. It was what everyone strived for. It was what I’d thought I strived for.
Now, I didn’t know.
Actually, yes, I did know. I knew that this was not at all the life I wanted to live.
But I didn’t have much choice.
Recently, I found myself doing a lot of reading about the human world. I had even picked up many human fictional books that depicted what life was truly like for humans. And I found myself enthralled with it.
In the human world, you got to choose your own path. You got to choose your lover, your job, everything you did was your choice. In my pack, that was not the case.
When I’d been young and growing up, I’d thought this was frivolous. Why would anyone want to decide their life and lovers when biology was so much more accurate in assessing your mates? At least, it was for my species.
When a werewolf met his mate, he knew immediately. You saw them, it spurred something inside of you, and you knew you had found your mate.
There was no cheating in our culture. People didn’t crave anything they didn’t have. Our entire lives were centered around our mates and families. Once we had found our mates, we wanted for nothing. They brought us true and completely happiness.
Or, at least, they were supposed to.
I wasn’t sure exactly what it was going to feel like, finding my mate. Nobody seemed to be able to accurately describe the feeling. I’d heard it described as warm, overwhelming, intensely passionate… but that all felt so vague. I was told one thing though: I’d absolutely know it when I felt it.
But I didn’t.
My entire childhood, that was what I’d looked forward to, finding my mate. We could not find our mates until we came of sexual reproductive age, around eighteen years old. Once we became an adult, we got the ability to discover our mates.
The interesting thing about not being able to discover our mates until we were eighteen was that we could have hang out with someone often in childhood, not realizing they were our destined mate until adulthood. Which is what had happened to me.
And it had been something I had always been told would happen to me.
My mate, Sam, was a childhood friend and neighbor. Our fathers had been best friends, and we’d often had meals or get-togethers, all six of us. Our fathers had often joked that we would one day be mated. That we were all already basically family, and it was clearly destined to be.
They truly believed that. And, honestly, a part of me had, too… until I’d actually become an adult.
It was the day I turned eighteen that it had happened. Sam had already turned eighteen a few months before, but he had not found his mate. Which only cemented the idea in our fathers’ minds that it would be Sam and I who ended up together.
Usually on my birthday, we had a nice dinner with friends to celebrate. But this particular birthday, my fathers suggested we have a nice lunch instead.
They hadn’t fooled me. I’d known why they’d wanted to do it. Because they’d been eager to find out if Sam was my mate and hadn’t wanted to wait until evening to see us meet. The earlier, the better.
And sure enough, when it had come time for Sam and his fathers to arrive at my birthday lunch, Sam’s jaw had dropped in awe when he’d seen me.
“It is you,” he murmured excitedly, “it’s really you.’
I’d known what he meant, of course, that I was his mate. And he’d immediately run to me and pulled me in for a deep hug.
But whatever it was that he had felt, whatever light had clicked on in his head, I hadn’t felt it, too. At least, not overwhelmingly, not the way it had always been described to me.
It had felt nice when he’d hugged me, though. It had felt warm. I had been comforted by his presence. And because he’d clearly seen that I was his mate, I’d realized I must have been. Our biology never failed. Never in all our history had we had a couple break up, have an affair, or anything. We always, always knew who our mate was.
So, I’d thought maybe I was broken. Maybe my biology had just been a little messed up, so I hadn’t been it exactly as I should have. Or maybe people just exaggerated that first feeling of knowing your mate, maybe it simply wasn’t that intense. I’d been happy to see him, I had felt good and warm. Maybe this is just what it feels like to know your mate, I’d told myself. Maybe the passion and love actually grew over the years, which was why people exaggerated the initial feeling.
So, even though it hadn’t overwhelmed me, I’d gone along with it. I’d agreed that he must have been my mate. And from that moment, my life with him had begun.
And I really had expected the passion to grow. It made sense on many levels that Sam would be my mate, and not just because he felt it. But because it really seemed like destiny. Although I didn’t get that feeling everyone always spoke of, I really didn’t doubt it.
I doubted it now because that passion never grew. This life I’d always dreamed of just had not become a reality. I wasn’t filled with love, light, and happiness from being with Sam. I liked him, sure, he was one of my oldest friends. But our life was… boring.
It was predictable, routine, and I felt more miserable every day that we did the same thing. The thing was, that was very normal in my village. Life was routine here. It was settled. Which was what I’d thought I’d always wanted.
Now, I wanted a human life. I wanted things to be different and variable. I wanted to be able to meet people and change my mind if my mate did not bring me joy. I wanted change.
But change was impossible because, as I said, we mated for life. Separations did not happen and were not an option.
I slowly began to feel more broken. I knew that I must have been Sam’s mate, because if I wasn’t, he would not have believed I was. That did not happen. He was still my destiny, but I was just not happy about it.
I had to wonder if this had happened before in our species. Maybe some people just had something wrong with their instincts, which led them to be unhappy, even when they’d found their true mate. But it was something you did not discuss because, well, that was not what you were supposed to feel. I couldn’t possibly have been the first one to feel like this, right?
Perhaps I was not even the only one in my village. Maybe there were others who were with partners who were madly in love with them, but they did not feel the same.
I could never ask, though.
I could never so much as hint that I did not feel madly in love with Sam. If it ever got back to him, it would break his heart. I had no desire to do that. I may not have felt passionately about him, but I still loved him, still cared deeply.
This was something I had read about in fictional human books as well. The humans often referred to this as ‘settling.’ It was when a human decided to stay with a person they did not truly love. And it did not feel as good as true love, and yet they stayed.
There were many reasons for this. Sometimes it was for financial stability, sometimes it was familial expectations, and sometimes it was simply so they did not have to be alone.
Which I guess was not far off from what I was doing. Because if I left Sam, it was not like there would be anyone else out there for me. I was not a human. There were not many people to choose from. There was quite literally nobody out there for me except Sam. He was my destined mate. He was my only option, because every other werewolf in our village would find their own mate.
In the choice between being alone versus being with Sam, I would always be with Sam. I could not even stand the thought of living the rest of my life alone. I was not built for that. I desired companionship, I always had. And unfulfilling companionship was surely better than no companionship. I had no doubt that, if I left him, I would miss him terribly.
So, I escaped into my books and into my fantasies. I did what I’d done as a child and imagined what it would be like to enter into a relationship and actually feel complete, total, unadulterated
happiness.
I heard a knock at door and found that odd, as Sam wasn’t supposed to be home for several hours. I opened it to find one my fathers standing in front of me.
“Son!” he said with a smile, as he pulled me into a hug.
“Father, hi, what are you doing here?” I asked. My parents usually did not drop by unannounced.
“I just talked to Elder Andrew, and I found out some news you might be interested in!” he said excitedly.
“Oh?” I asked. “And what’s that?”
“I was told Alvin is retiring from exports, and they are looking for someone new.”
My eyes widened. “Really?!”
This actually was great news. We each had a job in the village. We didn’t get paid a wage because everything in the village was completely free. Food, clothing, supplies, our homes… we just had to help our society progress in some way. Right now, I had a morning shift in the fields to help grow our food, and Sam worked the same job but in the evenings. Usually, mates worked the same shift in the same job, but, honestly, I found it a little exhausting to see Sam constantly. So, I’d claimed that I was more productive in the morning and switched to that shift.
But I didn’t love it. I didn’t complain because nobody did, but it wasn’t a very enjoyable job.
But exports! Exports would be absolutely perfect for me.
We tried to interact with the human world as little as possible. Our village was deep in the forest, secluded by bushes, trees, and a very high fence. Another job we had available was security, so there were werewolves who guarded the perimeter of our fence at all times so humans didn’t even come close. We’d never been found.
Still, we, at times, needed things from the human world we couldn’t make ourselves, and we tried to keep an emergency fund of human cash. To do this, we had to go to human farmers’ markets and street fairs and sell the produce that we didn’t need or crafts, clothes, things like that. Any extras, we sold for human cash when it was needed.
Exports was one of the most complicated jobs for this reason. The team of exports were the people who went out into the human world regularly to these farmers’ markets.
Although we all learned about the human world growing up, we had to in case of an emergency when we had to interact with humans and appear to be one of them, the export team had to be especially knowledgeable because they were in such close quarters. We’d never been discovered because we were extremely careful.
“Yes, I told Andrew that you would be perfect for the job! ‘Cecil is constantly reading about humans,’ I told him. Would you be interested?”
I cringed at the idea of my father telling one of the elders that I was very interested in humans. I didn’t know why, because there were no rules against it, and it was not frowned upon to be as knowledgeable about humans as possible. But it made me feel transparent… like someone might find out just how obsessed with humans I really was.
Still, I was glad he said something, because this job would be completely fascinating for me. I’d actually get to see the human world! I would get to interact with them!
Never in my life had I ever spoken to even one single human. I’d never left the village. Everything about their world was left up to my imagination and pictures I’d seen in school. The idea of being in their world, like I’d so desperately fantasized about, was thrilling.
It wasn’t exactly my fantasy, of course. I wouldn’t be living among them. Just going to see them occasionally to make money. But, still, it was the closest I was ever going to get.
“I am definitely interested!” I told my father. “What did Andrew say?”
“He said he’d love you to fill the position. There is a test you have to take, to make sure you are knowledgeable enough, but with how often you are reading about humans, I doubt it will be an issue for you.”
I doubted so, too. I didn’t think there was anyone in the entire village who knew more about humans than I did. Not even the current members of the export team.
“And when can I take the test?” I asked eagerly.
He smiled. “I knew you would be excited!” he said, clearly proud of himself. I loved how involved my dads were in my life. “You can go down anytime, Andrew said.”
I grinned. “Then I’m going now!”
My dad laughed. “I figured as much!” he patted me on the shoulder. “Good luck!”
“Thanks!” I said, as I followed him out the door. “Tell Dad hi for me when you get home!” I said, as he made his way down the road.
“Will do,” he nodded to me.
I went to the center of town where the elders always were in the square. We had several elders in our village, and they all took turns being in the town’s square. That way, an elder was always available for any questions or concerns.
The elders were the closest thing we had to a government. But, really, we didn’t need a government in our village. There was never any crime or anything. People didn’t need to be told to keep in line. We had no reason to steal when we had everything we needed. People were so happy in their relationships that there wasn’t enough discontent to cause issues. People just… got along.
It was not that way in the human world. Crime was abundant. Everything from thievery to murder happened. It sounded like a scary world. Ours was utopian in comparison.
Most people did not even have any desire to be on the export team for this reason. To put yourself in the human world was to put yourself in harm’s way, essentially. Most people feared the human world.
So I was sure my desires seemed silly to most. That was why I did not talk about them. Even my fathers only knew that I did a lot of reading about humans. They did not know I was fascinated with them.
And I did, too, fear the danger, but I also marveled at the possibilities. It wasn’t the negative that drew me in, it was the positive. It was the chance at happiness.
Which was funny, because the ‘chance’ at happiness was what I’d laughed about at as kid. ‘Ha,’ I thought, ‘these humans are so dumb. They spend their whole lives just telling themselves they’ll maybe one day be happy. We don’t have to go through that! We are happy all our lives.’
But now that I was an adult, with my mate, and was distinctly unhappy… the chance at happiness seemed amazing. Because I didn’t even have a chance. My life was set in stone. I couldn’t even hope for it.
So, yes, maybe some humans died only wishing for happiness, but just the hope of hap
piness seemed so much better than the life I was living now.
When I got to the town square, it was still Andrew who was the elder working. And he smiled as soon as he saw me.
“Cecil! I was not expecting you to come so soon! Did your father already talk to you?”
“He did,” I nodded, “and I am ready to take the test right now.”
“Perfect!” he said excitedly. “That’s what I was hoping for. I was really worried that this position was going to be a difficult one to fill!”
“Because people are so afraid of the human world?” I asked.
“Well, yes,” he nodded, “but also because there was only one position on the team available. There would be no room in our vehicle for two more members, and I didn’t believe anyone was going to want to have to work without their mate with them.”
Ah, right, as I said before, generally mates worked together. People tried to spend as much time with their mates as possible, so, usually, that meant they were constantly together.
“Well, I already work the morning shift at the fields while Sam works the night, so that’s no problem.”
Andrew raised an eyebrow. “Yes, why is that?” he asked, sounding a little skeptical.
I was nervous at this question, but I gave a whole-hearted smile. “I just feel very productive in the mornings. Much more so than at night. Sam is not a morning person, though.”
“Right,” he smiled at me, though something in his expression gave me pause. I had no time to analyze it further, though, because he had already pulled out some paper and a pencil out from his tote bag.
“Find a spot and go ahead and take the exam. I’ll be in and out of some of the shops, so just find me when you’re done!” he said, as he handed them to me.
“Thanks so much!” I said, as I made my way over to a picnic bench outside of one of our restaurants.
The exam was ridiculously easy. Most people wouldn’t have to know much more than what we were taught in school about humans. Then again, that shouldn’t have been surprising, because our education about humans was very comprehensive. It should be, since it was designed to carry us through potential contact with them.