Condemned Mates (Destined Mates Book 2)

by James Wolfe

  Because, in my heart, I believed it. And not only because I’d seen him shift in to a wolf with my own eyes, though that had certainly sped the process along, I’m sure. But, I think I would’ve believed him, anyway. Because he was right, this thing between us was magnetic. It felt mystical, so it wasn’t a stretch for me to believe that it could be paranormal.

  Paranormal… god, was that what this was? I mean, yeah, I guess so, werewolves were kind of considered to be in the realm of paranormal fiction.

  But it wasn’t fiction. He was really a werewolf. And he was really in love with me.

  I’d never believed in fate before. Never believed in soul mates or destiny, either. I wasn’t that kind of person. I wasn’t spiritual.

  But in my heart, I felt it. I felt that he was the one for me. And I’d never felt that before in my life. It seemed stupid. I wanted to tell myself over and over how stupid I was being, but I couldn’t bring myself not to believe it.

  And I sure as hell couldn’t bring myself not to see him tomorrow.

  5

  Cecil

  I did my best to hide my drunkenness. Afraid that if Sam woke up, he would notice that something was wrong with me.

  He might not have noticed I was drunk necessarily. In fact, I was sure he wouldn’t have. He didn’t even know what drunk meant, I was sure. Alcohol had only been briefly touched upon in school when we’d been growing up. We didn’t have much need for it here in the village.

  Still, I didn’t’ doubt he’d know something was weird about me. I could feel that I was stumbling a bit. Even running as a wolf, I hadn’t been nearly as agile as I normally would have been.

  I had to say, I didn’t really like the feeling. I was not sure what humans enjoyed about it. To me, it just felt kind of out of control. I didn’t like feeling out of control at all.

  I mean, look where out of control had gotten me. I had been intending to go on a light-hearted first date with Lyle. I had planned to slowly get to know him and bring him up to speed on how and what I was. Instead, I’d told him that I was a werewolf, and that he was destined to be my mate.

  But then again, had it really been a bad thing? I hadn’t wanted to tell him all too soon because I hadn’t thought he’d have been able to handle it. But he’d actually seemed capable of handling it just fine.

  That was what I’d wanted, right? To be able to let him know everything. To have him not run away when finding out the truth about what I was and how I felt about him? Well, that was what had happened. Only now, I was worried about a whole new problem.

  What if he did love me back?

  It shouldn’t be a problem, actually. In any other situation, it wouldn’t have been. But if he loved me back, then I really, really needed to figure out what the hell I was doing about Sam.

  If I wanted to be with Lyle, I had to tell him the truth. It just had to come out. But what were the implications? I just left Sam alone?

  Not only did I feel bad about that, but I also couldn’t even think about what the repercussions of that would be.

  I mean, what would the village think of me? Would they even accept me leaving Sam for a human? Would Lyle be allowed to live here with me? And, if he wasn’t, would I have to go out and live in the human world?

  I knew I’d been obsessed about the human world basically since day one, but I really, really didn’t want to do that. Because, honestly, my obsessions about humans had diminished a lot since I’d found Lyle. Even going to that bar wasn’t too interesting to me, and the alcohol had been terrible. I wanted to live in a world where alcohol really wasn’t a necessity… which was my world. The world I already lived in.

  I just wanted Lyle to join that world, too.

  I mean, if I left, I was also going to have to leave my family behind…

  Oh, shit, my family! I hadn’t even considered what my dads would think about all this. They would be absolutely devastated! They loved Sam; they had loved him since we’d been kids. They’d predicted us being together, and now… now I was just supposed to go be with some human they didn’t even know? Ask them to invite that human into our family while Sam was out in the cold?

  I couldn’t think about that right now. Besides, I was getting ahead of myself, anyway. I had no idea if Lyle would even be open to coming here and living with me. And until I knew more about what our situation would be, I couldn’t make any decisions about Sam.

  I mean, I guess I could. But I was telling myself I couldn’t because I wasn’t ready to deal with all that. Right now, I was just trying to deal with Lyle and getting to know him.

  I hopped in the shower as soon as I got home, hoping to soak away the stench of alcohol that seemed to be embedded in my clothes. I couldn’t go join Sam in bed smelling like this. We werewolves had a very keen sense of smell.

  Thing is, I really didn’t want to join Sam in bed at all. I had last night, after calling Lyle, and I hadn’t feel too bad about it. Because, at the time, though I’d known Lyle was my mate, he still hadn’t been anything to me technically. We only had talked on the phone for a few minutes to establish a date.

  But now I knew that, not only did Lyle mean something to me, but I meant something to him, too. He cared for me. He felt a magnetic connection between us, and I hadn’t even told him that I had another mate waiting for me at home.

  It felt like I was cheating on Lyle by getting into that bed. We had established something between us, and it felt wrong to be with anybody else.

  Which was awful, because, if anything, it was not Lyle who was being cheated on. It was Sam. My allegiance should have been to Sam, the man I’d been with now for many years.

  And it wasn’t. I still cared deeply about Sam. I didn’t want to hurt him, but he no longer felt like my mate at all anymore. There was this wall between us. He felt like just a friend living in my house.

  After I got in to my pajamas, I decided to just sleep on the couch. I knew it would raise red flags for Sam, which I really didn’t want, but, I didn’t want to betray Lyle even more.

  God, I was really such an asshole for this.

  Sure enough, when Sam woke up the next day, he had a concerned look on his face.

  “What are you doing out here?” he asked.

  “Oh, well, you were already asleep when I got home, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Oh…” he nodded, looking a little comforted, like my excuse had made sense and he didn’t have to worry about there being a deeper reason for me not wanting to be in bed with him.

  Which only made me feel worse, of course, because there truly was a deeper reason.

  “Do you want some breakfast?” Sam asked.

  “No thanks,” I told him, “I’m really not hungry.”

  And I wasn’t. The appetite had been sucked out of me by stress and guilt. I had no desire to eat.

  I had no desire to talk to him, either, because he was just serving as a reminder of my shame. I wanted to be alone… alone to think about Lyle and what came next for us.

  “Okay, well, I’ll just make some for myself before I head to work. You can go ahead and go back to sleep. I know you had a long shift.”

  He’d been sweeter since he’d discovered that I was no longer working in exports. Honestly, I wish he’d go back to being mad and giving me the silent treatment.

  “Yeah, thanks, I’m going to do that,” I said, as I got off the couch and made my way to our bedroom.

  I didn’t actually want to sleep at all, though. I was wide-awake. There were too many things going around my brain. But I was going to lie in bed with the covers over me and my eyes closed and pretend I was going to sleep while I secretly thought about Lyle.

  I relaxed a little more once I heard Sam leave for work, and I stayed relaxed until he got home for dinner. Then I was stressed again through dinner, counting down the hours until I could go back into the woods to see Lyle again.

  I knew that Sam could sense my distance, because, the more I pulled away, the nicer he became. Like, hone
stly too nice, it was a bit nauseating.

  Or maybe normally I would have liked it, I didn’t know. I just knew I didn’t like it right now.

  As I got ready for work, he made things worse.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked me.

  “No,” I said, as normally as possible, “why would you say that?”

  “I don’t know… it just seems like you're acting weird. Something is off.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve just been tired, working a new night shift and all.”

  He nodded in response. “Yeah… yeah, maybe that’s all it is.”

  And the way he said it, I could tell he was trying to convince himself that was all it was, even though his instincts told him differently.

  I felt awful.

  But not awful enough to not see Lyle. Then again, I didn’t think anything could make me feel awful enough to not see him.

  And not just because I wanted to see him badly, though I did, but because I knew now he also wanted to see me, too. He’d been disappointed when ‘dI left, that was undeniable, and I didn’t want to keep him waiting and continue to make things harder on him after I’d dropped this huge bomb.

  I was overwhelmed with the feeling of having to take care of him. I wanted him to feel comfortable and safe and happy, and he hadn’t looked like any of those things when I’d left him.

  When I went to the bar that night, I heard a car honk at me as I reached the door.

  I turned around to see Lyle in a car, waving me over. I walked over to the window, which was now rolled down.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Get in,” he said. “I think we have a lot to talk about, and I really don’t feel like discussing everything in a crowded bar.

  I felt a little uneasy about actually driving off somewhere. I mean, I knew I was already quite far from the village at the bar, but it was still the edge of the forest. I could still get back at any time. If we drove into town, I would be way too far to get back easily. I could potentially end up stranded in the human world if, for some reason, Lyle decided to ditch me.

  But I trusted him, and his desires were valid. I didn’t much like talking in this bar, either.

  I got into his car. “Where are we going?” I asked, as I buckled my seatbelt the same way I had on the way to the farmers’ market.

  “Back to my house, it’s only about fifteen minutes from here. Is that alright?”

  I nodded. “Fine by me,” I tried to hide my nervousness.

  “Have you ever been in a car before?” he asked. “Do you even leave your village that often?”

  “Just once, to go to the farmers’ market before I met you. Other than that, I’ve never been in a car or left.”

  The rest of the car ride, he asked me a million questions about our village. How did we get food, what did we do in a case of emergency, did we have a jail; just a bunch of random things about how we operated.

  I was actually thrilled he was showing interest in the village. Maybe that meant eventually he wouldn’t mind living there.

  Yeah, at this point, that was quite wishful thinking.

  When we got inside his house, things got a little more serious.

  “So, I’m sorry for the way I dropped all that on you last night,” I began. “That really wasn’t my plan, I’d never been drunk before, and I really underestimated how badly it was going to make me want to pour my heart out to you.”

  “There’s no alcohol in your village?” he asked.

  “None,” I said.

  He nodded. “Well, it’s fine. Honestly, I’m glad you told me. I mean, I won’t pretend it’s not overwhelming. It really is. But I want to know the truth about you. And… I think in the past twenty-four hours, I’ve begun to adjust to the idea.”

  “You have?” I asked.

  “Yes… it’s still such a foreign concept to me, that you can be instantly in love with someone and know you are supposed to be together for life. But, at the same time, I feel like it makes so much sense.”

  I couldn’t keep myself from smiling. “You do?”

  “Yes. I’ve never had feelings for any other man before, and I’ve dated a lot. I’ve slept with a lot of men and yet felt nothing. Then, you barely touch my shoulder, and it sends a spark through me. You hug me, and I melt. I have no other explanation. I feel compelled to learn more about you, to spend more time with you, to be with you.”

  I laughed and pulled him close to me. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that,” I said, as I ran my fingers through his soft hair.

  He gently kissed my cheek before pulling away. “The thing is, I don’t know where we go from here. I mean, clearly in your culture there is a process once you find your mate. I was hoping you’d tell me more about it, because I don’t think I’m okay with just dating you casually. I feel this intense need to commit myself, and that’s what I want to do.”

  “Well, that is basically what we do,” I told him. “We are just instantly committed for life. Usually when we meet in the village, we just start living together. We begin to build our life together.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Wow, so… drastic change, then.”

  “Really drastic,” I agreed, “and, you know, the way it is normally done is not the way we have to do it. We can go about this in whatever way is going to make you more comfortable.”

  He thought about this for a moment. “I think… I think living with you might make me most comfortable, honestly.”

  My eyes bulged a bit. “Really? You’re just… ready for that?”

  He paused. “I don’t know… I know I shouldn’t be. I know it’s crazy, and I should take a step back and think about things. But… I don’t want to. I really do just want to start living a life with you. I want to jump in to things, even if it’s totally illogical. And the thought of moving in with you doesn’t scare me at all. I mean, there’d be a lot of logistics to figure out, like where we’d live and—”

  “I should stop you there,” I told him. “Because, as interested as I’ve always been in the human world, there is only one place I could ever live… and that is in the village. It is my home. It’s where my family is, it’s everything I’ve ever known, I just… I don’t think I could live out in the human world. I have no human records or anything. I would be unable to work.”

  He nodded. “Yeah… I thought about that. And, when you were telling me more about your village on the way here, I was even more convinced you weren’t going to want to leave it. Why would you? It sounds like utopia. You don’t have money, you don’t have to worry about your basic needs, there is no crime, no real government, everyone is just happy. It seems ideal.”

  “I think it is,” I said. “It really is a lovely place.”

  He gave a soft smile. “I know I’ve always had this high-powered career, and I’ve always been kind of a workaholic. I chase money, I try to make as much of it as I can so I have as much savings as possible. Which I have always done for exact situations like this, in case I get fired, and I’m unable to work. I can still survive. And, I used to think I enjoyed that, that I liked my career being my life, but now that I haven’t been working for a while, I just think about how nice it is to not be constantly thinking about money and survival. To just relax and breathe, to have a simpler version of life, devoid of constantly wanting more money and things.”

  I looked at him suspiciously. “Lyle, what exactly are you saying?”

  “I’m saying… maybe it could work. Maybe I could go live with you. I already don’t have a career right now. I mean, I own my house, so I could just rent it out. It’s an asset I’ll always have in case things go wrong between us, but… I don’t think things are going to go wrong. I really think this is the real deal.”

  My heart pounded in my chest. This was everything I’d wanted… everything I ever could have possibly wanted. Not only did Lyle feel just as strongly about me as I did about him, but he was actually willing to come live with me?! To start our lives together in a v
illage he’d never even been to? It was the exact opposite of the life style he had now, and he was willing to jump in to it without a second’s thought.

  I was so in love with him.

  I leaned in without thinking and kissed his lips. Softly, at first. The kind of kiss you gave when you wanted to let someone know that you appreciated them and all they were doing. And I really, really wanted him to know just how much I appreciated him.

  But that didn’t last long before my primal instincts took over and I wanted him to know something else…

  How badly I wanted to fuck him.

  6

  Lyle

  He kissed me gently at first, romantically. His hand curved to the back of my head as his lips formed to mine. He got increasingly rougher, though. It was like the animal instincts were coming out and he was getting primal in order to fuck me. It was as if all of the human part that occupied his mind dissipated and he was becoming a sexual beast.

  I could feel his rough sucking turn into lip biting, which is how I knew things were getting more intense for him. He placed only one hand at my v-neck and forcefully ripped the shirt off of my body. I didn’t mind, I loved my men to be strong and show it to me.

  He pulled his head away from me and quickly crouched down toward the edge of my pants. He bit down on the seam, and continued to rip those off too until I was completely naked before him.

  His head dove for my dick which he plopped into his mouth quickly, giving it a few good sucks while he played with my balls. If I wasn’t ready to take his cock before, I was now. The way he sucked on my cocked and made his move on me felt so natural. Like we’d been doing it forever. Like he knew just how to suck at my cock to make me throw my head back and groan.

  Never before had I clicked with a sexual encounter like this before.

  But I needed more than this. I needed more than cock sucking. The longer he had his mouth on my cock, the more I craved him. I wanted to feel him.