Promised: True Mates Book 1 (BBW Paranormal Wolf Shifter Romance) (A Craggstone Paranormal Romance)

by Olivia Arran

His weight blanketed me, wrapping me in warmth. I could feel his cock digging into my stomach as he shifted against me, thick and hard. Heat erupted, shooting through my veins, liquefying my limbs. Beads of sweat formed in an instant, trickling down to the small of my back. It felt like he was calling to my soul and drawing out my emotions, magnifying my responses.

  “This—” he ground himself against me, “—is special. This is real. You don’t have to tell me everything, not right now, because I know it will not change the fact that we are true mates, and you belong with me.”

  His words rang in my ears, cutting through my hormone induced stupor. I didn’t belong to anyone. Not anymore! I would not have my decisions made for me — not again! Ice formed in my veins. I had to get away, to think.

  Placing my hand firmly on his chest I pushed as hard as I could. It was like moving a large boulder up a steep hill.

  “I said—” I ground out and shoved hard again, watching with satisfaction as he jerked back, a thoroughly bewildered expression marring his handsome face, “—I need time!”

  He said he wanted alpha-mate, I’d give him alpha-bitch! I strode across to the door and yanked it open. “I don’t belong to anyone. Been there, done that, got the fucking t-shirt,” I threw the words over my shoulder, glancing back. I stalked to my room with my head held high and the image of his shocked face imprinted in my mind.

  Chapter Seven

  James

  My wolf howled in anguish as I watched Kara stalk away. She had felt the bond, I was sure of it. So why was she walking away? Dumb ass! A slip of the tongue and she was spooked. I didn’t want to own her, but she was mine! Just as I was hers.

  “Shit!” I cursed, kicking the railing hard. It took everything I had not to storm after her, grab her and show her what she meant to me. If I could just get her to listen. Once bonded, she would know my every thought, my every feeling. She would know that I loved her with every fiber of my being. That I would die to protect her.

  “Fuck it!” I lurched into motion, intent on following her.

  “Let her go, James,” my mother murmured, her smooth twang stroking across my pricked temper.

  Whirling around, I spied her at the end of the veranda, curled up on the porch swing. With a little nudge she set the swing into a smooth glide.

  “How much did you hear?”

  “Not much.” I could see her smirk from here, her lightly lined face creased up in mirth. “You didn’t do much talking. Then again, you didn’t do much listening, either.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means,” she motioned me to come sit “You know what you want—”

  “She is my true mate.” Gingerly, I lowered my bulk into the old, wooden swing. It held firm, but emitted an ominous creak of protest.

  “Yes, she is—”

  “Then, she should be with me! We should be together. I’ve waited all my life to meet her, and now I finally have…” Shaking my head, I stared at the rough, wooden floor. “This is just not how it was supposed to be. Why is she running? Why is she making this so hard?”

  “Because everything worth something is hard work, James.” She gently laid a work-roughened hand on my shoulder. “You’re not thinking, boy.”

  She only ever called me ‘boy’ when I really fucked up. Not recently, but back when I was a young Alpha — thrust into the role far too early, volatile and angry at the unfairness of the motherfucking world — she called me it often. Far too often. I had let my wolf rule during those years, because it was easier that way. I had kept my title, but had earned people’s fear. Mom had been the only one who had not been cowed by me. She had sat me down and told me I was acting like an asshole. She had been right.

  “Yes, you’re acting like an asshole again,” she said, smirking. “Your trip down memory lane paraded across your face. Do you remember what I told you then? No one is entitled to anything. You have to earn everything, and not through brute force — although it does have its place, and you wouldn’t be a good Alpha without it.” She patted my hand to ease the sting of her words. “Have you earned her trust, her respect, and her love? It is hers to freely give, not yours to take.”

  “I have offered her mine.”

  “You have offered her the mate bond, which she does not understand. You have offered to protect her, but have asked for something in return — her. You have not given her anything freely.”

  Fuck, she was right.

  “Yes, I am right,” she said, and squeezed my hand firmly. “Think with your human side, James. We are not just animals; we share that soul and have human emotions and needs. Human fears and desires. Kara has been lied to, deceived, deprived of love, the Mother of All knows what else. Think, James.”

  “How did you get to be so wise?”

  “Life, love, loss, anger, happiness, selflessness — they are all valid emotions, son. But you have to really experience them to grow and understand.”

  With the grace of someone twenty years her junior, she rose, squeezed my hand one more time, and strolled back toward the house.

  The fire drained out of me, creating a vacuum of emptiness. Listening to the sounds of the night, my mind spun, going over what she had said.

  The door opened, the revelry from the party spilling out.

  “Boss, the Council just called. 11:00 p.m. tomorrow,” Tarq, one of my lieutenants, yelled above the noise.

  “Be right there. Call the others to the office,” I answered, smoothing my face to hopefully resemble someone who knew what they were doing, and wasn’t fucking everything up around him. “Be there in ten.”

  “Right, then, what have we got?” Striding across my office, I nodded at the various people gathered.

  Sean cleared his throat from where he was sprawled across the small couch that sat kitty-corner to my desk. Rounding the imposing desk, an inheritance from my father — a man who, in the prime of his life, had been as tall and brawny as me, or so I had been told many times — I settled myself into the worn leather chair, and nodded for him to spit it all out.

  “Well, it seems Eric has been busy, too.” He grimaced, like he had eaten something bad. “He’s been to the Council, as well, and filled them full of his special brand of bullshit.” Shrugging, he continued, “Not sure what they believe, but they are going to hear all sides tomorrow night at 11:00p.m. Attendance for all parties is mandatory.”

  Flexing my fingers to relieve the sudden build of tension — damn, did I want to hit that bullshitting bastard again! — I forced my mind away from the pleasure of pursuing that line of thought. “Fine. We’ll get Kara to sign a witnessed statement that she wants to join our pack.” I ticked the points off on my fingers. “I’ll claim mate rights, and—”

  “She has to be there, boss,” Sean interrupted, holding his hands up in mock defense. “They said so. They want to question her, find out what’s really gone on, and what she really wants. Sure isn’t normal procedure, but the Council has an agenda. Just don’t know what it is yet.” He swung his legs off the end of the couch, hands folded behind his head.

  “Shit, I don’t want her there,” I said, slamming a fist against the desk. The scarred oak absorbed the blow, like it had absorbed many before. “I don’t want her anywhere near Eric or his pack! They’ve fed her full of bullshit lies her whole life to keep her from leaving, threatened her, treated her like a second-class citizen,” I said, and my voice rose in frustration. “She shouldn’t have to deal with that. I should be able to deal with it for her!”

  “So it’s true then, boss?” asked Macey from her perch on the windowsill. Tall, blonde, and deceptively delicate, Macey was one of my best lieutenants. Also, she was the one with the biggest mouth for gossip. I swear she liked to talk almost as much as she liked to fight. I almost felt sorry for whatever man claimed her as his mate.

  “What have the gossip-chains been saying now, Macey?” I asked, giving her my best world-weary look, smothering the smirk twitching at my lips.

&nbs
p; “Well, you know,” she started, hooking her legs up and under her butt while blowing a big pink bubble from her glossy pink lips, “I don’t listen to gossip—”

  Groans and jibes echoed around the room.

  “—Hey! Well, maybe a little. But, they say she’s your mate. Your true mate?” The last bit was whispered with a little awe, and punctuated by the pop of a pink bubble.

  Giving in, I let the smothered smirk grow into a full-fledged grin. “Yup, she is! Hasn’t admitted it yet, but hey, when you know — you know.”

  “Mother of All, that would be sweeeet,” Macey arched a perfectly groomed brow. “Maybe we’ll all be finding our true mates. Heaven knows, they’ve been in short supply.”

  And she was right. Hardly anyone in our generation found their true mates, many giving up and mutually choosing a companion to mate and settle down with, to blot out the loneliness of not finding the other half of their soul. Like what I was planning with Amanda. No one knew why, but speculation and whispered theories circulated. A weaker gene pool, the Mother of All removing her blessing, a curse? Who knew? But maybe our luck was changing.

  Kara

  “Overbearing jackass!” I marched down the corridor, searching the seemingly endless doors for the right room. The house, a rabbit warren of hodgepodge architecture, was rustic and charming. From its bright, voluminous family rooms, to its quaint and cozy bedrooms, the house had both charm and warmth in abundance, infusing me with feelings of safety and security. But it’s not real, I lectured myself sternly.

  Finally finding the right door, I knocked, straining to hear over the distant sound of the party. “Lisa, it’s me,” I called.

  Hearing a muffled reply I took to be a welcome, I shoved open the door. Lisa was nowhere to be seen, but steam wafted from the slightly ajar bathroom door.

  “Be out in a minute!”

  Kicking off my crippling heels, I flopped back on the bed. I studied the small spider web of cracks in the ceiling, and I toyed with the idea that I might have overreacted.

  A thump on the bed next to me announced Lisa’s arrival. “What have you done now, chickie?” she drawled, flicking my shoulder with a hot-pink fingernail.

  A gush of air exploded from my lungs. I hadn’t even been aware of holding my breath. Rolling onto my side, I picked up one of her corkscrew curls and twirled it between my fingers. “I lost it, Lisa. Completely lost it.”

  “Tell me. From the beginning.”

  I filled her in on the night. The Amanda Incident, me storming off, and James following me. “And we kissed and he told me I was his true mate and…”

  “And what?”

  “And…I felt it, Lisa,” I whispered, my voice breaking as I remembered the indescribable feeling. A feeling of wholeness, just beyond reach, but near enough to change me. “I felt the bond. What it could be. I felt our souls reaching out, our wolves talking to each other. It was…magical.”

  “So, why are you here, with me? Not that I don’t love you and all, but…”

  “I needed to think, and he pushed me—”

  “He pushed you? That rat-bastard! I’m gonna give him a—”

  “No, not like that. He just wouldn’t give me space to think, to breathe, to decide.”

  “Well, honey, he is an Alpha…” murmured Lisa, rolling onto her side to face me. “It must have been hard for him, to hold back his wolf and the need to claim. You know how men are, especially the powerful ones.”

  “I don’t think I know anything anymore. He told me that Eric has lied to me all my life, about mating and — well — everything! Eric said that the females can’t choose their mates, that the men choose who and what—”

  “Wait! What? Honey, that’s some fucked up shit right there!”

  “You knew — about true mates?”

  “Everyone knows, I didn’t know you didn’t know, or I would’ve put you right in a hot second!” She rolled off the bed and padded in her bare feet over to the mini-fridge in the corner of the room. “You want a drink? I definitely need one!”

  “Sure,” I replied, feeling a little foolish. I’d been a brainwashed fool. I accepted Eric’s self-satisfying lies with no question. Sitting up, I hugged my legs to my chest and accepted the offered glass, taking a grateful gulp. Liquid fire burned a path down my throat, loosening the tightness in my chest.

  “Soooooo,” she dragged the word out, hand on her towel-clad hip, swinging the drink from her fingertips. “What happened next?”

  Taking another gulp for courage, I blurted out the rest of the story. “—And then he cornered me and told me I belong to him!”

  “Well, you kinda do, sweetie. True mates belong to each other. That’s how it is, true mates want to belong to each other, or at least in my experience they do.”

  Did I want to belong to James? Sipping the vodka and coke slowly, I rolled the idea around my mind, testing out how it felt, searching for niggles of worry. But — nothing. Deep inside I knew Lisa was right, I did belong to James. Like he belonged to me. The thought scared the shit out of me!

  Avoiding Lisa’s eyes, I mumbled, “Well, what if maybe you’re right? I just don’t know if I can…not with how things were with Eric.”

  “You need to stop comparing them, Kara,” Lisa said, sighing heavily. “James is not like Eric one bit! You need to start trusting in the Mother. She would not choose a bad man for you, not as a true mate.”

  Images of Eric, and his twisted games, flowed through my mind. The mental torture he loved to subject me to. At first he used to insist that we were meant to be together, be super charming and sweet. Everything I had ever wanted in a man. Promises of love and family, a secure home complete with fun and laughter. Then he had started to twist his promises, threading them with ultimatums I would have to meet — how I should behave, what I should wear, even what I should talk about and to who! The worst, and the one that broke through the web of deceit he had spun, was when he told me he was going to take other women to bed — whenever he wanted and whomever he wanted. He had no plans of settling for me. And why should he, he had said, when I was an orphan with unknown lineage, and he was the future Alpha. I should be grateful he was willing to mate with me. He had informed me of all this while trying to force me to the ground, pushing and tearing at my clothes, pawing at my body. At that point I had known I couldn’t live this way.

  “Kara?”

  Snapped out of my nightmare recollections, I shuddered. No way was I being taken for a fool again. “You don’t know everything, Lisa.”

  “I know enough, and I’ve guessed some,” she replied, sitting next to me on the bed and patting my hand. “We all have bits of our past that we don’t like to remember. That scare or haunt us in our present. They have helped form who we are, but they don’t define us. We can choose who we want to be. To act with courage or to hide scared.” Her face was flushed and she avoided meeting my eyes as she continued. “When we met in the spring you were still hiding, still avoiding looking at the truth. You were a shadow of who you are now, and you’ve only just begun to believe in yourself. Imagine what it would be like if you trusted your judgment and gave life a real whirl? Allowed it to take you on a roller coaster ride filled with excitement, happiness, and possibly true love? Then imagine what it would be like to avoid all that.” She squeezed my hands tight.

  “I’ve been running for too long,” I said, remembering the long, lonely winter roaming the mountains alone. Scared of being found by Eric, but also scared of being alone and losing myself to my wolf. Too much time running in our fur coats could damage the human part of our souls. But I couldn’t have survived in the wild without losing my human inhibitions, and giving myself over to the beast that shared my soul. Lisa had found me in the spring, when I had been alone and wild for months already.

  Recognizing the human within, she had followed me, shifting to her cat to stare me down relentlessly, until I had shifted, too. I almost hadn’t remembered how, but she had talked me through it, reminding me how to ta
ke a human shape. She had made a simple campfire meal and talked to me for hours about nonsense, allowing my fragmented human mind to start to heal, and when the memories had started to come back of what Eric had done, she had wrapped her arms around me, holding me, while I alternately wretched and sobbed, never questioning the reason why.

  “That’s why I went to James,” I said. “I need to be human again, to stay human, and that means facing Eric again.”

  “James is a proper Alpha. I mean, he just is an Alpha without having to do anything silly to prove it. No power games, pissing contests, or trophies for James — that’s why he’s different from Eric,” Lisa explained. “I know Eric had you fooled—”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I’ve grown up around a lot of powerful Alpha’s, sweetie. I’ve also met some Alphas who are twisted by that power, and the results aren’t pretty. They usually have to be put-down because when their souls are tainted by the madness, there is no coming back for them.” A look of pure anguish flashed across her face.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, wrapping my arms around her smaller frame and hugging her tight. “You can talk to me, you know?”

  “I know, sugar, thanks. Maybe one day…but not now. Now, are you going to go get your man?” Leaping to her feet, she pulled me to standing and gave me a little shove toward the door. “You’ll never know unless you try, and if you don’t try then you’ll end up regretting it! Trust in the Mother, trust in the bond that you felt.”

  Laughing at the overwhelming enthusiasm that was typical Lisa, her curls bobbing crazily around her head as she bounced on the balls of her feet, I hugged her to me.

  “Okay, okay! I’m going!”

  Chapter Eight

  Kara

  Intent on finding James, I headed down the hallway, following the sounds of the party, which seemed to still be in full swing. I was going to give it a go. If we were true mates, then we were meant to be together, were right for each other. He made me feel safe — which was a first for the males I knew — and yet I still felt deliciously on edge around him. Like my hormones were standing up and dancing a jig whenever he looked at me, all male and rugged and a little bit growly, — yum! My stomach flip flopped at the thought of him towering over me, making me feel all feminine and desirable. Rounding yet another corner, the music grew louder. Going the right way then, thank the Mother, this house was like a rabbit warren — all twists and turns.