Night and Neera: A Rejected Mate Story

Chapter 18: Good Girl

I tried. I fucking tried. For months, I'd beaten back my wolf, much to his disgust and displeasure. As the weeks wore on, he became bolder, and then two months in, he began fighting me for dominance, trying to force my hand, to finally claim my Howl the way an Alpha should.

Pups, pups, pups.

He'd chant that at me, knowing it was my weakness, knowing as Alpha, the need to breed my Howl was overwhelming and the desire to see her filled with my pups was almost as necessary as the air I needed to breathe. As Alpha, I settled the pack members with my touch, but now that I had found my Howl and Taken her Blood, nothing would settle me until I had given her my child.

"Be prepared," my father had warned me not long before I turned twenty-one. "It's a compulsion like no other. You think you're prepared for your Howl; you think you understand how you'll feel, but you do not. Your Howl will become your obsession and breeding her your overriding objective in life until you succeed."

He'd been right. But I felt even more strongly that Neera needed time, and I gave us the five months until our new house would be completed to move ahead. My little Howl, after what she'd seen and heard and experienced, definitely needed some time.

Since no one in the pack had ever dated a Destined One before, I had no one to ask for advice, so I Googled romantic shit to do for your girl and went from there. We did picnics by a stream, rowing boats on one of the Aibek lakes, early morning hikes to watch the sunrise, sitting side-by-side on a bench by a lake to watch the sunset, dinner out at restaurants, and evenings in together. Watching Neera enjoy our times together settled me to some extent, but the fucking wolf was always in my ear.

Push her down on the blanket. Shove your sandwich in her basket and show her a real picnic.

Rock the boat. Rock it!

Watch the sunrise over her back. Do it!

Every day, I made sure to bring her a little something to show her I'd listened to her the day before.

Some days, it was chocolate-covered strawberries.

Some days, it was a new nail polish color she'd mentioned.

Other days, it was fresh blueberries and wildflowers.

On some other days, I would sit and brush that gorgeous hair of hers for a long, long time, then put aside the brush and lift the strands in my hands and let them fall around her shoulders.

Wrap it in your fist and show her why long hair can be fun. Use the brush on her ass --

But all those weeks and months, Neera and I talked, most of all. By tacit agreement, we didn't reach through the bond for the other's thoughts and feelings so we had to communicate in a way no other Alpha and Howl ever had before. For once, our human natures were building a relationship first, not after we came together.

I liked best those evenings with her on her couch, where we held hands or she cuddled into me and I pulled her onto my lap so I could just breathe her in, each inhale soothing a bit of the pain we had gone through to get to this moment.

When I couldn't take the closeness anymore without threatening to break the promise I made her, I'd kiss her good night and reluctantly leave her place. Nodding to the guard outside her door, I'd shift the minute she closed and locked the door behind me and run until I was so exhausted, I dragged my tail back to the Den where I kept a room. Then I might get a few hours of sleep until my wolf woke me and we'd agree it'd been too many hours since we'd last seen our Howl.

It was a special time that was both frustrating and eye-opening. Each day I spent with my little Howl, each word from her mouth that I treasured like gold, each fleeting touch from her fingertips built and built in my heart until I knew that I not only desired her as my Destined One -- my Howl -- but I loved her as a woman and respected her as a partner who would stand beside me for life.