Finding His Mate (His Mate Book 1)

Chapter 8

MONDAY

When the clock struck 12 in the morning, I knew it was time. I took a step back, letting the lunar rays strike me as my body began to transform.

I could myself grow taller. My muscles bulked. My teeth hardened and grew stronger. All of a sudden, I was hypersensitive to all the stimuli around me. I could hear the cricket tapping from the tree on the other side of the lake. I could see more stars than ever before. I could smell the racoon from hundreds of metres away.

All that sensitivity, yet I still couldn't feel the one thing I so desperately wanted.

Where are the warm, floaty feelings? I asked myself as I looked at Liam.

He looked equally confused as I was. All our lives, we had heard stories of people meeting their mates and reporting feelings of euphoria - addictive scents, feelings of love and happiness, the insatiable desire to be in contact.

Yet when I looked at him, I experienced none of them.

A horrible thought came across me, and for once in my life, I pondered the idea of the Moon Goddess toying with me for fun.

She wouldn't do that, would she?

She could've.

At the same time, though, there was a fleeting feeling inside of me. It was small, and simple, but it was still there and refused to be ignored.

Mate, a miniscule part of me felt compelled to say. At this point, I couldn't tell if it was my own delusion, or the truth. After all, there was nothing overly glamorous about this revelation, and I didn't feel any different with him than from before. This wasn't at all what it was supposed to feel like!

I took a step forward and closed the space between us, holding him tightly, as if I were scared he wasn't mine and he'd run off.

"Mate," I whispered. The words felt right to my ears.

"Mate," Liam responded back. That felt right, too.

We pressed up closer to each other, eyes locked. Even though we weren't speaking out loud, we could almost interpret each other's body language. As I moved closer to him, I kept a careful eye on him, but he made no indication of wanting to move away.

I gently placed a kiss on his lips. It was a soft and shy kiss, with no fervour or intensity behind it, but it was enough to let me know.

When we came together a second time, that was when we poured in all of our hidden emotions and desires. I tried my best to do what came instinctively to me. It was quite interesting, as neither of us had ever really kissed before, so I was sure our techniques were pretty sloppy and impractical. But I didn't care.

It felt right, and that was all that mattered.

-

When we came back home, my family awaited the two of us in the living room. We quickly hurried upstairs, getting changed into our clean and dry clothing, before heading downstairs.

"Dylan, welcome home!" My dad came up to me and hugged me. "It's official now, son. You're an Alpha wolf. Soon, you'll be taking over my position."

"Congrats, Dyl," my younger brother Simon told me.

Aunt Rita and Uncle Steve also came forth to wish me a happy birthday, embracing me tightly and congratulating me on this milestone.

"Honey, I'm so proud of you," my mom said, nearly squishing me to death. Much to my surprise, however, she was keeping it together pretty well. I had been expecting Niagara Falls from her, being the sentimental wolf she was, but she hadn't even shed a single tear.