My Mate, His Mate and Me

Chapter One: Casey

CASEY

Most people were asleep by now, when the world was dark and the moon sat high in the sky. But if I was sleeping, I wouldn't have heard the few words that changed my life forever. Clinging to the wall, I listened to my parent's discussion, their heated whispers. I recognized one other voice. Rick. My father's Beta and most trusted member of his council.

My dad's voice was the clearest. It had to be. He was the Alpha.

"We can't tell Casey..." My mother insisted.

"You want us to lie to him?" Rick, my father's Beta asked. "The boy is his best friend."

"Exactly."

"Casey will understand why we're doing this. We're helping him. He can't possibly function in this world and the pack won't have him. Soon, he'll be twisted. Not a wolf. Not a vampire. Something dark and in-between. Casey won't even recognize him. It's for the best. I'm not arguing with you..."

Him.

They keep saying him.

He has a name. It was a good name. That name belonged to the guy that never interrupted anyone when they were speaking. That name was reserved for the guy that always offered people a ride home that remembered birthdays and sometimes, stayed over because he could tell I needed him to stay with me.

Dylan was my best friend.

"Fred," my mother said, but paused. After a horrible beat of silence, she said, "You don't know your son."

She was right. I backed down the hallway slowly to not make a sound. Every exit had its downside. I could go back upstairs and jump through my bedroom window, but that would mean I couldn't close the window and I'd let a draft inside. My mother would feel the chill and recognize what was going on immediately.

The kitchen door creaked, but it was the fastest way. I needed to be fast. Faster than them, my family.

Never in my life did I think I'd pit myself against my own pack. However, I didn't expect an entire family in our pack to be murdered by vampires either and while under my father's watch too. No one expected Dylan to survive that attack, but he did. At a cost. Now they were trying to kill him? The people that failed to protect Dylan and his family in the first place?

It was bullshit. It was all bullshit.

Slipping through the back door, I carefully closed it behind me so not even the smallest click could be heard. The cold wrapped around me and I shuddered, feeling my bones fumbled out of place. I hunched over into a run, letting a wave of warmth spill from my heart and encapsulate my body. The new power pounding in my veins exploded all at once and I lifted into the air, in a burst of light as if I wasn't just a creature of the moon, but of the sun and fire.

When my four paws hit the earth, my skin tingled. It hadn't been long since I made the change since I became a full-fledge Alpha. It gave me the kind of energy that made me think I could run forever, so I used that to dash through the woods towards one of the many mountains surrounding of my town, Eventide. People could climb the mountains to touch the sky or dive off the cliffs and slip down into the depths of the ocean.

Lots of people who lived here owned cabins and my family was no exception if anything my parents set the highest bar. A two-story cabin with a foundation of stone, already covered in snow and dripping with a thousand tinkling icicles. A gust of wind knocked the snow off the trees, forcing the trees to bend and sway, but that cabin didn't budge. Sometimes, I think it would outlive me.

As soon as my feet touch the front porch, I turned back into a human and slipped on the ice as I fumbled inside. It hit me I hadn't changed out of my sweatpants or my baseball t-shirt. I had every intention of going to sleep until I heard their muffled voices. Thank the moon goddess I didn't.