My Mate Next-Door

20-Quinton:Fleeing from Prison/20-Damien:First Date with my Mate

As the hands of fate, you made a choice in Chapter 10 of their story. You chose either Quinton or Damien to succeed in having her heart. Stick with your choice til the very end or reread Chapter 10 and pick a different path.

Fleeing from Prison:

I woke up in a cell, but my body felt different. Colder? I looked down and was shocked to see for the first time in a long time. Hands. Arms. No more fur and no more paws. I felt my body as I looked down. They had the decency of putting a dress on me at least. I hugged myself tight and sighed with relief. Then came the headache of a lifetime as my brain healed itself from the years of being a wolf. Memories started flooding my brain at super speed. I held my head in place, hoping it would stop soon. I remembered my mom, my dad, my pack, my life, my name! I am Elizabeth Marie Cobbler, and I'm a part of the Crusaders Pack! I'm 24, and I think I love Quinton back. Man, do I have so many things to tell him! We can live a normal life together! I just have to get back home to him and explain everything! He'll know it's me! I'll tell him things only we would know! I look around and see that my cage door is slightly misaligned, meaning it wasn't locked. I get out to see no one else around and sneak my way up the stairs. My heart was pounding. Getting caught at any point would surely mean they'd lock me up in Damiens' room. He was supposed to be my mate, but clearly, he didn't want me if he took his sweet time getting me. And he wasn't even here for when I woke up? This man just wants me to bear his babies and leave me to rot in these cells. At least Quinton showed me love and kindness and beautiful things, regardless of if it was his job just to train me and breed me. He took his time to love me and take care of me. I took a peek around and saw an emergency exit door not too far away, but it would be a bit of a stretch to get that far with all these pack members walking around getting food and drinks. I looked down a hallway away from the cafeteria and saw an open door. I could climb out a window. I quietly ran to the door and ran inside. Closing the door, I looked around. It was an office, probably Damien's office. I spotted a window and slid it open, seeing no one around outside to catch me. Once outside, I ran, never stopping. Past all the houses and onto the main road where across the street I saw it. Our house! I ran inside through the back door and wrote a note for Quinton that i was in the basement armory. I ran down to the armory in the basement to hide, knowing only Quinton had the code to the door. An hour later, I heard the front door shut, and I stood up, hoping it was Quinton.

Quinton walked into the house, noticing Cocoa was gone. He ran upstairs in a blind panic and stopped in his tracks, seeing a note on his bed. On it were the words, Cocoas in the basement armory. He dashed downstairs and to the door inputting the code.

As he opened the door, I smiled at him. "Quinton! They took me! But I escaped, and fortunately, they fixed my wolfboundness, but I'm back, and we.... we can live that life you want. A quiet life in the woods just you and me and our kids! You don't have to fear your job taking me! We can flee to my packs compound! They'll take care of us there! We can finally live happy lives... together." I said exasperated. He looked at me scared at first, but as I spoke, he slowly started to just look confused. I waited for him to hug me or something, but he stood there for a minute and tried to understand what I had just told him.

"Prove it then. If your Cocoa, then sh0w me how you were a wolf this WHOLE time." He finally said with confidence that he was right. I smirked and undressed. He blushed and almost looked away, but then I started to shift. Bones broke and cracked and popped, hair turned to fur, and my face distorted into my snout, an unsettling pop noise occurred as my joints popped into place as I finished. He stared in astonishment and then watched in amazement as I shifted back and put on my dress.

"Enough proof?" I asked with a smirk on my face. Suddenly I found myself in his embrace our lips locked together in a passionate kiss. As we stared into each other's eyes catching our breaths from the kiss I could feel the mate bond with Damien finally breaking apart. I knew that that night both Quinton and I would be visited by the Goddess in our dreams, approving of our matehood. "I should call my family though once we pack up your stuff and get in the car. Damien is seriously probably going to try to kill me when he finds out I'm gone. He'll probably assume I'm working against my people so he'll be hellbent on trying to kill me." I said in a hurry. Quinton nodded and pulled me upstairs with him afraid I would disappear if he left me for one second alone. He was throwing clothes and weapons and money and important items into his bag. We rushed down to his car in the garage and sped down the driveway and down the road. I held his hand as he drove us the other hand on the steering wheel, my other hand on his phone as I waited for my mom to pick up. "Hello mom. It's Elizabeth. I know I know. I just need someone to let us in when we get there. It's probably a long drive. Oh, uhm, yeah my mate is with me. It's a long story mom. I'll tell you all about it when we get there. I love you too. Bye." I handed him his phone back and he smiled at me like he did so many times before except this one was wider and held more love in his eyes than ever before.

"Elizabeth is much prettier than Cocoa." He chuckled and kissed my hand. I blushed and laughed too. "I'm just glad we met even if being a lab rat wasn't all sunshine and rainbows." I smiled. He laughed again "So, what was Damien up to with you anyways? I thought his cult wanted to sacrifice you to their Goddess when you were a wolf." He prodded. I laugh so hard imaging Quinton's reality this whole time was far different than mine.

"He was my fated mate from the Goddess. He wanted me to be with him and have his babies I assume. Although, with how he was, I picked you over him any day. Our mate bond finally broke when we had our first kiss. That means you and I are officially approved by the Goddess. You'll see her in your dreams with me tonight." I explained as best as I could to Quinton. I'm sure he'll have tons more questions but Quinton just nodded like he understood and sighed. "SOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Where are we headed?" He asked me."The Wolfland National Park." I told him and he looked at me wide eyed. "Well, I guess we have plenty of time to get to know each other better on the road then. That's at least a weeks trip in the car." He laughed and so did I, but it didn't feel like we needed to get to know each other at all. It felt like we knew each other already on some level or another. He kissed me and we both watched the road ahead of us. Both of us so ready to start our new lives together.

First Date with my Mate:

I woke up in a cell, but my body felt different. Colder? I looked down and was shocked to see for the first time in a long time. Hands. Arms. No more fur and no more paws. I felt my body as I looked down. They had the decency of putting a dress on me at least. I hugged myself tight and sighed with relief. Then came the headache of a lifetime as my brain healed itself from the years of being a wolf. Memories started flooding my brain at super speed. I held my head in place, hoping it would stop soon. I remembered my mom, my dad, my pack, my life, my name! I am Elizabeth Marie Cobbler, and I'm a part of the Crusaders Pack! I'm 24, and I have found my mate!

I looked around and saw him sitting on a chair near the stairs reading a book. A tried to get a good look at what he was reading but then he looked over at me catching me staring at him. Damien smiled and walked over unlocking the door, noticing it was misaligned, so it was never really locked in the first place. He laughed. "Well, good thing I was down here the whole time you got here, my mate." He said sweetly holding out his hand for me to help me off the floor. I took his hand and stood up smiling shyly at him, a bit nervous to meet my mate for the first time.

"I'm Elizabeth by the way. It's nice to finally get to talk to you Damien. At least you know like this and not through mind link." I giggled softly and stared into his eyes. He smirked and walked me upstairs to a closet full of clothes in various sizes. He handed me a suitcase and said, " Pack what you like. We're gonna fly out to the royal pack compound in an hour. I smile and as I'm packing I mention, " We should probably get the tracker out of me first if we're fleeing." He laughed.

"It's already out, our pack doctor found it on an x-ray we took. We had to make sure you'd be safe once we landed. We know all about the government's plans." He explained. Once we finished packing we headed for his car and we started driving to the pack airstrip. "Right now, Quinton's tracking a deer we implanted your tracker into. He'll be too busy on a wild goose chase to notice the packs swapping. Everyone else is driving there and the new pack moving in already showed up last night to help everyone pack up for today. We figured it would be helpful to have them show up to the barbecue and give Quinton the illusion of an extraordinary amount of people. That way he'd leave when we told him to and not a minute sooner. " Damien babbled on and on excited to talk to his mate. I smiled at him and at how cute he was while excited.

"It's so nice to finally be together. I wasn't sure how much more I could take of pretending to care for Quinton. Ever since that conversation you had with me I've just been dying for this day to come." I said with passion. Damien nodded.

"I had two ideas of what to say to convince you to go with our plan but ultimately I went with my gut and confessed my feelings about everything to you no matter how unmanly it seemed to me, I thought that was my best shot at making you realize you should be my mate." He stated. I nodded and blushed thinking about our first conversation, "It was definitely the right thing to say. I think if you said anything else I wouldn't have agreed to it." I told him meekly. He laughed nervously and held my hand in his, "Then I'm glad I went with my gut."

We got into the plane and took off pretty quickly as they were just waiting for us. I was definitely looking forward to getting to know my mate after all this time.