Not to Claim

Chapter 12

(How a wolf bows)
Everyone was surprised, everyone but my pack, they knew that I wasn't technically of age to be in the Hunt, but I wanted this over with, so I just glared at the crowd until they shut up, which didn't take long. 

"Alright, now. The parade will begin momentarily, ladies, whoever your leader is, you are to stay with them, gentlemen, same thing. The boys will go first, this first time around, you'll walk around in your human form, the next, you will shift into your Wolf. Is that clear?" There was another echo of yes, so eerily in sync it even creeped the crowd out. "Alright girls. You can mingle while the boys parade around. But know where your leader is at all times." And it started, the boys and men walked around, giving everyone a good look at them, and then, all their shirts came off, the whistles came for a full minute, and then they shifted. I stood at the front of my group, arms crossed and an uninterested look on my face, all of the girls in my pack did the same, even while they looked on with hungry eyes. After they gave everyone another good look, they ducked into the woods to shift back, but one didn't, he was the biggest Wolf of them all, and I knew exactly who it was. 

He walked over to me slowly, holding my gaze with his molten yellow eyes, and when he was mere inches away, he slowly bowed, looking me straight in the eye as he did so. I took a deep breath, keeping my face carefully blank, even though I wanted to run screaming in the other direction. 

I dipped my chin, just slightly, to tell him I knew what he wanted -me- and he wasn't going to get me without a fight. He slowly took another step closer and inhaled, taking in my scent. He wasn't going to be easy to lose in the forest. As he backed away, I could have sworn he was grinning at me.

"Alright ladies, it's your turn." So we walked around, showing ourselves off. When we lapped around, they told us to shift, but I didn't. It had always been a tradition in this that if you didn't want a Mate, you didn't shift. Several of the girls stood with me, not shifting, not even thinking about it. A murmur went through the crowd. "Ms. Tor." My head snapped towards the stage. 

"It's Alpha Tor." The girl flinched at the harshness in my voice. 

"It would be appreciated if you shifted." 

"Thanks, but I'm good." There was a growl from the male side and several laughs. 

"Alpha. Shift." A vicious smile slowly crept onto my lips. 

"Was that an order?" She swallowed and took a small step back. 

"N-no Alpha." I tilt my head to the side. Slowly, a larger man came forward, he towered over me, 

"Alpha, do we have a problem?"

 "No, we don't. If you don't want a Mate, you don't shift, that's how this works."

The growl that I heard reverberate from the chest of my Mate from the other side of the crowd scared me, terrified me actually, but, I didn't move, my stoic face didn't even flinch. The announcer sighed and nodded, the huge man looked me up and down before backing away, his head bowed. 

I knew my eyes flashed between their natural grey, the black of my Wolf, and molten gold, the eyes of a true Alpha. There was murmuring and quiet talking as the females started parading again and before the crowd could even gasp my dress dropped to the ground and I shifted. The roar of anger that sounded from my Mate had even me talking a step back as I shook out my fur.

My Wolf was beautiful, I had to say, with fur so black that it rippled with color and I had one pure white ear. My eyes were molten gold with specks of black in them. For a she Wolf I was abnormally large, and even for a female Alpha I was big, about the size of a full grown male bear, 6 to 7 feet tall on all fours. 

The crowd fell silent as they looked on with astonishment, black Wolfs were rare, no matter what region you were in. Out of everyone here, I bet I was one of two black Wolfs for billions of other wolfs. And my ear, I don't even know what that was about, but the thing that startled me, was that I just realized, Rowan's Wolf, it looked exactly like mine, except the white ear was on the left side instead of the right, and he was twice as big as me.

There was no way people would miss that resemblance, and it was said only Mates paired to do great, or horrible thing, would look alike like that. There was no way this could be happening.

I'm so screwed