Dream, my little mate

Chapter:39

As we walked hand in hand, the nerves and butterflies started kicking in. This was really about to happen and I really agreed to this. This was all a surprise to me, because a few months ago I couldn't have dreamt of ever having a completed bond with anyone. It all felt surreal, but I knew that I was making the right decision.

This just showed me that we can't change the predisposed things in our life... we just learn to accept them. No matter how much we fight and refuse, we'll always end up becoming the thing we never wanted to be, but secretly needed to become. Because life gives us unexpected joys and we need to start acknowledging them, not fighting them.

Before, I never saw the beauty in all of this. I never saw the full picture of having and being a mate. Akai opened up my eyes to so many things and he's fought for me since the very first day we saw each other and I'm glad he did. He is my mate, my love, and my everything. Without a second thought, I could say I wanted to be tied to him for the rest of my life and I wasn't scared to say something like that anymore.

"You sure?" Akai asked quietly as we eased closer to the front of the crowd. I nodded my head and Akai quickly placed a kiss to the top of my head.

My nerves quickly moved to the forefront of my mind as we finally walked in the front of the crowd and placed ourselves directly in the center. I could feel Akai's pack eyes all over me, but instead of bringing me discomfort, they brought me warmth and reassurance. For the first time, I felt like I really belonged here and with that thought finally instilled in my mind, the butterflies fluttered away leaving me with only the feeling of happiness and excitement to start my new beginning with Akai.

"You know how this goes, right?" Akai looked down at me with a questioning expression.

I slowly nodded my head, thinking back to the day my parents had their ceremony. Akai connected our hands as his father appeared with a thick book and a huge smile on his face.

He cleared his throat, then he started the ceremony. It started off with an oath to Akai's pack, then it moved on to an oath to each other that was specially made for alpha mates because our connection was stronger, then we moved on to our vows. Normally couples read from the old book filled with generic vows, but in that moment be both knew we wanted our vows to come from the heart.

I could already feel the tears start to spring to my eyes as Akai looked down at me lovingly. I knew I wouldn't be able to get through this part without dropping a tear or two.

"Umm... I don't even know where to start." Akai sheepishly looked out into the crowd like they were going to give him the answers he needed. He let out a long sigh, then he turned his eyes back to me. "I just want to start off with saying that I love you so much. I'm glad you finally went the easy way in letting me love you. You're honestly the greatest girl I could've been paired with and I'm grateful for all the tough experiences we went through because they make me appreciate what we have now even more. And I could say so much more about you and our relationship, but I don't think anybody would want to be sitting out here for 63 hours." We all let out a small giggle as Akai finished his vows. His cheeks unexpectedly heated up as he glanced out into the crowd. I gave him a reassuring smile and squeezed his hands gently.

A single year dropped from my eyes onto my cheek. Akai gently wiped it off, but I knew a million more would start pouring soon.

Then it was my turn. I didn't even have anything to say, because I couldn't find any words that amount to my love and admiration for Akai. He was my everything, my forever, my source of happiness, my chance to start over and be complete again. But I didn't want to open my heart in front of his whole pack, I wasn't comfortable enough with them for that yet.