Not everyone has a mate, and this is the reality of Alek Kuznetsov.
On his eighteenth birthday instead of feeling the pull and yearning for a mate, Alek's spirit felt dead. Confusion and depression drove him out of his Siberian wolf clan to seek so...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
ALEK
I woke up the next morning with the space beside me empty. I blinked a few times, squinting anytime the sun rays coming from the window would increase in intensity. It took me a while to become fully away, and when I was, I realized what the empty space beside me meant.
Ahote was gone.
Where is he? I wondered, sitting up on the bed before looking around the room. He was nowhere in sight. I looked over at the wall clock — it was ten in the morning, and now that I thought about it, he must have gotten up to take care of things around the house. I could hear cub whines and the feet of kids walking past the door from time to time.
It was breakfast time, and the process of getting everyone fed before noon was a hefty task. Usually, I would be up and about following Ahote around, but since he left without me, I guessed he wanted some space.
A sigh left my lips when I remembered last night. I arched my back a bit, letting it crack before looking up ahead and pushing my hair back with my hands. Ahote had held on to me so with all his might last night, preventing me from moving around in case it disturbed or frightened him. He had slept off before me, but somewhere in the middle of the night, he started crying in his sleep like he was having a nightmare.
I wasn't sure what to make of it, and I was starting to think that marking him, and asking him to mark him was a mistake, but despite that, I couldn't help the warm feeling that formed in my chest when I reached for my collar area and felt the raised flesh that was the healing pair of wounds.
After half an hour of sitting on the bed with no clothes on, I decided to take a shower. I spoke to some wolves on the way to my bath and back, and sometimes someone's eyes would drift to the fresh marks under my collar bone. They didn't say anything about it, but the way their composure and mannerisms changed told me that they were surprised, and maybe even confused. That, plus Ahote's behavior at night made me nervous. I tried not to let the mixed reactions bother me. I got into new clothes — a loose top and a pair of khaki pants. Lapu had handed me some clothes that were his, and apart from being very comfortable, it made me fit into the aesthetic of the pack more.
