The Wolf's Mate Book 1: Jason & Cadence (3 page)

Every one of his people knew that Cadence was
the only one for him, and some of the females had accepted that,
but a lot of them had not. Because he'd chosen her and she was weak
in their eyes because she couldn't shift. It didn't make her any
less of a wolf in his eyes; in fact it made him jealous. She wasn't
a slave to the full moon, although she had always loved their
celebrations.

Stupid Lindy. No one would have known that
Cadence was affected by the crude nickname unless they were really
paying attention. Her eyes had narrowed just slightly, her breath
had caught in her throat, and her whole body tensed up. He was
pretty sure she had wanted to smash the tray into her skull and he
would have loved for her to do it. Teach that bitch some manners.
Lindy was trouble and would be until Cadence put her in her place.
But she couldn't do that without claiming Jason as her mate, and he
wasn't sure she would do that, not at this point.

The sweet look she gave to Michael as she
came up to the table made him want to pound Michael's head through
the table. She'd smiled at Michael twice now, and Michael was
practically glowing with glee at how pissed Jason was. Fortunately,
one of the things Cadence hadn't acquired in her supernatural skill
set was the ability to detect the emotions off others, otherwise
she'd be very clearly aware of how jealous he was, how much he
desired her, and how badly he wanted to mount her on the table. As
it was, all he could manage was to give her blank-face and act like
he didn't care. Her gaze slid around the booth and her smile
disappeared as she set the bottles down.

She was holding the bottle for him and he
couldn't stop himself from being a jerk when he said, "Nice of you
to stop in and say hello, when you came into town." Her grip
tightened on the bottle and the wolves around him held their
collective breaths.

He saw her press her tongue into her incisor,
something she'd done since she was a kid to keep from drawing blood
when she bit her tongue, and then she did something that completely
surprised him. She took his bottle of beer and licked the mouth of
it, darting that wicked tongue across the glass. With a smirk, she
set it down in front of him, snatching the money off the table and
huffing away in a storm cloud of conflicting emotions: anger,
mostly, but also some fear mixed with desire. He didn't know what
she was afraid of, but he figured it was himself. He looked at the
bottle, all of them did, because she'd pretty much just licked him,
had teased him openly, but clearly she had not meant to do it for
his arousal.

He'd bet any amount of money that she thought
he would be pissed off about the move like it would disgust him or
he would trade bottles with someone. When they were kids, she used
to stick her finger in his cereal bowl before school and he'd
always loved that about her, her ability to find something that
bothered him and devil him with it. It drove him crazy, of course,
but he had loved that she watched him so closely, even as a kid,
and knew exactly how to get to him. She still did, actually, except
now she did it out of spite. She'd done that cereal bowl thing for
months until he finally grabbed her hand and licked the milk off.
She'd squealed and tried to get away, but he wouldn't let her until
the milk was all gone and he'd had a very good taste of her skin.
Of course he was 15 and she was 10, so it was kind of obscene, but
he'd already claimed her, and it was normal for wolves to taste
each other. And she tasted good underneath the milk. Like sweet
cream or vanilla, something comforting. How many years ago was
that? 14, Jake had said. 14 years and she'd never figured out what
he'd done, had never seemed to remember the day that changed his
life forever but also sent him practically into exile.

He needed her to remember what happened
between them when she was 9 and he was 14, but he was beginning to
think she'd never remember. They'd been playing at his father's
house which was down the street from her house. His father, Peter,
was alpha of the pack and Jason was being groomed to take over when
he reached 21. Peter and her father, James, were only barely
acquaintances even though they'd lived next door to each other and
her mother Dixie was a wolf so he knew all about them, but had
always acted superior. As if being pure human were better than
anything. He'd tried to keep Cadence away from pack things, but
Jake had been insistent that James couldn't help her come to terms
with her powers. If she went untrained then she'd be even more
dangerous, so James had stepped back, angrily, and spent his free
time bashing the wolves to Cadence.

She was always beautiful, but she grew more
beautiful to him every day as they grew up together. He knew that
his time to come into his powers was drawing close and that he
would only have about two years to be with her and then he'd have
to keep away from her because he'd be too volatile. He never wanted
to hurt her, but he'd seen enough wolves come into their powers at
16 and hurt their families and friends. He was going to work so
hard to tame his beast, to cage it and chain it, until it was as
tame as a puppy dog so he could be around her, and he'd do it
faster than anyone ever so he could be there for her, be her friend
and confidant again.

That day, he'd felt the urge to mark her.
He'd felt it before, the knowledge that she would be his when they
were both adults and the desire to make sure no one else ever
touched her. He could only do that by marking her. Maybe he'd known
somehow that he wouldn't be able to control his beast, maybe he'd
somehow known that she would grow to hate him because she wouldn't
understand that he was trying to protect her, so he'd done it. She
had been chasing him around the yard. It was springtime, everything
was fresh and new. He spun on her suddenly, twice as tall as her
already and had crouched down on his points and growled at her. She
thought he was playing, but he wasn't. He
so
wasn't
playing.

She froze, her green eyes wide, her ponytail
making her neck sweetly visible, and then she spun and darted away
from him with a delightful laugh and he chased her. He was stronger
than her because he was older and male, but she was fast and he had
to really surge forward to get her. He waited until she rounded the
house so that no one would see, and he tackled her, safely taking
her to the ground in his gangly arms and subduing her. "Gotcha,
Cadence." He said as she laughed and struggled in his arms, and
then he'd bitten her neck. She'd gone very still, hadn't cried out
or anything, even when his canines dug into her flesh and punctured
through. Her skin had tasted so incredibly sweet. He growled into
her, sending his growl down her spine and he felt her relax and
submit, which was exactly what was supposed to happen between a
mated pair. She was so small, so sweet, and so his. He released his
hold on her and licked the wound and opened his mouth to tell her
that she was his mate, and then his father's voice came from the
window above them. "Jason, you fucking let her up this instant and
get in this damn house!"

Jason let her roll away from him and she had
looked at him so strangely, touching her neck and looking at the
blood on her fingers. His father stormed out of the house and had
practically thrown him around the back and he heard him pick her up
off the ground and speak very quietly to her. When she went running
home, he saw that her hair was out of the ponytail now; his father
had clearly warned her that if her dad saw the marks that they'd
all be in trouble.

His father had been in such a rage, had
thrown him into the house by his neck. "What were you fucking
thinking?"

"She's mine!" He tried to stand up, to defend
himself, but his father backhanded him, knocked him back to his
knees.

"She is not our pack and she is a child,
Jason." His father hit him again, his fist flying so fast he only
saw the blur and then felt the pain.

"She's mine, Dad, I made her mine!"

"You have ruined everything, Jason. If her
father finds out, he will have you arrested for assault. How could
you be so stupid?"

Jason, for the first time since he was a
small child, had cried, his mouth going salty and his eyes filling.
"I had to, Dad. I'll have to stay away from her once I turn until I
can control myself and I don't want anyone else to claim her. Too
many, Dad, there are too many that want her. We were made for each
other, she belongs to me, she’s my female alpha."

His father had stood there, fury rolling off
him, and then he'd suddenly squatted down and put his hand on his
shoulder. "I understand, son. You have found your mate and she's
special. But she's not our pack, she's not anyone's pack and she's
not quite like us. As your alpha, I forbid you to talk about what
happened with her, to explain the significance. If she is really
yours, she will remember what you did and know the meaning behind
it and come to you. Until that happens, I forbid you and any of our
wolves from talking to her about the marking."

His father stood up, stretching to his full
height, and Jason felt the weight of his father's words. He
couldn't ignore a direct order from his alpha, no matter how badly
he wanted to. Now he'd marked her, branded her as his wife, and any
wolf that saw the puncture wounds on her neck would know that she
belonged to someone, and his pack would know it was him and so
would Jake's pack. But no one was allowed to talk to her about it,
and that would be a problem. He couldn’t finish claiming her.

He’d been forced to stay on his knees in the
front room while his father waited for Jake to come. Because
Cadence was so close to Jake, his father had to explain what had
happened.

Jake hadn’t been upset, but he was worried.
“The order by itself won’t stand, Peter.”

“How so?” His father asked.

“Because if Jason’s wolf recognizes her as
his alpha mate, then the packs will treat her that way. They will
expect her to know that she’s alpha and that she belongs to him
when she comes of age. Even if she doesn’t remember the marks
because of your order to her, she’ll know that something is going
on because of how they’ll react to her. You can’t keep her on the
outside of things unless you really keep her outside.”

“So, a total black out of pack dealings,
then?” His father rubbed his stubbled jaw with two fingers.

Jake shrugged. “You only have two choices
here, Peter, really. You either find her and rescind your own order
and make sure that she understands the grave consequences that
would happen if her father finds out that Jason bit her, or you
keep her away completely. I teach her some things, her father is so
hateful towards anything pack that I try not to influence her too
much, but I’m not sure either way is necessarily better.”

Jason had known which way he wanted his
father to go, but he hadn’t dared speak. A complete black out of
pack dealings would mean that she wouldn’t know what a pack was
really like. What a mating looked like. Or share the full moons
with him.

“You’re right, Jake. I hadn’t considered
that. If she were older, and we could trust that she wouldn’t tell
her father anything, then I’d lift my order. This way is safer for
everyone. I’ll let my pack know that they are not to speak to her
about being alpha, nor are they to speak of the marks on her neck,
or the mating to Jason.”

“I’ll do the same.” Jake had given one long
look to Jason and it was the first time that he’d felt someone pity
him and it had made him feel worse.

He’d had to follow his father out to the
meeting with the pack, and listen as his father talked about his
actions like he was an idiotic child and not trying to protect his
mate. And then the orders had come down and the pack accepted them.
His mother had put her arm around him and kissed the top of his
head. That was the most comfort that he’d gotten from anyone. If
Cadence had been there, she would have held his hand or given him
something she’d made for him. But she wasn’t there, and he didn’t
know how long it would be for her to figure out what had
happened.

Later that night, when he couldn’t sleep,
he’d been outside where he’d marked her and saw the metal clasp of
her hair tie glinting on the ground. He sat down, curling up on the
grass where he had held her in his arms and smelled her sweet scent
mixed with the strawberry lip gloss she loved, and he put it on his
wrist. He still had it, as a matter of fact. The black fabric
covered tie was wrapped around the handle bar of his Harley.

He never chased her like that again, because
the urge to hold her in his arms was so strong that he felt like he
would choke on it. And then he'd suddenly been 16 and had started
lying full time to her, telling her that she was just a kid and to
leave him alone, when all he wanted to do was change into his wolf
form and put his head in her lap. He wanted her to comfort him,
which was fucking absurd because she was just a kid, but she was
his and that’s what mates did. They had a serious connection and he
knew she felt it, but she didn't understand it and no one would
help her understand it.

When he graduated from high school, she was a
freshman. She was hit on so constantly that he had to ask his
brother to watch over her, but they'd developed a friendship that
had made him so furious with rage that he very nearly killed him on
several occasions.

It had taken him years to get his wolf under
control. His wolf was such a beast, so full of rage, that he was
afraid to be around her and part of him thought that maybe the
reason he was so angry was because he wasn't around her, but he
couldn't risk it. Couldn't risk hurting her, and by the time he
felt even remotely under control she'd developed quite a bad
attitude about him. All that love he'd seen in her eyes when they
were kids had morphed into hate and despair and he hated himself
for it. She'd gone off to college before he knew it, and then he'd
taken over for his father after he was injured in a hunting
accident. But damn it all to hell, she'd been dating in college and
he heard all about it from Callie who hated being his spy but did
what he said.