Page 41 of Wolf's Fate

“No,” Doc corrected me. “You’re human. You aren’t his mate. You couldn’t be.” I didn’t know what he saw in my face, but he looked sympathetic. “I’m sorry.”

I was already riding the train to denial as I waved his comment off, brushing it aside with a forced laugh. “No, no need to be sorry. I don’t want to be anyone’s fated mate. Especially Caleb’s.”

The words felt too flippant, too casual, like saying them out loud would make me feel as if they were true. But as I spoke them, there was that nagging part of me that knew the truth. Denying it didn’t make it any less real—it just made it easier to pretend that I wasn’t disappointed.

Because maybe Iwas.

And I wasn’t ready to explore that. Not yet.

“I wonder…” I began hesitantly. “I get what you’re saying, I do, and you know better, I get that too. But if Luna, your Goddess, is hands-off humans and that, then why is she sendingmevisions? A human?”

Doc grimaced. “I don’t know.” His look was assessing. “The shaman has a theory.”

“I’m listening.”

“He believes that with Caleb being distant from his home, his pack, and the way of pack life, that he would have been more open to a human than a shifter.”

“Open?” I gave him a dubious look. “Caleb?” Doc noddedonce. “I don’t think that man knows what it means to be open,” I added skeptically.

Doc sighed, leaning back in his chair. “I admit, I think that may be the truth, but…” He paused, his look one of consideration, judging what to say next. “But, he has responded to you better than with others.”

“Has he?” I grunted, looking down at my hands, which were clasped in my lap.

“Caleb’s spent ten years away from his packlands. He’s lived among humans, hiding his nature, suppressing it. He’s been a loner for a long time. And that’s dangerous.”

“Why?”

“Lone wolves don’t survive for long.”

“He’s been alone for ten years.” I heard the defensive tone in my voice and cursed myself for sticking up for him when he hadn’t stuck up for me.

“Wolves are pack animals,” Doc said smoothly. “They thrive in a family environment. They aresocialanimals.”

Social? Caleb? The thought was funny. “Someone needs to tell him,” I cracked the joke, expecting a laugh, a smile at least.

“I think that’s what you’re doing,” Doc said casually, his eyes watchful. “We think, well, the shaman thinks, that your visions, sketches, they’re a reminder of what he’s lost.” He sucked his teeth. “And that your artwork is reminding him of what he needs to survive.”

“Why can’t he be left alone?” I felt like I was too demanding when I said that.

“Because a lone wolf turns.”

“Turns?”

“We call them rogues.” Doc was watching me with anintensity that made me realize how important this was, and I paid closer attention. “No pack, no accountability, no anchor to pack life.” He considered his next words carefully. “They spend more time as their wolf, and as they do, they lose their humanity. Turning wild. Dangerous.”

“Caleb isn’t like that.”

“Not yet.” The empathy he’d displayed earlier was gone. The look was hard. The belief he was right was evident in the set of his shoulders, the focus of his stare. “He’s an alpha, Willow. His destiny isn’t to be living alone, it’s to provide for a pack. It’s to keep the bloodline alive.”

The stab of jealousy I felt was unexpected, but what did I expect? I may care for Caleb, but I never thought of him as my future. Christ, we didn’t have a present, never mind anything else. I was being silly.

But hearing that Caleb’s destiny, hisfate, was to be head of some extended family and impregnate amateto produce babies for his bloodline to continue, made me sad.

“If his Goddess only wants for him to be a domesticated man, she chose the wrong shifter.” Pushing myself to my feet, I tugged my sweater down. “I don’t know him well, and I never knew what he was like before, but I can tell you that she’s gonna need a helluva lot more than me and a sketchbook to convince that man to besociableor conform to anything that he doesn’t want to.”

“The shaman could be wrong,” Doc conceded after a moment’s silence.

I don’t think he believed that though, and I didn’t like that a part of me didn’t believe it either.

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