Page 9 of Rejecting his Mate

My skin prickles, the fine hair on the back of my neck tingling as I try not to freeze in place. Instinct wants me to look around and see what is hunting me, but I resist the urge.

Discreetly, I pull in a noseful of air. Leaves, trees, and the earthy scent of dirt are the first things I smell, as well as the small animals hiding in the undergrowth.

I suck in another breath, and that's when I catch it.

The scent is familiar, even though I have never laid eyes on the wolf it belongs to. I don’t know who he is or why he watches me, but whenever I’m in the woods, he is too.

Is he from my past? Someone I left behind when my mind was damaged and my memories were broken?

It took me years to rebuild what I lost, years toremember that I am Halle Beauford, and even longer to wrap my head around the wolf that shares my mind.

I take another breath, letting his smell envelop my senses. As always, the waves that come off him soothe me. I should be on my knees in supplication because he feels like an alpha, but…different. The power that radiates from him is stronger than my wolf’s and my pack’s alpha, too.

I’m at least half a mile from pack lands, and as I haven’t had my first shift yet, I’m defenseless should he decide to attack. I should be terrified.

But what I’m feeling isn’t terror; it’s peace.

I flick my gaze to the left of where I’m sitting. Both undergrowth and trees are thickly packed together here, and fallen leaves are strewn over the forest floor like a rusty carpet.It’s the perfect place for an ambush; the thick foliage camouflaging him from sight. It puts me and my wolf on alert, even though he has never tried to attack me.

He just… watches.

I know I should tell my aunt or even my mate about my mysterious stalker, but I never do. Adeline would forbid me from leaving the compound, and Dalton… He’d use it as another way to control me.

Of their own volition, my fingers move to the claiming mark on my neck, the bite given between mates to stamp their ownership on them.

It’s supposed to be romantic, a statement of love, but it feels like a chain around my neck.

Dalton owns me like a man keeps a dog, andsometimes I curse my weakness for agreeing to be his chosen mate.

No, this will remain my secret.

The rustling of leaves makes me snap my gaze toward the sound, and I narrow my eyes to peer through the brush where I know he is hiding.

I’m tired of being spied on. I stand and raise my arms at my sides in a ‘come and get me’ motion, my eyes locked in his direction. “What are you waiting for?” I yell out. “I’m right here.”

Nothing moves other than the wind. I prick my ears and hear the whispering of motion. He’s running, and this time, I’m following.

I rush after him, my mind screaming at me to stop and realize the danger. I don’t listen and my wolf isn’t giving me any indication of danger, so I focus on trying to find him, to glimpse the wolf who has been stalking me for more than a year.

As I push through the trees, ignoring the scrapes to my arms and legs, his scent moves north.

It is insane to follow a wolf I don’t know, but my mind isn’t thinking rationally as I erupt out of the undergrowth and into a clearing.

A flash of black fur at the edge of the tree line has my attention snapping in that direction. I freeze in place, my feet rooted to the ground. Damn. He is the biggest wolf I have ever seen. Klaus is huge—Dalton too—but they pale in comparison to this wolf. His dark fur would make him blend into the shadows after nightfall and his red eyes pin me in place. As much as I try to control my racing heart, it pounds beneath my sternum.

I suck in a lungful of air and nearly drop to my knees. His scent this close is overpowering, but also alluring in a way I can’t explain. I want to go to him, but I’m too scared to move. My wolf whines, wanting to shift and greet him, but that is impossible until the first moon ceremony.

“Why are you watching me?” I demand an answer from him.

He doesn’t respond; he can’t. We’re not pack, so I can’t hear him inside my head, and he can’t speak in his wolf form.

His tongue lolls to the side of his open mouth before he takes off into the trees. This time I don’t follow, even though my wolf wants me to.

I stare at the spot where he was standing as if I expect him to return, but nothing moves in the trees and his scent fades as the minutes tick by. Eventually, I turn and make my way back through the trees, heading toward the pack compound, but my mind is filled with my strange stalker.

I know I should tell someone. What if he is an enemy scouting out the pack’s defenses? What if he’s waiting to attack?

My alpha would put a stop to him hanging around the woods outside the compound. Permanently. If he didn’t, Dalton would. He would want to tear him apart for even sniffing around what’s his, but having seen the size of my stalker, I doubt he could. His wolf is huge. He makes Dalton look like a dachshund.

---