Page 1 of His Impossible Elf Mate
Prologue
Axel
Icouldn’t remember how I’d gotten here, or how long I’d spent in this… space. Void. There was nothing there in the blank white expanse that surrounded me apart from myself and my charcoal colored wolf.
For all of my twenty-seven years, my wolf had been with me. A constant presence in my mind. A comfort in harder times and my fiercest protector.
All that I got from him at that moment was confusion and worry. His bright silver-blue eyes darted around the space, watching, alert and wary. Yet there was nothing there that he could fight. Nothing to protect me from.
We wrapped around each other, sharing memories and wishes in a way we’d never done before. Giving each other comfort. My fingers in his fur. For an unknowable amount of time, I got to know my wolf better than I could have imagined. I’d never taken the time to know what my wolf wanted from his life, always assuming that I would be in charge of our fate.
The longer we spent there, the more control that we had over it. Soon we could broadcast our memories like movies, seeing three-dimensional images in the brightly lit area.
I discussed our recollections with my wolf, allowing him to share his version. Seeing the world from his point of view changed my perspective of events.
Together, we watched our upbringing alongside our twin, Chase, and our baby brother Blake. My heart ached for my twin. Where was he? Was he sick, too?
My last memory had been of fever sickness, a weakness in my limbs and bone crushing tiredness as I tried to console my brother, to reassure him I’d be fine. Being unable to wake, to pull myself from this void, was not fine.
Chase had been sick too, but not nearly as bad off as me. I prayed to The Luna that Chase was well and helping our Alpha, our brother, Blake, to run things in my absence.
If he was sick, why wasn’t he here? All our lives, we’d shared everything. Our wolf alters were also twins and my wolf worried for them as much as for me.
In this place, we were powerless to do anything but remember or dream. Once we had recalled all of our most precious and tragic memories, recalling the birth of Blake and the death of our mother, we moved on to our innermost wishes.
For what felt like a long time, I fought against letting out the deepest of my desires. My secret wish thatmade my heart burn with bitter envy and the bleakest feelings of grief for what I couldn’t have.
Eventually, I shared with my wolf what they had already known. I could keep nothing from my wolf. After all, he knew my innermost soul. He had been there since the beginning.
Together we grieved. He shared my pain and longing and sought to give solace in the bond that we had. My wolf mourned with as much feeling as me, since his wishes and mine matched. In most things, we agreed.
Another amount of time appeared to pass as we lay together, my head on his stomach, his head resting on my chest.
Slowly, the landscape changed, and we saw Sweetwater. Our pack was divided, with most of the betas still sleeping. I saw flashes of myself in a bed in a home that I vaguely recalled was Dakota’s, though I’d never been inside.
My gasp broke the silence when I saw Chase. He didn’t look like himself. He was altered. Thinner. Stress marred his face with a frown. He stayed glued to my side even as people I didn’t know moved around him.
There. I saw someone new. Somehow, something blocked their face from my view. Everyone that I didn’t know already were blurs. Just shapes.
A voice broke the quiet. Ethereal in its beauty. Ageless but female.
“Choose. You must make a choice. I can offer you what you most desire, Axel, but it is the more difficultpath to follow, for you must learn to trust your heart over your head.”
“What do you mean? Who are you?”
“You already know who I am. If you listen to your inner self, you know what I offer. However, you must know this. There is a price for this gift. Love may be its cost.”
“So I could have a life without true love, but I’d have what I most desire?”
“Yes.”
“Then you already know what I choose.”
“So be it.”
Waking was like wading through molasses.
Sounds came first. The beloved sound of my brother telling a story for laughs. I remembered that day, and had shown it to my wolf. He had revealed that was when he had realized the true depth of my alpha brother’s power.
