Mated to the Alpha and His Beta

Zane

| knew Xander wasn’t coming after me to battle anything out, but | tensed anyway when he approached. There was no point in apology. | wasn’t sorry for what I’d done.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

“That was not where | thought this was going to go.”| admitted, already pulling my T-shirt off over my

head and tossing it to the grass.

Xander toed off his boots as he unbuckled his jeans and ran the zipper down. He shoved the deni his hips and stepped out, bare-as sed. “Save that for later Right now, Beta, you’re going to show me wi

wolf can do.”

Internally, my wolf whined with glee at the offer. My teeth were already sharpening as | stripped out c rest of my clothes. Seeing through my wolf's eyes, everything took on a different sheen of color. Smells heightened as | gave over more of my senses to the beast inside me. Part of me.

Then, the beast was me.

“Too long.” Blade growled as my four paws hit the soft ground.

Beside us, Hunter had taken over from Xander. The big wolf nipped at Blade’s sides, making us dance. away, but playfully. Together, we rolled on the ground before Hunter leaped up and ran for the woods, Blade

hot on his heels.

“Always want to run.” Blade’s breath labored as we moved into the trees, dodging roots and nosing the scents of squirrels and rabbits that made him salivate.

Of course, my wolf always wanted to be up front, and it had been too long since we'd been able to do this. Not for the first time, | wondered what it would be like to live like this permanently. What it must've been like for our ancestors in the earliest days of the Moon Goddess'’s blessing.

Then, | stopped thinking and let my wolf take over. Hunter jumped a fallen tree. Blade followed. Together, the wolves hunted some prey, flushing up a flock of birds as they crashed through the undergrowth in gleeful

pursuit of the small deer.

Just before we would’ve taken it down, Hunter veered off and headed for the sound of rushing water, Blade protested, but only for a second as the other wolf sent out a command for us to follow. By the time we got there, Xander had shifted back and stood, proudly naked, by the water’s edge.

| followed suit. My muscles were limp and loose from the exercise, and | regretted not being in my wolf form only for a few seconds before Xander slung an arm over my shoulders and pulled me against his hip.

There were things wolves couldn't do, and a hug would always be one of them.

| buried my face against the side of Xander’s sweaty neck and breathed him in. | might not be able to differentiate as many scents as Blade could, but I’d always know the smell of this man.

His hand rubbed the back of my head before he sank his fingers into my hair and tugged a couple of times to get me to look up at him. Xander’s eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed. He frowned.

“| f u cking love you. | want you to hear it, do you understand me?” he said roughly. “You f ucked up, but I just...I get it. And | want you to stop beating yourself up about it. We're going to find a way to make this all

okay.”

| punched his chest lightly, then let my hand rest flat over his heart, still beating fast with the efforts of our run. My fingertips curled, pressing for a second before | let my hand slide down his hip to anchor there. Xander slipped a heavy thigh between mine.

“My mother was going to do some research to figure out a way to get you out of the vow. You did make a vow, right? Not just like a little, casual promise with a wave of your fingers or whatever?” He looked a litt! hopeful at the end of that question.

With regret, | shook my head. “No. It wasn’t a blood vow or anything like that. | mean, she didn’t cu palm and mingle our essences in a goblet or anything f ucked up like that ”

“No,” he said, tone slightly mocking. “She just made you promise to ‘mingle your essences’ in her goble so you could make a baby with her.”

| snorted laughter, amazed that we could even find any humor in any of this. “Yeah. | made a vow.

“Ma says that means you're bound to do it, then. That Rhiannon would've set a binding on you somehow, whether you knew it or not. So you can’t just tell her you changed your mind.”

“| wouldn't do that. | gave my word,” | said harshly. “Which means we need to figure out another way toThis text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

stop her.”