Lost Lycan's Mate

I woke with a start.

I sat up straight, my heart beating rapidly in my chest. I ran a hand down my face, and my fingers came away slick with sweat.

Another nightmare. The third one this week.

I never saw his face, never had any clue who my torturer was, or if he was even real. All I knew was that he wouldn’t leave me alone.

Coda told me that dreams were sometimes premonitions. He thought the nightmares were symbolic of my wolf coming—that I was fighting against my own instincts, trying to keep them under the surface.

But that didn’t make sense, because there was nothing I wanted more than to finally be able to shift. I was already so far behind the other pups, who’d started shifting skins at puberty.

Now it was my nineteenth birthday, and I still had nothing.

I tossed my blanket aside and changed into my training gear, then padded down the stairs to the kitchen.

“I thought I heard you up,” my father said from the archway between the living room and kitchen.

“Nightmare,” I said, and he nodded. He didn’t know what they were about, but he could probably guess.

It was embarrassing to be a late bloomer. Even more so when your father was the alpha.

He eyed my clothes. “Not even taking your birthday off from training?”

“Why would I? Today might be the day I finally shift.”

My father’s eyes narrowed. “Cleo, if you don’t have a wolf—”

“Then I’ll have to be strong enough to take down a wolf as a human,” I interrupted. “I’ll have to be the best fighter of this entire pack, because anything less will never get me any respect.”

“Cleo,” the alpha started. His voice was low, warning. “You need to accept that you may never get your wolf genes.”

“Fine, I accept it,” I lied. “But that won’t stop me from training. If I’m not a wolf, then I’ll be the first human to lead the pack. I still have alpha blood in my veins.”

“Coda’s waiting for me,” I said, pushing past my dad before he could say anything else.

I refused to believe I didn’t have a wolf. I was the alpha’s daughter.

I stepped outside to find Coda leaning casually against the fence, arms crossed and scowling into the chilly morning air.

My father’s beta was cruel and cold. He’d had three apprentices before me, but none of them had completed their training because he’d considered them too weak to become warriors.

His methods were relentless. He did not go easy on the young wolves.

When I’d first started training, I’d hated him. He’d made me regret every minute of every day, but I never gave up, never stopped. I think he respected me a little bit for that.

He was the only one in the pack who did.

“Morning, pup,” he said as I reached him.

I rolled my eyes at the name. “I’m nineteen, hardly a pup anymore.”

Coda grinned, showing off his razor-sharp teeth. “You’ll always be a pup to me. And don’t roll your eyes at me, it’s disrespectful.”

I rolled my eyes again and he gave me a shove.

“Go on then, warm up.”

I broke into a run, racing toward the clearing in the woods near the lake where we did our exercises. I’d gotten good enough now that Coda’s training was more like trickery.

He would correct my form and give me tips to improve, but he’d also add one thing in his instructions that was incorrect.

Sometimes I needed to use an uppercut instead of a left hook, or I needed to lead with my left foot rather than my right. I had to figure out what it was by myself, which often took several rounds that ended in me kissing the ground before I did.

As I dodged Coda’s jabs, a flash of my recurring nightmare flickered through my mind, and the question came out before I gave it permission. “Did you ever find a mate?”

He paused our sparring, raising an eyebrow at me. “Didn’t your father tell you that it’s rude to be nosy?”

I used his hesitation as a chance to swipe at him. He batted my hand away. “My father doesn’t have much time to talk with me these days, so no.”

He sighed. “Yes, I met her. She was already mated, but I didn’t want her anyway. She was too delicate.”

I nodded. It wasn’t uncommon for two or three males to all find the same mate. They usually fought it out, and whoever won mated the female. It sounded rough, but it was just our wolf nature.

“I don’t mind either way. Having pups isn’t something I’ve ever really wanted. I have years to decide, though, so I’m not in any rush.”

Although he looked like he was in his late twenties, Coda was nearly eighty. Werewolves usually lived for three hundred years if they weren’t killed in battle.

“What if a female wanted to mate you, but you didn’t want her?”

Coda paused mid-swing and dropped his arms, narrowing his eyes at me. “Do you think your mate will reject you? Are you worried that’s what’s going to happen?”

Coda grunted. “Look, Cleo, you know your father would tear apart anyone who would dare hurt you. Don’t worry about the dream, okay? And stop stressing out over the possibility that someone else might reject you. You can’t become something you’re not. You can only be—”

“A better version of who I am,” I finished for him. It was the same mantra he’d been repeating since we started training together. “I know.”

“So be better, pup,” he said, readying his fighting stance again.

I blinked away the tears that burned behind my eyes. Coda was right. Whatever the nightmare meant, I couldn’t let it beat me. I had to beat it instead.

“Okay,” I said, and lunged for him.

We sparred for another hour, me attacking Coda over and over, him twisting out of my grip every time I got him in a hold. I couldn’t keep him in a vulnerable position for more than a second.

After another handful of attempts, I finally was able to slam my fist against Coda’s chest, but he didn’t flinch. He stepped back and glared down at me. “What did I tell you?”

I sighed. “The quickest way to the heart is through the fourth and fifth ribs.”

“So why did you hit me between the third and fourth?”

“I couldn’t get a clear shot,” I protested.

“Then get a clear shot, Cleo. Make me expose myself.”

“I still hit you. You would have been wounded, and then I would have taken you down.”

“Maybe.” His eyes flashed and he took a menacing step toward me, making me take several backward in return. “Or maybe your knife would have gotten stuck in my ribs.”

He advanced another step.

“And since the blade didn’t pierce my heart, I would have still been very much alive and able to pull the knife out to use against you.”

Before I could blink, he drove the underside of his fist into my chest, right where I should have struck him.

He dropped his hand and stepped away. “Don’t take unnecessary risks, Cleo. Risks get you killed.”

All my lessons ended this way. Unless I did something perfectly, it wasn’t good enough.

No matter how much I improved, I could never best Coda.

“That’s enough for the day,” he said. “Go help the other apprentices split wood.”

I took my time on my way to the timber pit. I didn’t look at anyone as I approached, just picked up an axe and started chopping. Tomorrow we would need to stack it all in preparation for winter, which was coming fast. The first snow would happen any minute.

The young wolves shot me scathing looks.

“Ooh, look who it is. The little warrior wannabe,” a wolf named Sylva mocked.

She had always hated me the most, despite the fact that we’d barely spoken.

I dropped my axe and turned to her. “You want to find out how much of a warrior I am?”

“What makes you think you can speak to us?” Sylva barked. “Coda might be your trainer, but you’re nothing but a human. Even an omega would be above you.”

“An omega like you?” I snapped back.

Sylva pulled back and smacked me across the cheek.

Her claws hadn’t been out, so she hadn’t drawn blood, but I knew that red welts now adorned my face.

I smirked back at her, unfazed. “If you want to do that, Sylva, do it right.”

I was just winding up to let my own fist fly when a shout came from the forest nearby.

“Rogue!”

Then it was chaos.