CHAPTER 3: A Scent from the Past

Morgan’s POV

The moment I laid eyes on her I felt a pull towards her like I've never felt for another. 

I could feel every hair on my body standing on end and I could feel Ragnar, my wolf purring.

“Mate” he purred and whimpered excitedly.

“Mate”? 

He jumped around excitedly “Yes mate!”? He replied

I chuckled in disbelief. I could not believe it because I had been mateless for years. 

I was twenty eight years old but I had not been mated to anyone yet. It was one of the bones of contention in my life. 

I had everything, every power I needed under my feet, I was the youngest but strongest alpha with the strongest pack in the city but the only weakness I had was my inability to find my mate. 

It was the reason my gamma, Xavier, now a rogue wolf, had undermined my authority. 

It was the reason some of the alphas in neighboring territories disrespected me and encroached on my territory because they felt I was an anomaly. 

It was one of the reasons I had so many enemies. The moon goddess hath deprived me of that luxury. 

At some point, I had given up hope that I would ever find her. Now my wolf was jumping around excitedly talking about my mate. 

At first, when I laid eyes on her, I had felt a pool of desire in my groin and I had stiffened from the way my body had reacted to her scent. 

I had felt like a wild beast, starved of what it deeply craved. It was maddening. 

In a normal setting, I wouldn't even give her a second glance because she wasn’t the type of she-wolf  I usually notice. 

She was small, and soft in a way that one could tell she never gave a damn about her appearance. 

Her clothes were also rather unremarkable, a bit loose as if she was trying to hide herself from the world. 

There was nothing beautiful about her at first sight…no perfect body, no seductive outfit to catch a man’s attention. 

But there was something about her… She didn’t seem to have been touched in any way, and she didn’t have that cut and polished look of someone who has been shaped by society. 

Her eyes though, were something else. Hazel, but not the kind that is merely a combination of brown and green and fades off easily. 

No, they burned, with gold and green swirling in them and changing every time she felt something differently. 

They were open, honest, and utterly unaware of the chaos she had just ignited in me. Could she really be my mate? Or was my wolf making a mistake?

Why did she feel so familiar? Why couldn’t she recognize me as her mate?

Unless… She wasn’t a werewolf.

The thought was absurd. Impossible. 

No creature can bypass the Veil of Lupus, an ancient spiritual covering created by the first werewolves to protect their kind and keep our existence hidden. 

Those who have slight access to this world and can somehow bypass the veil are those who either have supernatural blood like witches, seers, faes, or those marked by a werewolf. 

Unless she was a spy. Maybe she was a spy from the Black Fang Pack, led by my rebellious ex-Gamma, Xavier Remus.

With those thoughts swirling in my mind, I knew I had made a mistake letting her slip away so easily.

No one, not human, wolf, or any other creature could crash a mating ceremony. Especially not one as important as the one that was held. 

It was the mating ceremony of my new Gamma, the third-ranking member of my pack, the Blackwood Pack. 

The guest list had been strictly controlled. How had she gotten in? And more importantly, why?

Through the mind link, I had ordered my enforcers to grab her and bring her to the pack house. 

Meanwhile, my trackers were already working to uncover everything they could about her. 

Trackers relied on scent, on the subtle traces people left behind but somehow, they couldn’t pick hers out among the crowd. 

Strange. 

Either she had lived among humans for too long, masking her natural scent, or she was something else entirely.

I watched from the shadows as my men followed her back to a rundown apartment on the outskirts of town and from every indication, she was trying to escape or she was having trouble paying for her rent because of an overdue rent notice on the door, and her very little properties were scattered on the floor. 

I had too many questions and not enough answers.

When they brought her in, she was unconscious. She looked exhausted as if she hadn’t slept in days. Frail. Vulnerable. 

I could have woken her up immediately. Demanded answers, but each time I even considered waking her, Ragnar would let out a distressed whimper, his agitation mirroring the strange pull I felt toward her. 

Instead, I had her placed in the visitor’s room.

Now, as I stood at the doorway, watching her sleep, she looked fragile even in sleep, her breathing shallow, dark circles shadowing her eyes. 

Ragnar was restless, torn between relief that she was here and frustration that she still hadn’t woken up."

“What is it Ragnar”? I asked my wolf in frustration.

“She is our mate,” he whispered.

“She is weak” I muttered

“She is unconscious,” he replied, sulking. 

As she slept, her scent became stronger and enveloped me in a warm embrace. 

Somehow, her scent was familiar, but it felt like a scent I had known thousands of years ago and I was not even thirty yet.

Ragnar inhaled deeply to investigate the scent of the female just as he did with anyone he met for the first time. 

She smelled like warm Vanilla, white rose, and bare skin mixed together. It was soft, sweet, and comforting and I couldn't blame my wolf for wanting to be near her. 

I felt the strong urge to wrap my arms around her tiny frame even though I didn't understand why. 

As Ragnar purred and became more restless, she stirred and murmured in her sleep before she jerked awake, gasping for breath.

I mind-linked my Beta, Harry Walker, instructing him to bring food and water before stepping into the room.

The moment she saw me, she gasped and I could see confusion, hatred, and disbelief in her eyes. 

She opened her mouth as if to speak before she closed it again and just resigned herself to shrinking into herself, clutching the duvet tightly as if it could protect her.