Claws Off My Mate

~SERIS

​"Seris, move! We'll be crushed!"

​I tried to howl, but only a weak, pathetic wheeze came out. I was too small to be seen in the tall grass and too broken to move. I was going to be trampled.

​The first wave hit. A massive gray wolf leapt directly over my head, his paw clipping my ear and spinning me into the dirt. I curled inward, my fragile heart in my throat as I waited for the inevitable. The ground continued to shake, the air thick with sweat and the feral tang of death.

​Then a shadow fell over me. It was so large it felt as if a cloud had eclipsed the moon. A low, guttural snarl ripped through the air, sinking into my bones. An impossibly powerful presence came to a violent halt right over my body. He stood over me like a fortress, his massive legs forming a cage of safety as the rest of the pack raced around him like a river hitting a boulder.

​I could only focus on one thing—his amber eyes, burning like the pyre that had just died.

​His scent washed over me, my back arching as my senses snapped to life. The world fell away until he was the only presence that mattered. Violent, beautiful electricity crackled through the air between us. Every nerve ending I had screamed in recognition. My weak, sputtering heart gave a sudden, forceful thump of pure strength. Some of the pain receded.

​"Mine," Xena's voice was no longer faint. "MINE!"

​I reached out, rolling toward his heat, my fur brushing against his tree-trunk legs. He didn't recoil from me—the runt. He stood there, a titan amongst wolves, shielding me. Time stretched on, peaceful and safe. Despite my exhaustion, I didn't slip into the dark again. I watched him, and he watched me, the heat between us buzzing like a live wire.

​I don't know how much time passed, but when I finally snapped out of it, the thundering paws had faded. Slowly, soft whining filled the air—the yipping of wolves doubling back in pairs. Mates had been found.

​The giant didn't make a sound. He lowered his head, his snout bigger than my entire torso. The gentle pressure of his teeth nipped into my scruff, lifting my frame from the dirt with surprising tenderness.

​He turned back toward the Lunar Verge, carrying me toward the pyre that had been lit again. My journey up the slope should have been nerve-wracking, but with Xena's excited whining echoing in my head, I had no room for fear.

​"I got a big one," she yipped. "He saved us."

​Her joy crept into me, lightening my weary soul. I let her optimism leech into me, letting hope sweep in. Maybe I could be happy.

​Or maybe we would be rejected. No wolf of this size and prowess would accept a bond with a runt.

​I'd been so inside my own head that I didn't realize we had stopped. I raised my head, finally noticing the utter silence.

​All eyes were on us. The whole pack stared, mouths agape and eyes wide. Then I was placed down, coming face-to-face with the Alpha.

​His hazel eyes bore into me, the loathing within them piercing my skin. "Shift," he ordered.

​The command pushed against my very being, spearing through me and unraveling my wolf form in an agonizing instant. My human form was left bare and trembling before his gaze.

​"You," he growled.

​I flinched.

​Then he raised his head to the wolf who'd brought me. "Son, what is the meaning of this?"

​The wolf morphed back, returning to human form. Amber orbs turned hazel; a crown of dark, tousled hair and tan skin pulled taut over an athletic body. His eyes didn't meet mine as he replied.

​"Seris Sullivan is my mate."

​The silence following Sylus’s declaration pressed against me like an anvil.

​“No,” Alpha Zander hissed, the word vibrating with a low growl that made the ground shake. “The Moon Goddess would not be so cruel as to mate my son to a defect. A fucking curse in skin. Reject her, now.”

​The demand hit like a physical blow.

​The Beta stepped forward—my uncle Osric. His brows were furrowed with concern, a wool cloak in his hand. “Are you okay?”

​“I am fine, Uncle,” I lied. I couldn’t tell him it was his own daughter who had almost killed me.

​He reached out to drape the cloak over me, but it was snatched away. A gasp rippled through the pack as Sylus didn't just take the cloak; he wrapped me in it himself. Heat bloomed where he touched me, the mate bond singing beneath my skin. I wanted to lean into him, to let his warmth chase away the cold, but I forced myself to stay still.

​"She is staying," he said, his voice a stoic beat.

​“Don’t touch her!” Rielle shrieked from the crowd. She stepped forward, her face contorted with shock and jealousy. “She is a fucking witch! She killed—” She bit her tongue, catching my uncle’s warning glare.

​“Beta Osric, my son’s fiancée did not lie,” Alpha Zander growled. “She is a murderer.”

​“She was a child—” my uncle protested.

​“She was fifteen! Old enough to know that entering the Blood Grove was a death sentence!” The Alpha bellowed in his Beta’s face.

​I fought back a wave of guilt, biting my lip until it bled.

​“And yet she did it, and got her parents killed trying to save her.”

​Tears welled in my eyes. He was right. Even if I didn't know how I'd ended up in that part of the woods, my parents had died saving me from the attackers lurking there. Some of the pack members wiped their own tears; my father had been a beloved Beta, and my mother, the head healer.

​The Alpha turned from my uncle to me, pointing a finger, his tone acidic. “You are the reason I lost my best friend and this pack’s greatest healer. You are a curse unto this pack—no different from a witch.”

​I dropped my head, my face heating with humiliation.

​“No one deserves the punishment of being your mate,” he snarled. “And still you disobeyed my orders to find a way onto sacred ground.” He closed the distance in threatening strides, his claws retracting and gleaming in the moonlight. “I will gut you like a pig—”

​A large shadow fell over me as Sylus moved to shield me. My heart lunged into my throat.

​“Keep the claws from my mate, Alpha,” he drawled.