Prologue

XAVIER

The forest shouldn't have felt alive.

Not like that.

Not at midnight.

But it did.

The leaves didn't just rustle — they whispered. Branches creaked overhead like ribs stretching around a restless heart. The wind slid between the trees carrying more than cold; it carried warning. Every shadow bent wrong. Every snap beneath my worn sneakers sounded too loud, too close. I'd been running long enough that my lungs burned raw. Still, I didn't slow. I couldn't. Something in me urged me forward and I couldn't shake it off... or I didn't try.

Then I smelled him.

Not fear. Not blood. Not the metallic bite of danger.

Something hotter.

Something feral.

Aaron.

His name didn't enter my mind gently — it branded itself there. My pulse stumbled. My skin tightened as if it recognized him before I did. Instinct surged hard and violent: run. Hide. Bury yourself deep enough that even he couldn't find you.

But my body wouldn't obey.

He stepped from the dark like he belonged to it. Just a few feet stood between us, yet the space felt charged, compressed — as if the air itself bowed to him. Power radiated off him, controlled and deliberate, the kind that didn't need to shout.

Too close.

Too much.

Too powerful.

Too Alpha.

And still... I didn't move. The light scents of pine and bourbon infiltrated my nose, sending my Adam's apple into a nervous frenzy.

Something inside me — something I had thought had gone silent forever — stirred. Slow. Uncertain. Awake.

"You're here."

His voice was low, steady. Not surprised. Not relieved. Certain.

"I... I don't..." My words collapsed before they were finished. Breath felt borrowed. My limbs felt heavy, caught between fight and surrender.

His gray eyes held mine — storm-colored, sharp, unreadable. There was heat beneath them, banked and waiting. He stepped closer, slow enough that I could have retreated.

I didn't.

His hands lifted, hovering near my shoulders. Not touching. Not yet. The restraint was deliberate. Measured.

"You don't have to understand," he said quietly. "Not yet."

The command wasn't in the words. It was in the control.

"Just don't run from me."

I should have.

Every nerve in my body was coiled tight. Every scar in my memory whispered that closeness was dangerous. But beneath the fear was something else — a pull I couldn't name, heavy and magnetic. It dragged at something primal in my chest, something that responded to him whether I wanted it to or not.

The wind shifted again.

Moss.

Wet bark.

Cold earth.

And him.

Sharp. Earthy. Warm.

He didn't dominate the space. He consumed it. His fingers moved closer, grazing the air just above my skin. My muscles tensed automatically, but he paused — adjusted — as if remembering that I wasn't something to conquer.

"I've never..." His jaw tightened. "I don't know how to do this without hurting you."

There it was — the crack in the armor.

"But I will learn."

Not a promise tossed into the dark.

A vow.

My heart pounded so hard it felt bruised. My breath came shallow. And deep inside me, the wolf I had buried — the part I had refused to acknowledge — lifted its head.

He was danger.

He was fire wrapped in restraint.

He was control held on a razor's edge.

And somehow... impossibly... he was careful with me.

The forest closed in around us, thick and waiting — the night hummed with things unseen. And standing there, caught between fear and hunger, I understood something that terrified me more than him.

This wasn't just attraction.

It wasn't just instinct.

It was inevitability.

The storm wasn't coming.

It was already there.

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Hello lovely readers,

If you're here, that means you not only love supernatural things like I do but you love the act of love too. I'm sure smokin hot alphas make a good selling point for most stories. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for deciding to read my first book, Awakening the Feral! Whatever made you decide to pick it up, I hope the writing has now since convinced you to stay a while.

A little background before we really kick things off, this book is made from the story of Aaron and Xavier, Aaron being an OC I made for a roleplay back in like 2016 when I was around 13-14. Xavier being one of my closest, longest and best online friend Alex's OC from that same roleplay. It used to be a whole little group of us roleplaying Nightshade Pack on I*******m! Our group account might even still be up somewhere where we used to post our OCs and the application for new members to the roleplay lols!!

Fast forward a couple years, all this time, Alex and I have stayed friends, started and ended various roleplays and attempted multiple different creative concepts to ensure that Xavier and Aaron's story never truly dies. Our boys have existed and survived in our minds this long. It was time I stopped dallying and gave Aaron the attention he so deserves. We both strongly felt their story deserved more than where we left it off at in middle school so here I am today writing you a 5 book planned saga on my bestest boy and his bestest fated mate just with some.... major adult tweaks.

More books to come and each will only get better, I swear it! If this book goes well, for book 2 with Alex's permission I'll release the old old middle school fan art he drew of our boys (it's freaking adorable and actually very impressive for a middle schooler to have drawn).

Happy reading,

Mari ᥫ᭡.