Roman Eliot

Two

Roman Eliot

            “Fuck!” Roman exclaimed as he watched the girl hurry off of the train. He should have gone after her. But he didn’t want to scare her and she already had more than enough reasons to hate him and his kind.

            From behind him, his best friends, Ares and Aion, laughed at him.

            “That went well,” Aion said dryly. The blond werewolf was always quiet and reserved normally, so for him to say something meant that he’d really fucked it up.

His two friends sat next to him, and redheaded Ares patted him on the shoulder. “Buck up, buddy. You’ll get her next time.”

“I’ve been searching for her for years. This is the closest that I’ve ever gotten. She keeps on running.” Roman ran hand through his long, brown hair. “I don’t understand what her problem is. Most girls find out they’ve got a werewolf for a mate and they think it’s a fairytale. This girl sees us and runs.”

“Her parents were killed by one of our kind.” Aion glanced over at him. “That could explain the aversion to us.”

Roman let out a frustrated growl that caused several onlookers to stare at him. He was used to being looked at. His family was rich, and powerful, and people knew who he was. “Shouldn’t she feel some kind of connection though? I feel it. I knew she was mine when I laid eyes on her that first time.”

“To be fair, this is the closest that you’ve ever gotten to her,” said Ares, with a knowing look.

It was true. He’d been following Nora since she was fifteen and her parents had been killed in that awful wolf attack from a rogue werewolf. That was when he had first seen her, in upstate New York. But she’d managed to get herself emancipated because her parents had left her a small fortune since her mother had been an author and her father was a teacher. She’d been able to comfortably live off of her parents’ savings, and since she had no other relatives, getting emancipated had been easy for her.

She’d bounced around for a few years and completed her GED instead of waiting to finish high school. Nora worked as a photographer, something that she’d been doing since she was a teenager. She made her own money and moved around a lot.

She’d settled on New York City recently though, and the subway was the closest he had ever gotten to her again. It was like she sensed something or someone was after her. But she didn’t know that he was supposed to find her. That they were supposed to be together. When he was growing up, the werewolves had come out of the literal woodwork after being exposed on social media. People treated them like celebrities.

It was how he got his nickname. The Werewolf Prince. He wasn’t actually a prince; he was in line to be the next Alpha of his family. And to the humans, Prince was the only way they could comprehend his power so the nickname stuck. It was fitting, really. It helped people recognize his family’s power.

Still, it hadn’t helped him get Nora to be his mate. And he needed her to be. His father had gotten Moon Sickness, a disease that kept werewolves from shifting. Once a werewolf had that, they were done for. He had limited time left. Granted, Remington Eliot had been around for centuries. It was of little surprise to anyone that the old man was finally succumbing to one of the things that could kill werewolves.

What was a surprise was that Roman, his heir, had had so much trouble finding his mate. He had tried to do it the easy way. To tell her in person, to explain the truth to her. But it seemed that he was going to have to do it the hard way.

“I guess were going to have to do things differently,” he said.

Ares grinned widely. “A summons?”

He nodded.

The other werewolf rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. “Oh, this should be fun.” A summons was an enchantment that tethered a mate to the other. One that made a tattoo appear on their skin, alerting them of the mating bond. It burned until the mate came to find theirs. And if Nora was going to run from him, and lie to him, he’d just make it so that she had to come find him instead.

“You shouldn’t be thrilled. A summons costs a shit tone of money, and then we have to get the witches involved.”

Ares grinned. “Oh, you know I like witches. They’ve got fire.”

Aion rolled his eyes. “Some of them quite literally. Don’t do anything stupid.”

He shrugged. “I won’t. You know me. I’m a man of honor. I wouldn’t dare fool around on my mate. Even if I haven’t found her yet.”

“Good. You might stay alive if you keep your common sense about you. Just don’t tell me that you’re going to use---”

“The Norths?” Roman said. “Of course, I’m going to. Glinda is particularly skilled with summons. The best in the business. I know the two of you have your history, but you’re just going to have to be adults about this.”

Aion scowled. “If it’s for the pack, I suppose I can manage it.”

He grinned. “Good boy,” and patted him on the shoulder, making his dear friend scowl even more.