Time to Give Up

Austin

Today is my 26th birthday and I will now start dating with the thought of finding a love match. I was not lucky enough to have a second chance mate so now I will try to find someone on my own and mark them as mine. It is not as strong as a mated bond but I will love them with all my heart.  I am the Beta of my pack and I need to show that the hand I have been given does not have to mean I can't lead our warriors well. I want a family and a love so much and I am ready for this. I did have a mate but that was a blight on my life.

I was about to turn 18 and take over as Beta. On our 18th birthdays Betas and Alphas are given a mate by the Moon Goddess. Other pack members have mates but they can come a little later as mates are within a few years of age of each other. Our mates are specifically picked by the Goddess for us based on our strengths and weaknesses and are usually within a certain physical proximity to each other, hence why most families do not move around much once they have kids until their children are mated.

I am considered attractive, I am told, at 6'2" with blond hair and blue eyes. I play sports and am naturally quite muscular so I had no worries about my future mate rejecting me. I have only ever been attracted to women so I was fairly confident that my mate was going to be a women but anything could happen so when I realized my mate was a man I was surprised but not upset.

The second my nose, because we track down our mates by their scent, lead me to my beautiful mate I was instantly pleased by him. He was a slender, shy, tanned boy from my high school who I had seen around a few times. He was a very low ranking member of our pack so I never saw him around for pack business but I did see him at my games and in some of my classes. I was quite happy with the Moon Goddess' choice for me from what little I knew of him.

I later found out that his family was very homophobic, which lead to the circumstances that has me now mateless. It turns out that Xavier knew that he was gay from a very young age but his parents had drilled it into to his head that it was wrong and that those that "mated" with the same gender were lying. They had him believe that they rejected their true mates or were never given mates (because the Moon Goddess knew they were abominations) and they just picked someone and marked them to pretend. Xavier truly believed that if he did get a mate that it would be a female and if he didn't get one he thought he could just find a female to mark and tell his parents it was his mate.

Not knowing any of this at the time I approached my mate with such hope. He acknowledged me and even smiled a bit. He asked if we could talk in private so we went into a classroom. I couldn't help myself and I leaned in and gave him a quick kiss. I had been saving myself for my mate so that was my first kiss and it was brief but unreal. The tingles I felt as our lips touched lingered as I pulled away. I didn't notice him tense at my touch. I was not prepared for what happened next at all.

With tears in his eyes Xavier looked up at me. "They were wrong.... I'm sorry but I have to do this. Austin Braverman, I reject you."

I don't think anyone had ever told Xavier what could happen to mates when there is a rejection. He was such a low level wolf the light left his eyes instantly and he dropped to the floor dead. I am a pure blood Beta dating back generations so I was able to survive the rejection but I was in a coma for 2 weeks. I am told a teacher found us in that room when they heard my cries of agony of the bond being severed and I was clutching to Xavier with tears on my face.

I have been clinging to the hope of a second chance mating and have been researching it intensely. They are very uncommon because they are usually between two wolves that have lost their mate either by death or rejection that are within close proximity to each other and would be a good match for each other. They still have to be within a few years of age as well. The reason I have given up at 26 is because there are very few recorded cases of mates being found, whether first or second, after the age of 25 so after this age most unmated wolves try to find love matches. It is time for me to move on from this and start to find my mate the old fashioned way I guess!

I still sometimes think of Xavier and my Alpha, my best friend, Elijah, let's my get out my feelings often. I am still physically attracted to females only, from what I can tell, so I plan to date woman. Through all my research on second chance mates I have also dug up a lot of information on same sex couplings and it is thought that they are often stronger bonds and lead to better cohesion in packs that are growing by adding outside members or entering warring times when it is a male coupling. When it is a female coupling it is said to be good for passive packs or packs with a lot of children. Same sex couplings are most common amongst Alphas and Betas of such packs. It is crazy to think that the people in charge are the ones most likely to be thrown into the spot light of an often sensitive topic.

Apparently these couplings have been recorded going back thousands of years. This has been going on for so long that our genetic make up actual accommodates same sex couples to allow us to copulate with someone other then our mate only for the purposes of pregnancy without hurting our bond. In typical mated relationships cheating can actually hurt, or even sever, the bond, sometimes resulting in death of one or both mated wolves. It is considered the worst betrayal. With medical advances now copulating outside of the relationship is not the preferred way to have pups anymore so that is not often the route taken but back before medical advances it did allow for the bloodlines to continue without any backlash from our wolves.

None of that will matter though since I will be courting, that sounds so ridiculous, females as that is what I have always been drawn to anyways. Next week I have my first date with someone Elijah's mate set me up with.  I also plan to go out with a lady from the pack that I find interesting.

All of this thinking is leaving me hungry so I am going to head out to the local cafe from the pack house to grab a burger. As I walk out of the pack house lost in thought I bump shoulders with a young man I kind of recognize.

Mate