Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Fated What??
GABE
I was hunting him like he was prey.
Why the fuck was I hunting him?
It had all started earlier in the evening. I had just arrived home when I suddenly got an uncontrollable urge to shift. It was like an insanely frustrating itch right square in the center of your back, where you could never properly scratch it yourself.
I stepped out into the yard. Shifting was second nature at this point. Like taking a deep breath of air, filling my lungs with oxygen and holding it there for a moment before letting it whoosh out. Took about the same amount of time too.
I pulled at the threads of my other form, wrapping them around myself, falling down to my hands and knees.
A haze encompassed me, both inside and out.
If anyone stumbled on the scene, they’d see something like the shifting image of a mirage.
Something they couldn’t quite make out. That was by design, nature’s way to keep my identity a secret.
Moments later, I was in my wolf form. The world was brighter, the scents stronger, the sounds like individual symphonies in my highly tuned ears.
For first-time shifters, this sensory overload sometimes led to seizures and migraines, at least until they became accustomed to the vibrant tapestry of life that humans could never fully appreciate.
For shifters like me? It was heaven.
I loved being in tune with the world around me, in ways I couldn’t be when I was slumming it in my human form.
Some nights, I’d just run through the forest, soaking it all in, following a particular scent I found interesting.
Maybe that of a rutting deer or of a secret field of wildflowers or someone’s missing purse.
Tonight, though, there had been a single trail I became determined to follow.
It was a new scent in the air. I couldn’t tell what it was, only that it was calling to something deep inside me.
So I ran. Followed my nose. Leaves and twigs crunched under my paws.
I kept to the woods, weaving through the trees with a speed that rivaled that of when I was on the ice.
I hadn’t even realized the scent was drawing me closer and closer to the Bobcats Ice Arena until I spotted the bright lights of the parking lot.
The scent—vanilla and cherries and spices and… something else—grew stronger and stronger. My mouth began to water. It wasn’t that it smelled like food, though. This was nothing like the smell of a fat deer or a vulnerable rabbit. It also wasn’t like anything else I’d smelled before, either.
I slowed down once I neared the arena. The tree coverage became much more sparse around here.
I wanted to be careful. People in Burlington were generally used to a wolf sighting here or there, but the less we were noticed, the better.
I crouched in the bushes and peered out.
The scent grew stronger as a breeze rustled the leaves around me.
That’s when I saw him walking toward his car.
I recognized him instantly. Elijah Sager, the new trade on our team.
Loose, dark brown curls poked out of a black and baby blue Bobcats baseball cap, turned backward so I had full view of those bright hazel eyes.
I’d briefly checked out his social media pages and was happy to see he had talent on the ice, so I was prepared for just how exactly my type Elijah was.
Smiley, bright-eyed, wavy hair, athletic, and (from one picture of him at the beach in a tiny yellow Speedo) packing.
But my online stalking could never have prepared me for the way this man smelled.
This otherworldly scent that made the world pause, as if the most fragrant bouquet of sweet red roses had been placed in front of me.
Like I’d been dropped in the center of a bright purple lavender field.
Like I was swimming in the sea with the salt in the pure air filling my lungs. A mix of it all and more.
So, so much more.
It had to be him. The scent was growing more intense with every step he took toward me. It was intoxicating.
And—shit—it was going to get me in trouble.
I ran before he could spot me in the bushes.
I tried to put the scent behind me but found myself turning, following him again, all the way to downtown.
There, I had shifted back into my human form, and even though the scent was gone, the urge to “bump” into him was still powerful.
So I did. He didn’t suspect a damn thing.
But something else happened when I met him in my human form. It was undeniable now. I was deeply and intensely attracted to the guy.
He had flashed a crooked smile with that pretty little mouth that appeared capable of doing the dirtiest fucking things.
From that moment, I was hooked. A bass on the line being reeled up onto shore.
I felt the tug down in my core, tightening it, spreading flickers of heat outward.
It was as visceral a reaction as if we’d pulled our pants down and shaken each other’s dicks instead of hands.
And fuck, just shaking his hand made me rock fucking hard.
I knew I couldn’t stick around. Whatever was happening to me had to be sorted out before I trailed Eli into a bathroom and pushed him into a stall. It was an insatiable hunger that gnawed inside me with every lungful of air I took in, breathing in Eli’s sweet, otherworldly scent.
Jesus fuck, what cologne did this guy use? Whoever made it should be a billionaire with how good they got their formula.
I ditched him and practically bolted to my car.
A couple of people recognized me and waved.
I returned their polite greeting with a pleasant smile.
It was funny, the way humans—or shifters—wore expressions like masks.
No one could know just how insanely horny meeting Eli had made me if they were simply judging by the toothy grin and friendly wave.
And yet, on the inside, I wanted to whip my dick out and start stroking, picturing how it would feel if it were Eli’s fingers wrapped around me.
I made it to a quiet street with plenty of trees and bushes to run through.
It took me another moment to shift, and then I was off, running through the night.
My instincts shouted at me to turn around and chase the scent that had me enthralled, but I somehow fought it, pushing forward like a salmon against the current, determined to put as much distance as I could between me and the newbie.
I began to follow another scent, one that was much more familiar to me.
My paws kicked up dirt and gravel as I bolted out of a bush and up a long driveway.
There were a couple of cars parked out front.
I stopped between one for cover and shifted back into my human form.
I wiped my hands on the sides of my jeans and headed toward the front door.
I didn’t even knock, knowing it was already open.
The sound of my laughter drifted out of an open window.
“Hello?” I called inside as I entered, walking through the spotlessly clean foyer, through the slightly messier living room, and into the absolutely chaotic kitchen.
“Gabe! There he is.” A hard slap on the shoulder greeted me. I smiled and gave Emmy a side-hug. “We were just talking about you missing out on seeing the new guy, Eli, out on the ice.”
Hah. Perfect timing.
“Don’t worry, I already met him. Bumped into him downtown.”
I walked over to the kitchen island and grabbed myself a plate.
Emmy had barbecued for the pack tonight, which meant we were all going to bed very much fed.
Not all of us were here; some had other responsibilities, and others had family obligations.
Not everyone in the pack was blood-related.
Shifter packs happened more from a natural push toward community than a forced link through blood.
“Hey, did he smell weird to anyone else?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could while grabbing myself a buttered-up corn on the cob. Chris scoffed, and Soren shook his head, both of them on the team. I looked over to Dylan, who shrugged and continued chomping down on his burger.
“Weird as in how?” Emmy asked. He had an arm around his girlfriend and fellow pack member, Raquel Green.
She was one of the newest additions to the pack, having found us during a full moon shift.
She had no territory and no wolf pack of her own, so after a two-week trial period and a unanimous vote, she had become one of us.
It took about a month after that for her and Emmy to officially hook up.
Typically, dating within the pack was discouraged as it could bring some bad blood directly home, but since Emmy was an alpha, the rules could bend around him a little bit.
“Weird as in…” I couldn’t even put it into words. The memory alone was beginning to rile me up. “I don’t know. I picked up on his scent from over a mile away and had to chase him down. Maybe it’s from wherever he came from?”
“Ah, yes,” Dylan said. “Because everyone knows the sweet, sweet smell of Jacksonville, Florida, should be bottled up and sold.”
That got a laugh from the group and a glare from me.
“Or maybe it’s the scent of a fated mate?” Nicky said with a coy smile. She was the youngest member of the pack. At eighteen, she knew what memes were cool, what phrases not to use, and how to bug most of the older members. She also apparently believed in fanciful children’s tales.
Everyone knew fated pulls were either a silly myth (ironic coming from me, I know) or just extremely, insanely, and undeniably rare.
No one I knew personally could describe what happened when meeting a fated mate.
And no one was going to wait around their entire lives to randomly cross paths with the one person out of a billion something who was their perfect fit.
That’s why wolves still dated and married and fell in love without ever feeling that sensationalized pull toward another soul.
There were a couple of stories of a successful fated mate scenario, though.
Most of them described an entire ritual that needed to be performed under a full moon in order to “consummate” fate and solidify the connection.
It required consent from both parties, so even if a wolf stumbled upon someone fate deemed theirs, the other person needed to agree as well in order for it to become true.
If one of them denied the connection, then the bond couldn’t be formed and—according to the rumors—both would slowly wither away from unhappiness and gloom.
If they were both wolves, then they’d likely both feel the same exact tug of fate, and neither would hesitate to cement the bond.
But what if the pairing was wolf and human? What then? Was that even possible?
I decided to ask. “If it is… a fated connection, would he feel it as a human?”
Nicky nodded. “From the books I’ve read, yes. It’s happened a couple times. But the human doesn’t feel it as strongly as the shifter. But he’ll feel something.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
“Were you attracted to his scent?” Emmy asked, clearly intrigued by Nicky’s suggestion. “Or repulsed?”
“Attracted.”
Emmy crossed his hands against his chest. He wore a black jersey, our team’s logo on the blue and white striped sleeves. “And you were drawn to him?”
“Like a fish caught on a hook.”
“That’s sounding pretty fated to me,” Nicky said.
“It’s not,” I reassured the group. It can’t be.
There were a few different reasons why I’d lived my life as a single bachelor all these years.
The primary reason being that I didn’t mind being alone.
The other, and more weighty, reason was because the world assumed (wrongly) that I was straight, and being on a professional hockey team meant that I flew under the radar for the most part.
There were gay men out and proud on the ice, Eli being one of them, but I also saw the added scrutiny and attention they got. Some of it good, some of it bad.
All of it attention.
And attention was the last thing needed for someone who had an even bigger secret to hide than who he liked to sleep with.
So I buried that part of myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t satiate my needs; I just didn’t go looking for any deep and meaningful connections.
There were a few guys spread around the country who were regular hookups for me, all of them having signed a pretty heavy NDA, so it wasn’t like I’d been celibate while being stuffed in the closet.
But what happened when that deep and meaningful connection potentially landed on your front doorstep?
Soren chugged the rest of his beer and set it down on the table with a clink. “It will make working on the team difficult, no?”
“It can,” Emmy said, eyebrow arched. “But if it really is a fated pull, then who are we to stop you?”
“You are my teammates, my best friends. You have all the right to stop me,” I said.
Raquel shook her head. “No, you’re mistaken there, Gabe. We’re also your pack. And as a member of your pack, I want to see you happy, and I want to see that happen with your fated mate. Even if it’s the new guy in town.” She had an arm casually looped through Emmy’s.
Fated mates… could it be? What was the implication of that? And was it worth upending the quiet and calm life I had built up for myself?
A buzzing sense of anxiety flitted through my system. I licked my lips, bit at a hang nail on my thumb. I’d become so used to being alone. Actually enjoyed it—or so I thought. But I couldn’t help and notice the little spark of joy that seemed to have come alive in my chest the moment I scented Eli.
Did I chase that spark or snuff it out before it could catch?
I looked around the cozy dining room, filled with people I loved. The only people I could truly be myself around. The ones who could drop to their fours and take off running through the woods with me, howling at the moon and nipping at our tails. Raquel was right.
But she was also wrong. Very, very wrong.
I wasn’t going to break. I wasn’t going to fall for some silly old wolves’ tale.
It was simply a wave of lust. The guy was hot, and I wanted to fuck his brains out.
I probably just needed to nut and get rid of this damn brain fog.
That would solve things. That would keep me safe. Keep me hidden.
Protected.
“Whatever,” I said. “Let’s finish eating and then go for a night run. That sound good to anyone else?”
“You really have some energy to burn, don’t you?” Dylan asked.
“Next time, don’t miss practice,” Emmy said with a playful wink. “Who knows what other newbies show up for you to obsess over.”
“I’m not—okay, whatever, fuck you.”
Emmy laughed and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “What do you want, a burger or a hot dog?”
“I’ll take a double burger, please.”
“With a side of fate fries?” Dylan asked.
Damn it. That was a good one.
I rolled my eyes and stuffed down my laugh. “You’re such a moron.”