Zena Wynn - Carol's Mate

Not only was she sheltered but pampered as well. She was by no means spoiled. He could tell she‟d come from a good home and that her family was well-off. Nothing like the hood he‟d grown up in. She lacked street smarts and that hard, wary edge that people who grew up in dangerous neighborhoods learned early in life.

The first time they‟d made love, though she‟d met him passion for passion, her inexperience showed. She was the closest thing to a virgin that he‟d ever been with, and while he was all for women‟s rights and women going after what and who they wanted, he was glad he didn‟t have to wonder how many men his woman had been with, and how he compared to her former lovers.

Carol was a lady, and he‟d cursed her out like a common street whore.

In his mind he could still picture the way she‟d slowly folded into herself. The flinches she‟d made as each word hit its target. Another woman would have cursed him back, the black in her rising to the forefront as her neck rolled, finger pointed, and she “handled business.” Not Carol; she‟d sat there and taken it. Once his initial fury had cooled and he could clearly think again, guilt hit him hard.

Along with the sure knowledge that he‟d screwed up—royally.

Even knowing that he was wrong and owed her an apology, he couldn‟t force himself to go to her. He was still upset. She‟d lied to him. Used him. She claimed to love him, but if she really did, wouldn‟t she have told him what was happening as soon as she discovered the truth? It was his life, his humanity she was fucking with.

And for that reason, his anger still burned.

It didn‟t help that now that she‟d brought it to his attention, he was noticing things. Changes in himself he‟d previously dismissed as being his imagination. His reflexes were quicker, senses sharper. And there was this thing growing inside of him. He could feel it, and it scared the crap out of him.

He didn‟t know how to deal with it or himself. He wasn‟t a man that was used to being out of control. He needed help but was too stubborn to ask. Help meant going to Carol, the one person who knew what he was becoming, and he wasn‟t ready to do that. Not yet.

Besides, he didn‟t trust himself around her. Every time he saw her, she was with some guy, or a group of them. The thing inside of him didn‟t like their close proximity to his woman. It didn‟t know, nor did it care to know who they were. It simply wanted them gone. The man in him was in total agreement. He hadn‟t decided if he still wanted her yet, but he damn sure knew he didn‟t want her with anyone else until he‟d made up his mind.

Finally he realized that this thing inside of him wasn‟t going away.

Swallowing his pride, he went to Carol to find out what he needed to know to deal with it, only to be thrown out. At least he knew who one of the guys with her was: Alex, her brother. That explained a lot. Unfortunately the incident at her house pissed him off all over again and messed up his head more than it already was.

It took one of his professors confronting him about his dropping grades to make him realize he‟d better get his head back in the game. He‟d come too close to achieving his goals to flunk out now.

The next few weeks he spent catching up on missing assignments and bringing up his grades. When he surfaced for air, Carol was gone.

He never thought she‟d leave. He assumed that when he was ready, they‟d work things out. After all, he was the one who‟d been wronged. Why the hell had she left? The semester wasn‟t finished. In another two weeks, they‟d be taking final exams.

If that‟s the way she wanted to be, then screw her. He didn‟t need this shit.

There were plenty of women out there. He‟d eventually find one that didn‟t make his skin crawl.

Mark made it through final exams. Not the best work he‟d ever done, but he passed. At this point, that was all that really mattered. Deciding to take the summer off to get his head together, he focused on work. His internship began in the fall, and he needed to rebuild his savings since he‟d be working without pay.

To make sure he didn‟t have time to think, he worked two full-time jobs. When not working, he exercised. He ate enough to keep moving but didn‟t find any pleasure in it. Sleep only came when exhaustion overtook him.

He‟d been doing that for about month when a knock came at the apartment door. It was one of his rare days off, so he was home. Mark finished tying his shoelace on his athletic shoe, grabbed his gym bag, and headed for the door, not in the mood to entertain.

Snatching open the door, he came to an abrupt stop. “What are you doing here?

I got the message from your son. Your precious daughter is off-limits. I get that.” Thomas Wolfe raised one eyebrow and examined him. Something about his manner made Mark swallow and look away. Maybe it was his focused gaze with those weird eyes. This man wasn‟t someone to toy with.

“My daughter is grieving for you, pup. If you love her and want her back, I can teach you what you need to know to claim her. If you‟re not interested…” He made to turn away.

“Wait!” The word leaped out of his mouth.

Tom paused. “Yes?”

“I love her,” Mark choked out the words. Like a dam bursting, it came pouring out of him. “I can‟t sleep. I can‟t eat. I feel like I‟m losing my mind. On top of that, there‟s this…this thing inside of me. It‟s making me crazy.” The look Tom gave him was full of sympathy and approval. “That‟s all I needed to hear.”

The next eight weeks put his time in the military to shame. He thought he‟d worked hard for Uncle Sam. The government had nothing on the training Thomas Wolfe put him through.

The first order of business was to declare his allegiance to the Raven pack and Tom Wolfe as alpha. Next, he quit his jobs, packed his belongings, and moved in the dark of night to a small hunting cabin deep in the mountains of what he was told was Raven pack territory.

His new alpha taught him everything he needed to know about being a wolf-shifter. His lessons included how to hunt, track, and fight in wolf form. For the first three weeks, the only food he was allowed was what he managed to catch. Any aversion he might have had to eating raw meat was quickly lost when the hunger of his beast kicked in.

Next Tom taught him how to tap into the power of the wolf while in human form, using its advanced senses to his greatest advantage. Once Mark learn how to control the shift and change in an instant, the alpha taught him how not to lose himself in his beast while in shifted form. He taught him how to control his emotions, and therefore control his wolf rather than let it control him. Most importantly, he taught Mark how to think like a man while in the body of his wolf.

And that was just the beginning.

He called in the pack‟s historian, a little Chinese man named Hiram. From Hiram, Mark learned the history of the Raven pack specifically and wolf-shifters in general. He learned who the Ravens had alliances with, those they maintained an uneasy peace with, and those he needed to avoid at all costs. He learned which packs and species ruled what territories, and what size and type of packs or groups they were. The complexities of interpack/intraspecies relations made NATO seem juvenile by comparison.

From Ms. Lulu, a large, elderly African American woman who reminded him of his paternal grandmother, the first thing he learned was that with shifters, neither race, color, nor ethnicity mattered. Shifters didn‟t see in terms of color but species and strength. A person was either human, shifter, or vampire. Among shifters, there were wolves, cats, foxes, coyotes, hyenas, bears, and so much more. Vampires were the strongest of all the supernaturals and generally distrusted.