PROLOGUE
Twenty-five Years Ago
Aaron watched the little girl running screaming from the swan, and thought she was the stupidest creature on the planet. Alex of course rushed to her rescue. He was so sick of her stealing his brother from him. He spent more time with her than him these days.
"Stop running stupid. It just wants your sandwich."
"It's attacking me! Help me! Help me!"
"You're acting like a stupid little brat, aren't you a wolf?"
"Do I look like a wolf? I'm a little girl you moron."
Aaron shook his head confused and then seeing Alex had now fed the swan his sandwich and rescued her, walked over to his parents and his aunts. "She is a wolf isn't she?"
"Yes son, it just seems neither her nor her mother have really accepted that yet."
"So stupid." Aaron rolled his eyes and muttered to himself as he walked to his room, "What's to accept? You're wolf or you're not."
Twenty-one Years Ago
"I hate you Aaron, you're so mean." Katie tried to get the glue out of her hair braid. "What did I ever do to you?"
"Like you don't know." He hadn't been able to resist dipping the long braid into the pot of glue during their art class, and then as she glared at him her nose all wrinkled up like that, he decided it wasn't enough and upended the pot over her head. Before laughing and dumping a container of glitter over her too.
"AARON!" Oh shit now the teacher was coming and Katie was crying and turning as red as her hair.
"What?"
"Go sit in the naughty corner and think about what you've done." She took Katie in her arms, "Come on sweetie we'll go and wash this out."
"Don't bother he pulls my hair every day, puts paint in it, now he's poured glue all through it." Katie looked right at him as she dried her eyes and walked away from the teacher picked up a large pair of scissors and chopped through both her long braids, right where they met her head, before the teacher could stop her. "Here play with my hair as much as you want you moron." She yelled as she threw them at him and then stomped out of class. The teacher still in shock.
"I'm calling your father Aaron. Don't you dare move from that chair, do you hear me?" The teacher, picked up both long red braids and waved her finger at him before leaving.
"Why do you have to keep picking on her Aaron? She's my friend. She wanted to be your friend too and you ruined it." Alex was not impressed. Well neither was Aaron. Now Alex sat with Katie and he had to sit with that smelly boy Matt.
"She stole you. You were my best friend and now you're hers."
"You're my twin brother, you'll always be my best friend. She's right you are a moron."
"Whatever."
Fifteen Years Ago
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing, leave me alone." She never looked up.
"You ever going to forget that you hate me?"
"I don't hate you Aaron. I just don't like you." She looked up now, confusion in her eyes and he smelled it again. She was afraid of what he was going to do to her this time. He hadn't done anything for three years, and she still tensed up whenever he tried to talk to her.
"I know. I'm sorry. I've been saying sorry for two years now, can't you just forgive me?"
"I told you I forgave you two years ago." She went back to writing in her book.
"Yeah, but you lied." He hated that she wouldn't forgive him. He'd been a moron. She was right. Alex was right. But he had been jealous and just a kid.
"Whatever."
Aaron looked at her sitting there in her pretty pale pink shirt and blue jeans and wondered why she couldn't just let it go. He looked at the way the shirt pulled across her chest and swallowed as he noticed he was staring. Shit. "Yeah whatever Katie, but I swear I won't do anything to hurt you again and I mean it, I'm really sorry."
"Just leave me alone Aaron. Please."
Twelve Years Ago
"I don't want to go to the dance with her. You're forcing me to go with her just to make her feel better and make her think she fits in and she's..."
"Fat and ugly and doesn't fit in." Lexi walked around the corner in a dress that was too big and covered every bit of skin from her throat to her ankles, and the ugliest colour he'd ever seen, and he could see her fighting back the tears. Shit. "Don't worry Aaron. I never wanted to go to the damn dance anyway. Katie insisted I had to go. Then she decided since everyone else had a date I had to have one too. You're off the hook." Lexi ran from the room and Aaron took one look at his brother and knew he wouldn't get a chance to explain because right behind his brother came a really pissed off red head.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?"
"I didn't do anything. I was trying to explain to Alex that I didn't want to go to the damn dance and she..."
"You hurt her you moron. You hurt her so bad."
"I know I saw, I felt it through the link, just like you, but I didn't say any of the things she thinks I was saying."
"Alex I don't know how you and he can possibly be twins." Katie glared at him again and then pulled her phone from her pocket. Texting furiously.
"She's gone to the lake. You don't need to text her to know that. She always goes to the lake. You go get changed and head home, I'll come get you in the morning for school. Aaron and I will go sort things with Lexi. The dance is a week away we will sort this and the four of us will go together." Alex ignored Aaron's growl.
"Don't let him anywhere near her."
"He can't dance, he has been trying to get out of this all week, then we all came here to get clothes for the dance and he saw how much she hated being here and knew she was miserable, and he just wanted to run from the whole situation. You know he would never hurt Lexi."
"Whatever." Katie clearly didn't believe any such thing. Aaron knew Katie thought he went out of his way to hurt everyone around him.
"Yeah whatever." Aaron looked at her in the dress she was about to purchase. It was perfect on her. The hem just below her knees was lower at the back than at the front. The curved edge of the emerald green bodice showed the shape of her breasts and the pale skin of her throat and arms. Her red hair was growing long again and she wore it in a messy pile on top of her head. "I'll pay for her dress." He walked away. Calling back to Alex, "Get her stuff from the changing room and I'll ask for the sales woman to give us a bag to put it in."
Eight Years Ago
"This is nice." Katie sat on the swing and rocked gently backwards and forwards holding the bottle of beer loosely in her hand.
"Yeah it is." Aaron looked her over and saw she had on the bracelet that he and Alex had got her for her birthday. "Twenty-one Katie. How does it feel?"
"Not much different to twenty. Especially as my actual birthday isn't for another week. I didn't mean my birthday. I meant that we are friends. Three years ago you and I made our peace, and it has been good having you as one of my best friends Aaron."
"Yeah whatever." He grinned as she started to laugh. He stood and began to push her on the swing. He watched her raise her legs to increase the movement. The floral dress lifting up on her thighs and her slim legs stretching out, her toes pointing up to the moon, and then on the backwards movement hooking up under her bottom. As she moved away again this time his eyes travelled upwards and he noticed as her toes hit the high point her head tipped right back and her twinkling eyes were looking at him, her smile wide and, fuck, he could see down the top of her dress. He thanked whoever it was that insisted that it was fashionable this year to wear loose shorts and long t-shirts as he went instantly hard.
"Best birthday party ever." Lexi, Rose and Alex all came up to them, and Aaron took the beer his brother passed him. "Right Kate?"
"Yeah, apart from the fact I leave tomorrow."
Aaron had forgotten that. Fuck. He downed the beer quickly and said, "Yeah well I'm glad we all got to have this party, but I'm out of here. Enjoy the city Kate." He leaned in and gave her a hug. "Kick ass."
"I always do. You going to miss me Aaron?"
"Doubt it, far too busy."
"Yeah whatever." She teased back. "I'll be back one day soon with my mate and you're going to be a broken man from missing me so much."
"Mate? Fuck are you joking? You're only twenty-one."
"Do you know Kate at all? She's been talking about when she finds her mate for about ten years already." Lexi laughed.
"Well good fucking luck with that. You should focus on school." He growled threw his now empty beer bottle at a nearby bin with a loud crash, and stalked off.
"You coming to see me off?"
"No. I've spent enough time saying goodbye to people lately. Come see me when you come back."
"Yeah I knew it, you're already missing me."
"Whatever." He threw a one finger salute her way as she laughed but nobody saw the tears in his eyes. He couldn't believe that while he was fucking hoping one day she might see him as more than a friend, she was already looking for a mate.
CHAPTER ONE
He couldn't fucking believe it. She had come into the restaurant bar. She had walked up to him and kissed him like she wanted to absorb his very soul. Then she had buried her nose in his neck and growled "How can my mate be the biggest manwhore in the whole damn country? I can smell at least three bitches on you."
Then before he could even process the fact he was awake and in a crowded bar, and this wasn't some fucked up variation of all the fantasises he'd had over the past thirteen years she'd dropped to the ground in front of him. She had run her hand over his groin and as she pierced one of his testicles with a sharp claw she spoke again, "When you meet your mate, you shouldn't stink like another bitch's dirty cunt." She then stood up again and looked him in the eye. "Hi Aaron."
"What the fuck are you doing? Are you high or something? I'm not your mate." He realised she was even more gorgeous than the last time he saw her at the same time he saw her eyes flash with the pain, and her skin go ghostly pale, and then before he could react he heard her yell "Whatever." As she ran from the room. She was fast.
'Shit. What just happened?" Alex looked at Aaron. "Mate? She's your mate?"
"No fucking way. I'd know." Aaron looked around him as he saw others as shocked, okay maybe not as shocked, as he was, "Shit she's gone loco."
"Let's go find her before she gets hurt." Alex started to head for the door. Aaron was still standing there stunned and trying to shake the image of her on her knees in front of him. "Aaron hurry up man."
They ran down the steps and seeing a flash of red heading into the woods gave chase. "Kate wait." Alex called out.
"No way." She screamed back. "I'm out of here."
"Katie. Stop. Shit Kate, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt..."
"You never mean to hurt me Aaron but you just keep doing it. I feel so special. But after all these years at least I'm getting used to it. My mate just doesn't want me. Too happy fucking everything that moves."
"I am NOT your mate."
"Lucky for me then. Maybe your bi, been rubbing yourself all over any hot men lately? Because you reek of my mate and it is definitely all male."
