Her Chosen Mate

Part 1

If there was a way to melt away into the words of a book and settle among the whimsical pages forever, Aria would do it in a heartbeat.

Sitting at the foot of a large oak, the gnarled roots twisting into the perfect seats, Aria paged through her latest literary obsession. The sun had begun its descent, casting an orangey glow over the brand new pages of her book. It had been a warm day, warmer than usual and that meant anyone looking for Aria would be bound to find her in the shade with her nose in a book.

April had left a little while earlier for her run, something Aria had very little interest in. She'd promised not to take too long and Aria had agreed to wait for her out in the clearing where most of the younger wolves of their pack gathered to train. It wasn't exactly unfamiliar territory given that all young wolves were required to train at least once in their lives, but it certainly made her feel uneasy. She could almost feel the burning glares from her peers who'd been training hard while she lazed about in the shade.

She picked up on faint, not so-distant mumbling, the wolves who were whispering stood just out of earshot despite her sensitive ears. She was still too young to have all her lupine senses fully developed, and she relied more on her human senses because she was more familiar with them.

It didn't help when she was trying to determine whether those mumbles were something she could safely ignore The mumbling continued, getting louder the closer they got, but she was hesitant to look up. She didn't want her fears to be confirmed if they really were talking about her, and she wasn't interested in sparking up a conversation with a passing wolf just because she'd accidentally made eye contact.

It was difficult to ignore, though, especially as more voices joined in, the accompanying footsteps multiplying and growing heavier as they inevitably approached. She willed her entire body to still, allowing that preternatural sense of quiet to take over her mind until she barely breathed. She tried to do what her father had taught her, breathe with the wind so that any prey would be completely unaware she was right behind them. But it was difficult when the bark dug into her back, reminding her that she was essentially caged.

There was a group headed straight towards her, just a few feet away, and she had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Swallowing a shaky breath, Aria tried to keep her eyes on the words of the book in front of her. Her fingers threatened to tremble where they clutched the book, the pages slightly creasing from her tight grip. She willed her heart to slow down, willed the tension coiling along her shoulders and spine to ease, but her instinct warned her that danger was too close.

"Well, well," one of them drawled, his muddy toes appearing in her line of sight. "If it isn't the princess of the pack."

Maybe if she pretended they weren't there, they would just give up and leave her alone.

Or maybe it would just piss them off.

"What? Are you too good to talk to us common mutts?" another mocked, earning a few hearty sniggers from his friends. "Come on, you've been reading all day, why don't you pay us some attention instead?"

She knew what sort of attention they wanted. And she refused to budge an inch.

"Oh, did we scare the little Delta's daughter?" the first one guffawed, leaning in far too close for Aria's liking. "Maybe if you were training like the rest of us, like a real Delta's daughter, you wouldn't be so scared of us."

The book she'd been staring right through disappeared from her hands, held high over her head while the first wolf laughed cruelly. 

She glanced up, not wanting to cause a scene and wishing April would hurry up and come back so that she could help Aria out of a stupid situation.

The wolf holding her book above her wasn't very tall, but he was bulky enough that Aria knew challenging him would be a mistake. His three friends were all more or less the same, each of them built like brick houses, thick-necked and wearing matching expressions of vapid malice. Almost as if they only followed the ring leader around because his proximity promised them a way to quench their thirst for blood.

It made her stomach roil with nausea.

"Please can I have that back?" she asked quietly, not moving to get to her feet or otherwise provoke them in any way. She knew to be careful when wolves were on the hunt, and she didn't want to become another statistic in the Wolf 101 handbook.