I am totally shocked.

It is said that possibly the greatest mystery in the life of a werewolf is to not know why they were paired with any particular individual. What is the criteria the Moon Goddess uses to match one subject to another? That we will never know for as long as we live.

Goddesses do not waste their time explaining themselves to mortals. You can either take what she has offered to you or not. While you don’t find your mate, you are more than welcome to make your life with whoever you see fit.

Just keep in mind that if you hook up with a human - unlike Regency Falls, where I come from werewolves are vastly outnumbered by humans - you cannot disclose to them the fact that you are a werewolf, unless of course they are mated to you.

You can also sleep with any werewolf, preferably unmated. I would not be caught dead with a mated man, no matter how hot he is. I wouldn’t object to a human, but never a mated werewolf. I was raised better than that.

In this day and age, no one expects to find their mate pure and virginal. Not even when they are still 17 and definitely not at my age of 29. However, Omegas like me have the added pressure of risking an unmated pregnancy.

You could explain an ‘accident’ to a fellow werewolf, but how am I to explain to a human that I fell pregnant with his baby? I am not a transgender man, which would make it possible for a pregnancy, according to human science.

No, I am a novelty. A blessing from the Goddess to the werewolf population. A hidden secret from society that was kept under lock and key from humans, sometimes at a high cost. Oh yeah, blood was shed to keep our existence a secret.

To this very day, there are two crimes a werewolf can commit that could get them killed.

The first one is to mess with someone’s mate. Depending on the offense you can simply be expelled from the pack - say you got into a fight with a coworker and slapped them, for instance, the Alpha is not going to have you killed for a simple slap. But he is not going to allow you to remain in the pack either.

The second crime against pack law is to disclose our secret to a human who is not your mate. Because of the sanctity of mating, allowances had to be made in regards to the pairing. It is not always possible for the Goddess to match you with another werewolf.

Sometimes, she doesn’t have any other choice but to pair you with a human. We all grew up with that knowledge in my hometown, of the possibility that you could be mated to a human. Naturally, there are some couples known in our hidden society that are interspecies.

A mate, human or werewolf, is protected under the law and cannot be expected to remain in the dark about their partner’s true identity. Basically, they have an invested interest in keeping our secrets from other humans. We trust that the mate bond they feel for us will keep the werewolf kind safe.

And it has worked for thousands of years.

When I was 18, I had a baby to raise. This fact alone made me focus my attention on him and disregard any interest I could have in other boys. With time, most of the people I knew around my age got mated.

It took years for me to risk having a night out for some adult fun. I mean, it is one thing to have a beer with your colleagues, but to find a possible partner for me was tricky. Werewolves were unavailable and humans I feared at first.

Eventually, with the lack of mate in sight and the raging hormones of a man in his early twenties, I started venturing myself in the occasional hookup with humans. It is not fair for me to be expected to have zero connections with anybody. Goddess knows how bad I wanted my mate to find me but he never did.

With the danger of me getting pregnant, I quickly found a way to circumvent that possibility. It was already bad enough that I had one unmated pup, I was not about to risk having one from any human. I would never be able to live that down, honestly.

But I could not get pregnant from the way that I hooked up with guys, if you catch my drift. I got into the groove and made my peace with my fate. Needless to say, I shielded my son from all that.

I have never introduced any male companion to him, nor would I receive men in my house. No, my son always came first and I would only leave him with his grandparents or a trusted friend. Eventually, Charlie had sleepovers on weekends with his classmates. That was my opportunity to make my move and have a free range Saturday night out.

Fortunately, few people knew my business and nobody judged me for it. Not even my parents. I could not keep my life on hold just because I was mateless, it wouldn’t make sense realistically speaking.

‘A mate can take as long as it takes, the Goddess can’t be rushed.’ My grandmother used to tell me whenever I visited her. She loves Charlie, by the way. In fact, all his grandparents and great grandparents do, from both sides of his family. The only person who never gave Charlie the time of day was his own (second) father.

Personally, I couldn’t give a fuck about our so called Alpha of the pack. But what I could never forgive was his lack of interest towards his own son. I cannot fathom why some men think parenthood is optional.

It is like they think that if you don’t see your baby, then they don’t exist.

Right. Sure, Jan. That totally makes sense. Let’s ignore a living, breathing human being in hope that they go away… that totally makes sense. *eye roll*

Now back to my original point, I will never know why Stephano was picked for me. I will also never know why She kept him from me for all this time, though considering the distance between our two packs it is not exactly a surprise that things happened this way.

There would be no reason for either of us to look for our mates out of state. It is incredibly rare for people to be mated outside of their home state, precisely because it’s next to impossible for them to meet. Unless they meet up on a college campus, that happens too.

There was a friend of a friend who met his mate in the sophomore year of Julliard. Neither of them were from New York, so they were shocked as hell by the mate pairing. In the end, neither of them returned to their home state after graduation.

But neither Stephano or I went to college, so that was never an option [for us].

Which leaves me with only one logical conclusion. There is just one possible reason that I can think of for my mate to be revealed so randomly and far away from home, the obvious motive for our pairing once you factor in my escape from where I lived, my original pack.

He is the one that I need.

I feel sorry for Stephano, who remained unattached for more than a decade - as did I, naturally - but if I had to guess I would say I only met him yesterday because now is the time when I most needed him. I am alone with my son and with nowhere to go. My sole focus was to get my son away from Richard’s grasp.

If my mate was from the same pack as me, it would have been that much harder for me to leave and that much easier for Richard to use him as a leverage against me. I guess the only reason I could think of for being paired with an out of state mate is that he was the one that I needed to be paired with.

The motive behind the pairing would only become clear now that I am on the run. Ten years ago, even one year ago would make our mating a logistical nightmare. Stephano cannot leave his pack and I would never leave mine as well, it is the only place where I had my support system.

They say things always happen for a reason. The timing of our mate pairing is surgically precise. Charlie was already getting sick of being constantly on the road, not to mention he is without his friends and family. I could offer him little explanation except for the truth: that someone wanted to separate us, to take him away from me.

But Charlie is only 11 years old. Children weren’t meant to be constantly on the road, unless of course that is their only reality. But my son was surrounded by a loving family and school friends. This is not his reality and it pains me to keep him from his loved ones.

I never understood my lack of mating until now. At this moment, I am thinking the Goddess is a genius who introduces our mates when we need them the most. Or at least that is the truth in my case, not that I want to admit that.

Stephano arrived in the pack house right after breakfast on Saturday, his first day of vacation though technically it’s Monday, not today. He offered to take Charlie and me on a tour around town.

Yesterday, the day of our mating, I sat down with him, Alpha Phillip and Luna Linda to tell them my story and the reason why I came here. We are yet to be alone and talk freely, but I hope to score some time alone with him in the coming days.

We entered his car and he started driving around town, showing us all his favorite spots. He took us to the park and Charlie finally had the opportunity to interact with other children, even if not precisely his age.

It gives me all the feels seeing my son playing again, expressing joy. He already had a great time yesterday playing video games in the playroom of the pack house - I practically had to drag him out of the room by 10:30 p.m. - and now that he is able to behave like a kid again, it is making me emotional to watch it.

It is a silly thing, I know. But for the last week since we have been on the run, I barely had time to breathe for fear of being caught by Richard or his men. I have no idea who he sent to track us down, but he certainly isn’t giving up on finding us.

No, I know him all too well. He is not one to give up, though I am not surrendering myself either. I will never give up my son. If he wanted to be part of Charlie’s life, he had 11 years to do so. I was never against coparenting, but he chose to ignore our existence.

Stephano and I are sitting on a park bench, watching Charlie playing with the other kids. I would never have been able to do this if not for my mate, not that I am a stranger to single parenting. I just could not have my son on display like this, not without backup.

It’s a really mundane event. I have taken my child to the park alone countless times. Raising him in a small town in Oklahoma, we lived the simple life. I knew every single child and their parents, I was comfortable in what I was doing. I had the entire town wired.

But this is not my town and even if it was, these are odd times.

“If you have something else to do today, it’s okay. You can tell me and I’ll make other arrangements. I’m sure it’s boring for you to watch a boy playing. I don’t expect you to keep me company all the time.” I told my mate, concerned that this is not the day he had in mind for us.

“For starters, I am not bored. I can stay with you until your son gets hungry and it’s time for lunch. I don’t have anything else in my schedule for today and even if I did, I’d cancel. You are more important. You can definitely expect me to keep you company for as long as you’ll have me.” He replied in a stern tone, gazing at my eyes intensely to better get his point across.

I blushed from his words and penetrating gaze.

“It is so baffling to me that you met me hours before you were supposed to leave town. Had I driven by this town one day later, I would not have met you and we would probably be lost to each other forever.” I commented after a while, causing him to ponder my words.

“Yeah, tell me about it! And I was already done with my shift. Anyone else could have gone to the mall to assess your presence and that would be it. They say that when the Goddess wants you to get mated, She’ll make it happen for you. They weren’t kidding!” He spoke, still perplexed by our shocking mate pairing.

“They told me that the Goddess was preparing a special man for me, they weren’t kidding about that either.” I flirted with him, causing my mate to blush.

He looked at me with his smoldering good looks and intense gaze, causing my pale cheeks to color. We stared at each other for a minute, transfixed, feeling the pull of the mate bond coursing through our veins.

“Daddy, I’m thirsty.” Charlie came to our bench, sweating from all the exercise, so I pulled out a water bottle from my bag and gave it to him. This is not my first rodeo. He gulped down the water thirstily and returned to the playground unceremoniously.

A few of the parents present in the park kept staring at us for a moment, no doubt curious about my presence here. I am sure our mating will be in everybody’s lips soon enough, though I think it already is.

“For so long I have dreamed about having a partner, someone to have my back, and I never did. I can’t tell you how incredibly frustrated I felt, especially raising a kid by myself. Not that I regret having my son in any way.” I told him after a moment when Charlie was out of hearing range. Now that he is also a fully realized werewolf, I need to be aware of what I say near him. I still cannot believe he shifted into a wolf at 11, by the way.

“I can only imagine what it was like for you to raise the Alpha’s son without any support from him. But I can certainly relate to the longing for a partner, I felt the same. I had all the fortune a person could have, but my bed was always empty.” He commented, breathing out a frustrated sigh.

“I highly doubt your bed was always empty.” I poked fun at him, who blushed at the insinuation.

“It was when it counted, mate. Yes, I may not have been celibate for the last decade, but I felt pretty lonely for most of my adult life.” He countered in an annoyed tone, glaring at me.

I felt bad for saying that, not that I have any moral ground to judge him. It’s not about that.

“I know, Stephano. I felt the same, trust me. You are not alone.” I spoke, feeling bad about breaking our tender moment. Truth is nobody can relate to me as much as he does. Of course, he is not an Omega raising a son alone, but being mateless for so long feels like a capital crime among other werewolves.

I snuggled up to him for a moment, taking in his sweet scent, which was comforting me. It is incredible to feel close to one’s mate, especially this early in the mating. His scent is intoxicatingly good for me. It’s like the sweetest smell I have ever inhaled in my life.

“You are not alone either, mate. At least, not anymore. You will never have to face life alone again, I am here for you. Today and always. No one will trouble you for as long as I breathe.” He pledged himself to me and I felt the intensity of every word he enunciated.

I felt how much he meant that and I am fully onboard with this. *swoon*

A|N: I had no idea what to name this chapter until the title appeared to me as it was written.

I love the process of naming my chapters, though sometimes I wish I could get away with the songs that I want to include in the book. But if they don’t fit, my personal ethics do not allow me to use it.

I am weird, I know.

Oh Carlisle… you’re in danger, boy!

Next is "Price Tag". Talk about a song I thought it'd never be featured in my books. LOL

PS: This is my favorite pic of him other than the one in the cover.

Love,

Léo.