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What in the world were they thinking? Forcing me to take her as my mate. Though I knew I had no other choice, I could still be pissed off about it. What I should be asking was what was the Goddess thinking making a girl with no wolf my mate. And to top it all off, she was already a massive handful.

First it took me forever just to find her. I was dragged away from tracking her. Then there was her running away from me. Then my assistant tells me he knew who she was all along. Well that was convenient. Those words had been music to my wolf's ears, but they were like a death march to my human ears.

No wolf meant she couldn't protect herself. That meant she was weak, a liability, a weakness. I couldn't afford to be weak dammit. But I had no choice. I had to take the girl as my mate, whether either of us liked it or not.

And to make matters worse. While in the middle of searching for the girl, I was told that the rogue that was causing problems the other day had crossed into my territory and was making a beeline for my compound.

That put every one of my pack members at risk. There was no telling if he had gone into a rampage, losing all connection with his human mind. If that were the case, he would have no rationality left in him and he would become a mindless killing machine.

Another drawback, the rampage would increase his strength, so lesser wolves would be unable to fight him off. Women and children were especially at risk if they crossed a rampager. I had to deal with this rogue immediately.

Then, what should I see when I track the intruder wolf down? The girl who is meant to be my mate. I knew instantly, her scent flooded into my nose and filled my mind. As much as I wish I could stop them, thoughts of hands off and that's mine went through my mind. I blame my wolf as he was the one I was running as.

I could see the two of them in the distance as I was running. Trinity was losing her lead, but it looked intentional. She was setting him up. The next thing I knew, I saw her jump to the side, kick off from the tree and do a backflip. She landed with both heels crashing down on the wolf's head. I nearly laughed at the sight. The move was quite good.

She was back on her feet and running again. I followed to keep them in my line of sight. The wolf, having recovered, was chasing her again. This time she didn't spring off a tree. No, she spun and slid onto her back, using her downward slide to kick upward with both feet. The combined momentum had sent the wolf flying into a tree.

She skidded to a stop and spun to her feet, unfortunately though her foot caught a root of a nearby tree, causing her to stumble. That, plus the fact that the wolf recovered quickly meant that he was chasing her sooner and closer than she had planned.

The wolf caught her and tackled her to the ground. I could smell the sharp scent of blood and her scent intensified. I knew instantly that she had been injured in some way. She can't die dammit, she's my mate, I need to complete the circle. I roared to myself as I raced toward them.

He had her pinned to the ground, but she still brought a knee up to his tender underbelly. I heard him growl in pain and frustration before he bared his teeth and set them against her throat. Not on my watch. I roared.

I tackled the rogue wolf off of her and wrestled him to the ground. It was exactly as I had expected, he has lost all sense of himself. He was rampaging. I was able to knock him unconscious, eliminating him as a threat for the time being. That was when I saw that my mate was attempting to run away again.

She had turned and was on her feet, but before she had taken more than two or three steps I had shifted back, standing there human again. I didn't growl at her, she was plenty scared of me already, but I did issue a command.

"Don't you dare run again. Stay right where you are." She knelt on the ground and sat on her heels, bowing her head in deference.

She was already a handful, that was for sure. Like when we were in the meeting with the Elders and she was too busy staring at me to pay attention to the room around her. She thought I wasn't watching her, but she needed to learn to watch a room indirectly.

She had probably never been in the same room with me for so long, and therefore never seen me so up close, besides the brief glimpse the other day. The same could be said of me. I had never seen her this close before. At least not when her head wasn't bowed or blocked by her hair.

She was pretty, that was true. But being pretty alone wasn't all it took to be Luna. If that were the case, then any of the girls in the group from the other night could be Luna. But her looks were different from theirs somehow. Her hair was a deep, rich, dark brown that was just a few shades lighter than my black hair.

And where most of the women in the pack were either naturally tanned like myself, or went tanning in the summer, she was like porcelain. I'm sure her skin would look like milk and mine honey if the two were laid side by side.

And another intriguing feature was her eyes. With such dark brown hair, I would not expect to see bright crystal blue eyes that seemed to shine in the light. The eyes were unusual to say the least.

But no matter how interesting, intriguing, or beautiful I found her. No matter how intoxicating or irresistible my wolf found her scent. I simply could not accept her as my mate. Not fully. It wasn't safe for her. She would get herself killed. And she would bring my pack down with her.