Sadie's POV

My mouth is agape at this point. Never in my wildest dream would I have thought that werewolves were real. Seriously, they are real! Come to think about it though, the signs were all there.

The growling, the freakishly tall people, muscles everywhere and the way this town was so secluded from everywhere else and they don't let people in regularly.

I'm not scared though, I should be. I should be running for the hills and never look back. I'm not though. If they were going to hurt me it would have been some time ago right? These are my friends that I just recently made, they wouldn't want to hurt me!

Seth is still sitting on the bed next to me rubbing his thumbs over the tops of my hands. He is waiting for me to say something or let the information sink in. I'm pretty sure my brain just crashed and it is waiting for a reboot.

"Sadie, love, say something." Seth pleaded.

"I, I, am not sure. This is a lot to take in." I kept my head down glancing at Seth's hands in mine. They are so rough and calloused but it makes my small hands feel so warm, so safe. "I'm not scared if that is what you are waiting for me to say." I reassured him. He let out a sigh.

"That's good, that's really good." He took his hands and ran it through the top of his dark hair. His haircut really suited him. Short on the sides, long at the top and so unruly. I just wanted to run my fingers through those locks.

Hold up, back to information overload.

"I think I might need some questions answered." I whispered. He nodded in agreement. "Why was that guy going to bite that girl?" I bit my lip in hesitation.

He huffed, "going for the hard ones I see." I tilted my head in confusion waiting for him to answer. "They are mates, they found each other tonight and they wanted to complete the mating bond. Just like in the story, it's very sacred and there is a bit of a 'private ceremony' for it." I nodded beckoning him to go on, but he looked conflicted.

"To complete a mate bond, you have sex and then the male and female have to might each other on the neck." My eyes grew wide and felt they would fall out of my sockets. "It doesn't hurt!" he quickly added. "In fact, it can be quite pleasurable." He smirked.

"Looked like they were pleasured enough before they did the nasty in my bed!" I huffed and crossed my arms. He gave a loud laugh as he threw his head back. Wow, his laugh was amazing, I wanted to hear more of it.

"Oh! And why did Rebecca pull my arms so hard?!"

"She probably saved your life, in the middle of mating wolves can be very territorial, he would have killed you if she hadn't." I could hear him whimper slightly. "We all care about you, we would never let you get hurt." Seth then embraced me in a tight hug while he buried his head into my neck. I started to giggle when he pulled away.

"What?"

I stopped giggling, "why do you sniff me like that? It tickles!"

"My wolf and I like to smell you. Everyone has a smell, yours smells the best to me since you are my mate. You calm us both down when we are sad, upset, angry. Remember, you are my other half. I'm not the nicest wolf around here. I'm pretty ruthless, they say." He said with a somber tone.

"I don't believe that for one second," I scoffed. "You have been nothing but sweet to me." I whispered. Feeling the red come up my neck and to my cheeks was prominent.

Seth smiled at me and continued to rub my cheeks with the pads of his thumb. This man had me under a spell I couldn't understand. It was like he was always supposed to be there. Had I have never known he existed I would have walked through life partially empty. Now that he is here, I don't want him to leave.

"Seth?" He sighed when I spoke.

"Yes, love?"

"Are we mates?" His eyes went wide for a moment, as if in shock that I would even ask such a question. Did I say the wrong thing? He must not feel the same with me, he is just being a nice person to me. But then he smiled. He didn't have many happy lines in his face, I knew he had to really think about smiling for me.

"Yes, love, we are mates."

Time stopped for me right there. We were mates. It all made sense that feeling I had for him at the club that night. Normally, I would never approach a guy, but he was supposed to be mine and I was going to be his. My mind kept telling me to run, he's a werewolf! I'm a human, nothing good could come from this right?

I didn't run though, I didn't go and hide.

I smiled.

For once in a long time, I felt wanted, needed. I felt like I belonged. I was supposed to be here.

The tingles! The tingles just like my aunt always told me about. That was the one thing that she had always told me when it came to finding someone to love. That they would give you tingles with their touch, your world turned upside down, you would be comforted and feel safe with their embrace.

I threw my arms around Seth's neck without thinking and started laughing. My mind was going a million miles a minute but the only constant that seemed to stay was the realization he was my soulmate. Werewolf or not, he was.

We were each other's other half. The half I never knew that I was missing.

"My aunt told me to wait for the tingles I would feel on my skin! That's why I always waited for someone to make me feel this way!"

Seth's hold only grew tighter as he picked me up and carried me in his arms. "I'm so happy, Sadie. So happy!" Frantic kisses on my cheek made me start giggling.

Seth abruptly stopped for a moment, "Wait, your aunt? She told you about how a mate's touch feels?" Seth looked at me questionably. Before I could answer a loud hurried knock on the door. Our celebration ended quickly when Seth barked out, "I said we do not want to be disturbed!"

The vibrations from his chest oozed authority and I found my body reacting to it. It was a strange but a really good feeling. A blushed face was going to be permanent if this keeps up.

Seth quickly looked down into my eyes and I buried my face into his chest. He held me close and put my head under his neck and laughed, almost forgetting someone at the door.

"Alpha, there is an unauthorized person at the Pinecreek borders and the Pinecreek Alpha requests of you. You shut off your link and I couldn't reach you." Marco spoke with a shaken voice.

He grunted in annoyance and pulled my face from his neck and began to put me back on the bed.

"I'm coming. I need guards surrounding this room NOW." Seth boomed. I was quickly set down and a chaste kiss was put on my forehead. "I need you to stay in this room. Do not leave until I come back, do you understand Sadie? It's for your safety."

He's leaving? Right now?

"What right now?" I couldn't help but feel hurt, he just told me I was his mate and he was leaving. I sounded like some clingy teenager, this is too much. "When will you come back?"

"I'm sorry, love, I'll be back soon. Don't leave this room, do you understand." speaking softly and rubbing the side of my head with his hand. "This is a lot, but you have to trust me OK?" I nodded and with long strides he walked to the door.

His muscles rippled through his still tattered dress shirt. Before he left he looked at me and smiled. I blushed and waved with a small smile on my face.

I curled up on the bed, still in my pink party dress and large sweatshirt. The adrenaline and the events of the day finally took a toll on my body so I decided to curl up and try to sleep until he came back.

***

The light streamed into the open window beside the king size bed. Getting a chance to look around the room last night was the least of my worries. The room was warm, inviting. A large fireplace sat at the other side of the room with a magnificent faux fur rug at the base.

Large columns of stripped wooded trees held the magnificent walls as well as rafters. The room felt raw, like it was built exactly from nature, none of it was tampered with a chemical of finishing paint. You could still smell the pine that oozed from the meat of the tree.

Deep burgundy reds, navy blues and tans decorated the duvet and the room that I had been sleeping in. The room was warm, and I didn't even need a blanket to cover up from the night. Which was strange because I am always cold.

As if someone was listening, a loud knock came from the door and I saw Rebecca's head poke out from the door.

"Awake now sleeping beauty?!" she said in a cheerful tone.

"Rebecca! Get in here! You have explanations to do!" I tried to look angry but she laughed in my face.

"You look like an angry chipmunk!"

"I do not!" feeling flustered. I threw one of the large pillows and chucked it at her face.

"So I didn't hear any screaming in terror last night from you. Have you come to accept our ways?"

"Your ways? Is it like a cult or something?"

Rebecca laughed, "No, but by definition I guess we kind of are? We all live together in small communities, the Alpha being our leader. We take care of each other and look out for one another. Hard to accept newcomers since we are all basically like a family."

"Then how did I get here? I'm human?"

I remember how awkward and weird my first day here was. It was like me moving into town was such a big deal. I had frequent visits from the 'mayor' and people looked so skeptical of me while I waited tables. That finding someone new in their town was almost unheard of. Now with the werewolf business I now know why.

"That's the question that Alpha Adrien or 'Mayor Adrien,'" she did air quotes with her fingers, "has been trying to figure out. You had a cabin given to you by your aunt so obviously she owned the land within our town." Rebecca trailed off towards the end of her sentence.

"Wait," I could feel the gears turning in my head. Something was off, this is werewolf territory, meaning she would have had to be one in order for her to have rights to the cabin. Was I living with a werewolf for most of my life? Is that why I had been comfortable around everyone here? "Was my aunt a werewolf?" I gasped.

Rebecca came closer to the bed and sat beside me, crawling under the covers with me.

"Yes she was, and even Alpha Adrien knew her. He was her childhood friend." she replied somberly. Rebecca put her arm around me as I put my head on her shoulder.

That's why Alpha Adrien looked sad, he knew who she was but couldn't tell me why. Her death must have been hard since he had known her since childhood.

The information from last night about werewolves being real, finding my mate and also finding out that one of my own family members was a werewolf started to really stress me. My whole life, my aunt kept a secret from me. A huge secret!

That is why she kept telling me about mates and how she was so in love and would never love anyone but Jeremy, her soul-mate. The depression of losing her mate really did kill her. How she was able to hold on so long is beyond my understanding.

Many of the townspeople from my home said I saved her, once she had me it picked her up enough to carry on just a little longer.

I'm not a werewolf though! I am human! I've never had any emotions of wanting to frolic in the woods and change my appearance. I'm in no way, shape or form beautiful, tall and built athletically as my friends. I'm their clumsy fox as they like to say. What of my parents though? My aunt was my mother's sister. Would she have been a werewolf too? Maybe even my father? She would never bring up my birth parents and I never really asked. She was my Maria.

My head began to hurt, I felt a pencil stab to the back of my eye.

I leaned forward holding my left eye and did a slight groan. Rebecca not knowing what to do, held my head up to see why I was holding my eye.

"SADIE! Your eye is bleeding!"

"What?!" I screamed. I pulled my hand away and saw blood on the palms of my hand. "What is this?" Tears started to swell into my eyes and began to drip into my lap. These tears weren't crystle like in coloring, but blood red.

"Make it stop!" I began to panic. My breaths were uneven and Rebecca started to look tinged red due to the blood dripping from my eyes.

Before I had a chance to say anything, a team of werewolves in attack position came barging in. Most were only in athletic shorts, sweating profusely and scanning the room for a potential threat.

The duvet was ruined with my bloody tears and growls were engulfing the room. My breath hitched as the pencil-like stab now in both of my eyes scorched through my brain. The scream hurt even my own ears, I could not imagine for the werewolves in the room with their hearing.

The sounds of thudding footsteps, orders being barked about and the small cries from Rebecca started to become fuzzy. I was gently laid back into the bed with a warm hand that went around my back. It cupped the back of my head and my cries of pain stopped.

Opening my eyes once more, I saw Seth. His eyes struck with worry and pain. He held me close to the bed. All sound was now void from the room, but I knew there were others present. I wanted to hug him back but my body was unable to move, my voice was caught somewhere in my throat.

Knowing that Seth was there, helped me relax. The tears stopped flowing and my breathing started to even back out. My headache was becoming less thunderous. I could see him speaking to me, but I still could not hear what he said. My eyes gently closed and I saw the blanket of darkness cover me.