To Be Claimed

There was never a question of whether or not I would be his. It’s simply what fate demanded. There’s a knowing when the werewolves find their mates. It’s an aching need, a desperation… one they would die for. But for their mates, it’s a trance, a pull, a submissive desire that’s at odds with the shadows of my past and how I’ve learned to survive. I didn’t know how hard I’d fall. I didn’t know what destiny would bring. I didn’t know it then that I would die for him as he would me.

Never in my life could I have prepared for what fate had in store for me. Or for any of us. Our tales are intertwined and destiny saw fit to give me to a beast of a man who would die for me. He longs for me and I for him, but my past is riddled with a darkness and our present with deception and the whispers of war. Everything warns me that my life will change forever. That the world will crumble and burn. I don’t know what will happen or what will become of us. All I know is that, in his eyes, I belong to him.

Fate never prepared me for seeing my mate with the claiming mark of my enemy. She doesn't know she's my mate. She doesn't feel the burning pull between us. The desperate need to love and be loved by me as I feel raging inside me. None of this should have happened this way. I don't know how she came to be his, but I'll slowly torture him if his claim has broken my mate's ability to feel our bond. The war has already begun and when the dust settles she will be mine. I can't imagine an existence without her ... and my greatest fear is that it's all too late.

We tracked her down, now we’re keeping her. After all she is our mate… We’re the twin Alphas of Dark Valley, opposite in almost every way but both of us are shocked that we share a mate… and that she’s human. I have no idea how this pretty little woman could handle one of us, let alone both. When lust turns to obsession, neither of us will be able to fight the pull to her and I’m not sure either of us will be willing to share. She never could have known what searching for answers about shifters could lead to and neither could we. Now the only thing she'll be learning is who she belongs to.

Power and riches mean nothing if you have nothing to live for. A lifetime of wealth beyond imagine and a throne to rule have kept the pain at bay. With a tragic beginning I was prepared for a tragic end: the death of our kind and the final reign of the dragons. And then there was her. She's only a pawn in a greater war, a captive and completely at my mercy. Her striking eyes are filled with hatred, but she can't hide her heat. And I can't hide my desire. Nor can I contain a fire I thought had long ago been extinguished. I will burn the world before I let anyone take her from me.