I blinked against the blinding sunlight, I really needed to get some curtains, raised my arms above my head and stretched as I mulled over the dream I had just had.

“I haven’t thought about that in such a long time…” I murmured as I kicked my legs over the edge of my bed and thought about the day everything changed.

“Please… Please don’t die…” A panicked voice whispered over and over as the person carried me through the woods I had thought I had known so well.

‘I should have died…’ I thought to myself. ‘Will I die now…?’

Pain suddenly splintered my thoughts, I screamed. My body curled in on itself and something rolled under my skin as if it was trying to break through. I screamed over and over.

“I’m so sorry…” The voice murmured as I was pulled closer to the body that held me.

I was laid on something soft in a dimly lit room. Pressure was applied to the wound on my side; I screamed yet again.

“I’m sorry bella… So very sorry…” the man murmured when the pain had finally dulled and I felt myself slipping into slumber. “I promise you will never have to see me ever again…”

I sighed heavily as I pulled the sheet off with me, wrapping it around my bare body; it was odd that I remembered him now… The tall mysterious man still haunted my memories in perfect clarity after years since that one interaction; he still affected me deeply…

“Too deeply…” I growled as I eyed the white scar on my pale skin after I moved the sheet away to look at it. I scowled at the mark and dropped the sheet back into place; the door bell rang. “God damn it…” I snapped as I walked down the stairs to my front door.

“Who is it…?” I asked as I peeked through the eye hole. “Son of a…” I hissed as I pulled open the door. “Well… Come in already…”

In stepped my mate. The tall lean figure hardly looked able to support the buff arms and tightly muscle abs that he had worked so hard for.

“That’s not a very nice way to greet your mate…” The man chided as he stepped across my threshold; I resisted the urge to touch him, I knew that only made the “bonding” worse.

“Oh bite me Alpin…” I snapped as I stormed away from him and up the stairs.

Alpin laughed as he followed me. “Oh come now Pyro… I know that you don’t like me because you had no choice, but I’m not here to try and make you ‘come to the dark side’.”

“Then why are you here…?” I had moved back into my room, dropped the sheet on the floor and started to shift through my closet for clothing.

“The Bolverk is needed at the Lupanar…”

I stopped shifting through my clothing, shut my closet then moved to a tiny armoire and opened it. “What is it this time…? Why do I have to go to the meeting place as our Ulfric’s enforcer…?”

“I don’t know exactly what our alpha has in mind. He hasn’t told us.”

I groaned and pulled out an intricate leather-strap outfit. “I truly hate this outfit…”

“But you look so good…” His voice had become husky.

“If you’re not going to be able to control yourself, leave.” I snapped.

I watched him shake himself and blink a few times. “I’ll control myself…”

I sighed but I knew he would control himself if I made him. Slowly I began to undo each buckle until it became two separate pieces and I started to get dressed, pulling the top piece over and tightening it until the two straps that went over my nipples held my breasts in place then closed the one that wrapped under them. I wrapped a strap around my hips then slid the thick one between my legs and up across each cheek when it split into two.

“Could you close those…? Please…?” I asked through gritted teeth, I hated tightening the “bond” between us anymore than I had to…

Alpin laughed lightly and carefully clasped the buckles for the two straps onto the one that went around my hips then carefully wrapped another one around my ribs and clasped it closed, adding two pieces that crossed under 

it and hooked to the one on my hips and two that crossed above it and when over my shoulders.

“I was nice.” He told me jokingly as he sat down.

I smiled. “I’m sorry…” I murmured as I slide the two straps he had placed on shoulders between my breasts and hooked them to the strap that went under them. “I know you never asked for this to happen…” I slid the last strap down to the one around my ribs, wrapped it through the brass loop that sat in the wrap on my ribs then clasped it to the one on my hips.

“I know that you were hoping for that one man to come back…” Alpin sighed. “But maybe it’s time to give up… He’s not like us… like you.”

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger; I didn’t want to talk about it. “He made me Alpin… he made me what I am today… If he hadn’t been there that night in the woods none of this would have ever happened to me.”

Alpin stood up. “It’s time to go…” He held out a trench coat I hadn’t seen him carry in earlier and I slid my arms through it, closing it over the outfit that would cause a huge problem for people outside of the Lupanar; he held his arm out to me, I glared at it. “Mate’s have to go together.”

I turned my glare up to his face. “Yes, but we’re not there yet, and you can dive us instead of touching me.” I growled.

He sighed and led the way downstairs. “Fine, fine…”

When we reached his car he held open the passenger door and let me slid in without a single sexual comment; surprise, surprise. He shut the door behind me and quickly walked to the other side to climb into the driver’s side. “And we’re off!” he laughed as he started the car and sped away from my house.

The Lupanar… The meeting place for our people. Our Ulfric, our leader, sits at the head and the lowers sit in a semi circle around him. At his right is his Freki, his second in command, and on his left is his Geri, his third in command. In front of him, by his feet, is his Lupa, his mate; the most dominate female. By the feet of the Freki and the Geri are their mates, the 

women who are off limits to all others except the Ulfric himself if he so chooses to mate with them as well. Behind him is where I will stand, his Bolverk, his enforcer, but unlike the mates of the Freki, the Geri, and himself, Alpin won’t sit at my feet, he will stand behind me, touching me, claiming me.

I never believed in those stories I was told about the average person being able to change themselves into a creature of the night… That is… I never believed them until I joined that hidden society…

We are wolves; every one of us. We meet in secret just before the full moon so that we can hunt in a pack. It’s difficult sometimes to keep us hidden from the outside world since so many people have to ask for those nights off, or hide it from their wives or husbands who are not pack… most of the times those relationships don’t last unless the spouse is trustworthy enough to tell them our secret.

I am the only wolf here that was changed by someone not-wolf… And I don’t know how it worked.

The only explanation we have been able to find is that the one who bit me was in wolf form when it happened; if the panther had bitten me then I would be a panther… Or… that’s the theory anyway…

In The Pack we fight for the two most wanted positions of power, Freki and Geri. I fought my way up from outcast to the position just under the Geri but The Pack didn’t want me to be Geri or Freki so our Ulfric found a great position for me, Bolverk. So now I am feared and respected when I was feared and hated before.

“Ah…” My Ulfric sighed as Alpin and I stepped into the sight of the Lupanar, my hand was wrapped around Alpin’s arm; I had left the trench coat in the car, I had to. “Bolverk! Take your place of power dear one.”

I bowed my head and walked carefully across the open space inside the circle and stood behind the Ulfric and his Lupa

“Now… We can begin this meeting I have called.” Our Ulfric began. “I have found a little stow away in our city…”

There were gasps in the crowd.

“There’s a rogue wolf in the town?!” Someone shouted.

“What about the pups?! They’ll kill them!!” A woman shouted.

“It’s not a wolf…” Our Ulfric signaled to his Freki and Geri who left and came back dragging a half naked man.

“A rogue shifter…”

The Freki grabbed the man’s think black hair and pulled his head up; I gasped.

Alpin’s hand clenched down on my shoulder silencing me instantly. “What is it…?”

“It’s him…” I murmured. “It’s the man who changed me…”