Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
It was a shame. Why did girls have to be so petty and rude? It wasn’t Rylee’s fault that she’d been born with a mark. Nor was it Amber’s. Thank goodness they’d grown up in the same school and had met at a very young age. They’d had each other.
If Hayes had watched his mate being bullied and alone from a distance, he wasn’t sure he would have had the ability to remain in the shadows. He might have been inclined to do something to make her life easier.
He suspected the two women had been stressed for some time over their upcoming separation. He’d seen them hugging each other more than usual lately on the playground.
He’d had to be pretty sneaky to figure out what color Rylee preferred since all girls wore the same ugly gunnysack dress to school for the entire twenty years. That was the strangest custom in the valley. It was meant to eliminate class distinction, but there was no way to avoid the fact that the mark of the Alpha Protectors created its own distinction.
Girls didn’t expose their marks very often. The ugly dresses they wore had long sleeves that reached all the way to their hands. They also had a high collar and touched the tops of their shoes.
Mated women in the valley no longer dressed in such drab, boring clothing, but nothing compared to the way women dressed once they were mated to an Alpha Protector. They had far more freedom to express themselves through colors and styles.
Granted, Hayes had already filled his Little girl’s closet with adorable dresses, but he could always get her more once she discovered her own preferences. Until she arrived, she couldn’t know what she might like. She’d never had the privilege to consider her options.
Except the yellow. He’d noticed she often had a small yellow bow pinning the front of her long dirty-blond hair back. She also carried a yellow lunch bag. Hopefully yellow was a color she enjoyed. If not…if it was actually her mother or someone else who provided her with those things… Well, he’d change the room to suit her.
It was time to go. This was it. When he returned to his house after the ceremony, he would have his pretty mate in his arms. From this day forward, he would rarely be alone. His overly quiet house would be filled with conversation and laughter.
At least he hoped so. From what he’d seen from a distance, it seemed Rylee smiled a lot. She also laughed with her friend. They chatted with each other in equal exchanges, leading him to believe his Little mate wasn’t introverted.
He didn’t have enough evidence to be certain, of course. Just because she was animated with her friend didn’t mean she would be that way with him. She would be nervous at first. It might take her some time to open up. But he genuinely hoped, given time, she would lean on him and consider him her most important confidant.
He would never deny her the friendship she already had with Amber. He would provide her with ample opportunity to maintain that relationship. But he believed in his heart that the connection between him and Rylee would be even stronger than either of them were currently capable of understanding.
In a few short hours, they would know what it meant to be mated. Not the kind of ordinary mating experienced by the average wolf shifter in the valley. No. Their bond would be far stronger.
It would turn both their worlds upside-down.
Hayes couldn’t grasp what that was going to feel like yet, but he was well-aware from his friends and elders that the bond he would experience with his marked mate would surpass anything in the valley and bring him to his knees.
Chapter Two
As the final words of the ceremony were spoken, Rylee was trembling. She hadn’t expected to be quite this unnerved. She also hadn’t expected to feel so connected to her mate before she’d even seen him. Was he feeling the same…magnetism?
Every inhale drew him into her body. Every breath made her lean closer to him. Thank goodness he’d eventually set his palm on top of her head as part of the ceremony because she’d needed him to support her and keep her from tipping forward.
He seemed to have known it, too. He’d gripped her scalp with his fingertips without a word, keeping her steady. She didn’t think anyone else in the room had been aware of her predicament.
The only people in the ceremonial room besides Rylee and her mate—whose name she now knew was Hayes—were her parents and his. His father, Jonus, had conducted the ceremony. Thank heavens it had been short and was now over.
As both sets of parents left the room, the resounding snick of the door made her flinch.