Wrong Turn, Right Path

Chapter 5 - Nate's POV

I watched as Nick, Blake and Shay ran off into the forest and I turned my head and signaled to Scott and Trevor, the 2 warriors who would accompany me, and we ran. Our pack was almost halfway between our brother Mitch's pack, the Nightshade Pack, and our cousin Jackson's pack, the Crater pack, which made our place the typical gathering location.

Running this familiar route allowed me the freedom to just let my mind wander. It had been a while since I'd been to the Crater Pack, we used to visit every summer, we would spend 1 month in the Crater Pack then Jackson would come back with us and spend a month at our place. He looked just like Nick and me with dark hair and blue eyes. His Mom is our Dad's twin sister. Anyone who didn't know would assume he was another Harris boy not a Montgomery. I chuckle to myself as I remember the one summer we made Mitch cry because we had convinced him that he was found in the middle of the forest based solely on the fact that he had blonde hair and brown eyes like our mother. Oh we got in so much trouble. My mom made us clean the entire main floor with toothbrushes. I almost cried when Mitch and his buddies came traipsing through with muddy shoes just as we were about to finish.He felt so bad he grabbed a rag and cleaned up his own mess. But that was Mitch, he has always been the more compassionate of us 3 boys.

We decided to push through the night so that we wouldn't have to sleep on the cold hard ground. Thankfully it was a full moon tonight so we had plenty of light. I knew this was the calm before the storm. A huge one is due to roll through and rage for a few days, I'm looking forward to sitting in front of a fire listening to the wind howl while sipping on hot drink, preferably with my mate wrapped in my arms. My mate. Just the thought makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I can't wait to find her, hold her, love her, mate and mark her. I know we'll find her soon, I can feel it. This knowledge gives me a burst of energy and I start pushing harder to run faster.

Alpha, is something wrong?  Scott's voice comes through the link

No,why do you ask? I reply

Because all of a sudden you are running like a pack of rogues are chasing us. Scott answers while glancing over his shoulder I don't sense any other wolves in the area so I thought maybe you knew something I didn't

No, I'm just ready to get out of the cold and into a nice soft bed.

You mean you are excited to begin the official search for your mate. Trevor had decided to join in the conversation.

I make a huffing sound Well there's that too. A wolfish grin broke across my face

We took a break by a stream that thankfully still had running water and refreshed ourselves. Then continued onward. At this rate we should be there in time for breakfast. Food sounds amazing. We usually take time to hunt along the way but decided to just push through and just eat more when we got there.

I was so excited I felt like my skin was the only thing keeping me together. I know Nick wasn't as excited sometimes it felt like he'd given up on finding our mate. It didn't help that he spent so much time with Layla. I held back the growl that threatened to break free at just the thought of her. She'd been sniffing around Nick since he turned 16. I think she assumed that because he was older, even if it was by only by 10 minutes, that he would be made Alpha. Nick and I had always known that we would be Alpha together but that hadn't been common knowledge. When we were younger she always tried to pull Nick away from me, he was oblivious to it and didn't really pay her any attention. In fact he was just as excited to find our mate until about 5 years ago. It was around the time that Mitch had been given the Nightshade Pack by the Council. We had gone and helped him with clean up after the Alpha had attacked his own pack. There were tons of graves to dig including those for the Alpha's own children. It was heartbreaking for everyone. Losing your mate can literally break a wolf and that's what happened. I think it scared Nick. I think he doesn't really want a mate because he doesn't want to risk hurting the pack if anything ever happened to her.