The Mate Inside Me

Chapter 17

Unedited.

The forest was ringing with loud howls. Despite being stuck in a room, I could clearly hear multiple pair of paws thumping against the ground. The beasts' feet were hitting the earth in a rhythmic fashion. It sounded like a parade, a march of an army. Sitting at the edge of the bed, I was all but covering my ears to stop that sound from penetrating the depths of my mind.

I had buried my head in between my legs, my eyes shut tightly as I slowly rocked myself back and forth trying to overcome the urge to join them. It was awful but bearable. For a moment I that I had almost gained my senses back but all that went down the drain the moment I heard him howl.

"Ha..."

My trembling lips released a gasp as I arched my back, my neck extending to stare up at the ceiling. Tears were collecting in the rim of my golden eyes.

"Ha..."

I was getting breathless.

As another loud howl pierced through the walls of my room, a small tear rolled out of the corner of my eye to join my dropping heart on its lonely journey.

"Ha..."

This was bad. My throat felt drier than the Sahara. A strange sensation was spreading all over my body like wildfire.

I was cursing the time I had told Erebus that it was fine to leave me alone and go on a run with his pack members. If I had the slightest idea that this would happen again within a week's span, I would've never let him go.

'This was only supposed to happen once a month.'

My quivering fingers were fumbling to unbutton the top half of my shirt. I couldn't tolerate the smallest graze of a fabric against my skin. My clothes were suffocating me.

'Is it worse for me because I have a crest now? The crest acts as an enhancer for a werewolf's powers. Did it enhance this too?'

Unlike the last experience that I had when I was in heat, this time I hadn't lost my sense of reason. The crest kept me aware of my surroundings. I had enough power at the moment to resist this urge to mate and I had been fighting it for the past few hours, but I had reached my limit now. I needed him. I need Erebus.

"Ha..."

As I slid down the bed to kneel on the floor, my mind went back to the night, a week ago, when we had managed to wake Erebus up from his slumber. I had pictured various scenarios in my head about how our life would be once my mate wakes up but it was nowhere near what I had imagined.

I had barely seen let alone met Erebus after coming back from The Barren Lands. The wolves from the capital, the Alphas from the other packs, just kept coming one after the other to greet their king who had been keeping himself hidden for the past two decades.

In the daytime, Erebus stayed busy handling the packs related work and at night, he stayed at his house. I, on the other hand, was staying in the packhouse. It seemed as if I were there with my father and the eleven other alphas to welcome the King on his official return, only that wasn't the case.

I was the one who had made a deal with Lykan to keep my identity hidden. I knew this was coming yet I couldn't help feeling this dull ache in my heart whenever my eyes landed on Erebus moving through the pack house. I never saw him looking my way once.

He had Lucas made sure that my stay here was made as comfortable as possible. Every morning Lucas informed me of Erebus' schedule and asked me if there was anything unsatisfactory in it that he I wanted him to change. Every morning I wanted him to tell his king to allot a slot in his busy time table for me but I could never bring myself to say it out loud.