His Selected Mate

Chapter 1

I don't understand why Mom was so excited about that letter. That crisp, white envelope from the palace. The prince had come of age and was now eligible to have his own Selection. A group of 35 girls were picked to go to the palace and had to date the prince, while he eliminated each girl one by one until one was left. She is to marry the prince and one day become queen. Except I didn't want to be a queen. I didn't even want to try.

Mom thinks all our problems are solved with this envelope. Like I've already been selected. Thousands of girls are going to apply. The odds of me getting picked are slim to none.

There were many reasons why I shouldn't send in the application. I'd seen the reports of the rebels breaking into the palace and completely destroying it and of the body counts given by the king the next day. I could hold my own but why risk it? But then there was the money. I know being selected would help bring in money. Our money was stretched tight and being selected would be a relief to my parents. With summer ending, Mom's stress was higher as now we had to worry about heating. Mom and I perform at parties and Dad and May make art. Since Kenna and Kota left, income came from us four since Gerad was only seven. I would like to help Mom and Dad but being paraded around on T.V for the entertainment of the nation and forced to tolerate a spoiled wimp was too much. Being his docile, little wife, meant to be seen and not heard. It made me want to tear him apart. Then there was the fact that my whole family were werewolves.

Before the Chinese invaded and the World Wars, my dad said there were packs all over North America. Hundreds of wolves in each pack with an Alpha and a Luna to lead them. In an effort to conceal their secret, werewolves had agreed to disperse and live among the humans. Some had even decided to go full wolf and live in the wild. Thank the Moon Goddess my ancestors hadn't decided to do that. I had no idea where I would be today had that been the case.

I've been told my wolf was beautiful. She had auburn fur with streaks of light brown and yellow eyes. Her name was Tempest and she was even more sassy and stubborn than I was. Being a werewolf in this country was impossible. Unless you were a Two or a Three who had a get-a-way home near the woods or you lived up north, you were not going to be able to let your wolf free. Most homes were in suburbs regardless of what your caste was, and you couldn't shift here, not without risking your neighbors seeing you. That's why mom and dad transformed the basement into a den of sorts. We lock ourselves in there during the full moon because we're forced to shift.

Our first shift happens at 16 so right now it's just Mom, Dad, and I but one day, May will join us and then Gerad.

Then there was also Aspen, my boyfriend. We had been dating secretly for the past two years, meeting after Illéa's curfew in the tree house in my backyard. He was also a werewolf, which meant our families were close as we were one of the few werewolves in the area. But he wasn't my mate. Mates could still find each other now, but you had to hope that it was your destiny to find them, at least if you were in the lower castes. Otherwise, you may never meet them because of how little money one has to go searching for them.

In the past, if your mate wasn't in your pack you could go looking for them, hoping to catch a whiff of their scent. Staying in hotels or places that could house you. Or you could live in the wild while searching. That's impossible now. You couldn't abandon your family to find your mate. Doing that may leave them destitute. Even if we had money to spare for me to go find my mate, I'm not sure I would go. I wouldn't even know where to start, so aimlessly wandering around in the forests was not an option. As I said before, there were no forests around my area so there was no training at all for us. No overnight camping trips when we had our first shifts. No lessons on hunting or how to catch a scent. Being in Illéa and being a Five really restricted a werewolf. I couldn't imagine being a Seven or an Eight.