I didn’t know if she was human, Lycan, vampire, or some other supernatural creature. I didn’t even know if she was born yet, or had passed.
I stilled and brought a hand to my beating heart, rubbing my chest as a sudden onset of pain slammed into me at the thought I’d lost her before I even found her.
No, I didn’t let those thoughts consume me. I wouldn’t. I’d forever search for her. I’d forever stay positive that she was out there and I’d find her.
I stayed in my human form as I stalked the forest, my inner Lycan moving within me. The wolf tattoo that covered my entire back shifted along my skin, moved as the beast paced underneath. I didn’t shift very often anymore, didn’t allow the feral creature I housed to run wild. He was hard enough to control within me while I was a human, let alone when he had free reign of his surroundings.
And because he was snapping and snarling for our mate, it made him even more dangerous, destroying anything in his path. He was known to take our hundred-year-old oaks that stood in his way.
I curled my claws inward, the sharp points stabbing into my palms, drawing blood. Even though I was in my human form, I was still fearsome at a towering six-foot eight height, and three hundred pounds of solid muscle. But in my shifted Lycan form?
Nothing could match my strength and brutality.
My animal was front and center, moving right under the surface and showing itself. I knew my amber-colored eyes while I was a human changed to a glowing blue as he made himself known, trying to dominate.
Not today, you impatient bastard.
But still, the motherfucker pushed forward.
Fingernails as claws.
My body starting to become even taller, muscles becoming more pronounced with the need to shift.
Night vision perfect.
Canines unsheathing and descending.
Hearing and smelling even more accurate than any night predator.
I was the predator to predators.
I made my way closer to the village, finding myself drawn to the little Romanian town tonight for some reason.
The trees started to thin the closer I got, before opening up and showing Dobravina. I stood there and watched the villagers converse, shop, none of them having this eternal hole in their very being because they were missing the most important thing in the world to them.
Their other half. Their mate. The one person born to be theirs and theirs alone.
It made me jealous and angry, bitter and resentful. Humans may be one of the weakest species in the grand scheme of things, and I may be superior in strength, intelligence, and being a cunning hunter, but they had the only thing I wanted—love.
I wanted the love of my Linked Mate.
I tipped my head back and looked through the break in the trees at the sky. The full moon was coming, and it was coming fast. And when it did, I’d have no control over myself. Only my mate could ever calm me, could ever control the beast within me. It was her and her alone that held that power.
And for every full moon, the creature inside of me ripped and snarled, clawed its way out. And once it passed, once I was back in my human form and saw the destruction my Lycan wrought, that hole in my soul magnified all over again, and I yearned for my female even more.
I glanced at the village again, narrowing my eyes and getting even more pissed.
My Lycan snapped and growled, causing my human jealousy to grow tenfold as his rose as well. The tattoo on my back shifted and moved across the flesh, rising up slightly. I knew to the naked eye it would seem three dimensional. But my Lycan was pissed, as if he was telling me this was bullshit.
It was. It so fucking is.
3
Mikalina
Two weeks later
I felt like I’d lived a thousand lives in the last fourteen days. It was crazy and wild, unexpected and such a learning experience that for the hundredth time since deciding to take this trip, I didn’t regret it for one minute.
With my sightseeing behind me, I was finally in Romania, having taken a small aircraft to the tiniest airport I’d ever seen. Now, I was crammed into the smallest car known to man and going down an uneven and bumpy road, excited about the prospect of what this new journey held for me.
I couldn’t even describe the feeling that churned in me as I was taken closer to the little Romanian town of Dobravina. I’d never been there before, would have never even known about its existence if I hadn’t decided to do this trip. But as I looked at the map, I swore something pulled me toward it, telling me that was where I’d finally find my peace.
I reached out and braced my hand on the handle of the door to steady myself, and had one foot pressed down hard on the floorboard in an attempt to not roll around the interior of the tiny tin-can-sized car.