Outliers

I don’t know how it is you are so familiar to me - or why it feels less like I am getting to know you and more as though I am remembering who you are. How every smile, every whisper brings me closer to the impossible conclusion that I have known you before. I have loved you before - in another time, a different place - some other existence.

- Lang Leav

By the time I had finally returned to the main house, the sun had still yet to rise. The house was awfully quiet, and I couldn’t hear a single wolf awake. On the second floor, my bedroom door remained wide open, and I could clearly see the empty bed that awaited me.

My stomach was in knots, and though I knew Thane wouldn’t be there, the disappointment was all the same. It had only been two nights that we’d slept together in the same bed, and yet the thought of returning to my bed alone seemed wrong, given the circumstances.

Not because I now knew us to be mates. The fact of the matter was that the information seemed inconsequential in relation to my feelings for him. It hadn’t been the mate bond that drew me to the powerful Alpha Male. It had been the male himself. I hadn’t needed the mate bond for my attraction towards him to spark. I had appreciated him without it.

He had known we were mates, presumably since our very first meeting, and yet he hadn’t said one word of it to me. He’d kept a respectful distance, stopped his advances when it was clear I hadn’t wanted that from him, and had to continue to train me, support me, all the same.

I needed little time to think over my next actions as I climbed the small staircase that led to the top floor of the house. Where Thane’s bedroom was situated. I was grateful for the privacy it would give us. Already, in our anger, we had revealed too much to the rest of the pack.

It would have been smart of me to allow us more time to cool off, to allow sleep to settle the ferocity of our argument. I certainly didn’t want a repeat of before. But I couldn’t wait so long. I needed to see him now, needed to talk through what had been said.

My mate.

It was an impossibility. Or so I had always believed.

Most wolves barely made it to twenty without finding their mate. I was twenty-three, soon to be turning twenty-four. And Thane… Thane was almost four-hundred years old. For what reason had it taken him so long to find a mate? For what reason had he been condemned to be alone that long?

It made no logical sense.

Yet I knew he wouldn’t lie.

I paused in front of his door. It was firmly shut, but I knew he was in there; could faintly hear his even breaths.

I hadn’t been inside his room before, hadn’t even seen it. Would I be welcome? Perhaps I should wait until morning to seek him out instead.

My fist hesitated before the wood, frozen in the air as I debated whether to knock.

Would he be angry with me?

I had left so abruptly, so unwilling to listen to him. Would he want to listen to anything I had to say? Was he now furious that I had left him behind amidst a conversation so important?

But had I stayed, I knew my frustrations would have only grown until I spoke too abruptly and without thought, more so than I already had. And the panic, the anxiety I had felt - whether leaving had been the right thing to do or not, it had certainly been what I needed. So I couldn’t allow myself to feel guilty.

I entered the room without knocking, my steps hesitant as my eyes searched for him in the darkness.

His bed was bigger than mine, built for his larger frame, and through the darkness I saw his bare back, the grey bedsheets collected around his slim waist and his head buried in his pillow. He didn’t move, didn’t notice my presence in the room.

My breath quickened and my hands were clammy, clenched into fists at my side as I approached him. When I came to a stop at his bedside, to my surprise, I found him awake. Waiting for me.

His dark eyes met mine, and for a moment it felt as if I couldn’t breathe. He said nothing as he pulled back the sheets, inviting me into his bed. I didn’t hesitate to remove my clothes, until I was only in my underwear, and accepted his invitation to lie with him.

He didn’t embrace me in his arms like usual, didn’t even move an inch towards me. I understood his actions for what they were - not a sign of a new found disinterest in me - but an understanding and respect of the distance I needed in this moment.

“I didn’t think you were still waiting for your mate,” I whispered. I thought you were like the rest of your pack; grieving for a mate you had lost.

“Every day.” His voice was deep, thick with sleep as if I had indeed awoken him with my return, but he didn’t seem annoyed.

I truly hated how earnest he sounded.

“You can’t just say things like that,” I breathed, all too aware of the way my chest ached at his words. “How the hell am I meant to stay mad at you?”

Because I was mad. No matter how much I wished for any tension between us to disappear, no matter how much I wished for things between us to be as they were, I was mad at him. I resented the decision to keep such important information from me. It wasn’t a good feeling, to know he had kept me in the dark. And for him to lose control like that, to reveal the truth of our relationship so abruptly, while I had been at my most vulnerable.

“Ideally, you’re not going to stay mad.”

I rolled my eyes, “Ideally we would have talked about this much earlier.” There was a definite bite to my words, but he didn’t react. After a pause, I couldn’t help but ask in a much softer, hesitant tone, “Are you sure I’m your mate?”

“Yes.” There was no ounce of questioning in his tone.

My eyes clenched shut, and I sighed deeply.

“I don’t feel anything - anything that mates are meant to feel I mean,” I confessed. There were many symptoms of a mate bond, I had heard them time and time again from my old pack mates and from my sister. The most apparent was the all-consuming pull one felt towards their mate from the very beginning. Like a magnet drawing you to one another. It was almost impossible to resist. But I hadn’t felt that with Thane.

“It’s likely why you don’t feel the need to submit to Alpha’s.” Because I am one. Though he didn’t say it, I knew that was what he meant. I was an Alpha wolf by birth. I had been born destined to stand beside this Alpha Male before me.

“That’s because I don’t have a wolf,” I excused, voice beginning to tremble as the full gravity of the situation unfolded. An Alpha Female. Not a freak, not an outcast, not a useless mongrel. An Alpha Female.

“Plenty of humans experience the Alpha command.”

I felt stupid as the first tear escaped, rolling across my cheek and seeping into one of Thane’s pillows.

His hand reach towards me, but came to a stop in the space between us. His fingers clenched into a fist, and his thick eyebrows pulled together into a frown.

“Can I…” he released a wavering breath. “Can I hold you?”

I only nodded, not quite trusting my voice.

Thane’s relief was clear as I noted a tension in his body easing. He shifted closer to me and wrapped me in his arms, half pulling my body to rest against him. I pressed my face to his bare chest, eyes clenched as I breathed him in and sought the pleasure of his warmth. A tension I hadn’t even known was present in me, released. I melted into his embrace.

Here - in his arms and in his bedsheets, completely and utterly surrounded by his scent - I felt any fears from our earlier argument dissipate. It was clear he was not furious with me for walking away, as my anxiety had convinced me. For he still wanted me here, he still wished to hold me.

“You were never at any of the annual mating rotations,” I murmured against his skin.

“I’m almost 400 years old. I wasn’t holding out much hope.”

No, I supposed not. I was twenty-one when I stopped attending the mating rotations. Only one year older than the usual age a wolf still searched for their mate and I had given up. But four hundred years…

“Why’d you keep yourself away for so long? It had been weeks until I had any idea of your interest towards me.”

“Would you have welcomed my advances had I pursued you immediately?” His voice was soft against my ears. I could feel the vibrations of his words rumble through his chest, and allowed the intoxicating tone of his familiar voice to surround me.

“No,” I answered honestly. A hand delved into my hair and cupped the back of my head. I felt his lips press to the crown of my head.

“Exactly. I was under the impression that you and Alpha Athen were together. I had been surprised when he announced your transferral. But even then, you didn’t seem affected by me at all.”

“You were my soon to be Alpha, and I didn’t want anything to ruin that. I hadn’t known, had no suspicions at all, and I’m not used to a pack where such casual relationships are allowed or welcomed. I’d spent years placing distance between Jack and I, and then you came along, and I felt I was doomed to repeat it all. So I stayed away, determined to keep the distance between us; both physically and emotionally.”

“And now that you know… now that you know we’re mates?”

I sighed, not entirely sure how to voice my frustrations. Pressing myself into him more, my hands clenched to fists against his skin. “You knew this whole time?”

“Since I first saw you in Idaho.”

I remembered his fierce gaze all too well. Remembered our stunted conversations, and the fear I had felt with every interaction - desperate to please him so that I would be allowed to join his pack. Never would I have guessed that he had in fact been struggling with the weight of a mate bond.

“I thought you hated me. I thought for sure you had rejected my transfer. You didn’t give any indication.”

“I didn’t know how to act,” he confessed. “It was such a shock, I hadn’t ever expected it. And when you didn’t react, when I saw how close you were to Athen… I assumed you had known but didn’t want me. That you had chosen the young Alpha instead. And then your transfer request was announced, and I wasn’t sure what to think.”

“I wouldn’t have been so cruel. To reject you like that.” My voice caught, revealing the magnitude of emotions that forced more tears to my eyes. “I truly hadn’t known.”

“I know that now.”

“You never suspected before now?”

He sighed, and I felt my stomach clench at the small sound.

“Not until you were officiated into the pack. My instincts, my urges were wild, clawing at me to mark you. I nearly lost control when we exchanged blood and the pack bond was completed. But you seemed so composed. That was the first time I suspected you didn’t feel the connection to me at all.”

Composed yes, but I had not felt unconnected to the Alpha Male. His very soul had called to me that night, under the moon’s sacred light. Even now, the memory still lay fresh in my mind. That was the first and only night I had truly felt his power. I had basked in it, consumed its strength. At the time I had questioned whether all wolves felt that same, staggering connection during officiation. Now I was almost certain they didn’t. Had that been the mate bond, however brief, calling out to me?

Was that how Thane felt at all times in my presence?

I knew it wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t be blamed for my nature, and I wouldn’t apologise for such. But still my heart ached at the thought of him struggling with this truth alone.

I understood why he kept it from me now, I did. But it didn’t remove the sting I felt to have been kept in the dark. And then to find out so suddenly, and to know he had known for so long.

Embarrassed is how I had felt in that heated moment. Stupid.

What wolf was I if I couldn’t recognise my own mate?

Now those shattering emotions had subdued slightly, but they did not disappear altogether. There was still a lingering sense of shame, and a feeling of inadequacy.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Once things between us… developed,” I asked meekly, finding myself afraid of the answer.

“You were still so hesitant to be with me. And -” He cut off, pulling back from me just enough that our eyes could meet. “And I was afraid.”

“Afraid?” I whispered, the word so quiet they were almost silent on my lips.

“Afraid that you would pull away from me altogether.”

That’s exactly what I had done.

“I’m sorry.” Not because I hadn’t recognised him as my mate, not because of how the reveal had made me feel, not even for how I had reacted; I was sorry I had hurt him, that I had confirmed his worst fears, if only for a few hours.

“You do not have to apologise,” he uttered fiercely, cupping my face between his large hands. “I understand this might be difficult for you. I shouldn’t have kept it from you so long and this wasn’t at all how I had envisioned telling you. I’m the one who is sorry.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, drawing myself even closer. “Thank you.”

Our faces were level now. Thumbs grazed gently against my cheek, and a small sigh of satisfaction parted my lips. His head tilted towards me, his wide mouth brushing delicately against my own before pulling back. But I needed more, I craved the comfort his affection could provide me, and I didn’t hesitate to return his kiss with more confidence.

“Can I stay here tonight?” I asked against his lips. I felt his grin.

“You can stay here every night.”