Chapter 1
Cassie
Twenty-eight years later
Cassandra Wolfe sent an email to her boss with a reminder that she was going to be out for two-weeks. She had fulfilled the art restoration on the Artemisia Gentileschi painting she had been tasked with and now it was time for the pay-off in the form of two weeks where she and her best friend Evangeline could run wild and free without a care in the world. Cassie would handle the running wild and her inner wolf, Eva would handle the running free part.
“Are you ready for two-weeks of non-committed sex, eating like a glutton and sleeping until noon, Miss Eva?” Cassie mentally asked.
“Just stick to our agreement, Cassie.” Eva communicated telepathically. “You do remember our agreement, right?”
“Yeah, yeah… if, and that is a big if, we meet our mate along this trip, I give up my life in civilization to go live in a supposed wolfpack Utopia that you keep insisting exists.” She reminded with a mocking tone.
“It’s not fantasy, Cassie. It’s real.”
Cassie sucked her teeth. “As if you would know,” she removed her smock and released her hair from the bun she sloppily secured atop her head with a pencil. “You’ve been a part of me for almost ten years now and neither of us has yet to experience the existence of another being like us, let alone a whole colony. How would you even know that these alleged packs are real?”
“Moon Goddess has told me so.” Eva responded confidently.
Cassie grabbed her purse and turned the lights off in her museum workstation. “Eva, old gal, the Moon Goddess is as much a fairy tale as these stories you spin about mates and wolfpacks and Alpha’s and Beta’s. Admit it. We are a freak of nature.” Her heels clacked on the shiny floor within the halls as she walked out.
Cassie accepted long ago that she was different than most people. For one, she was an orphan, raised by her aunt on her mother’s side. Two, when she hit puberty, nature gifted her with a mild form of insanity byway of the voice she heard in her head, her loving Evangeline. Three to eternity: At eighteen, she found herself morphing into a wolf.
An actual, freaking wolf.
That first morph hurt like a mother-effer, and shifting back to human form only to find herself completely naked out in public was no picnic either; eventually, Cassie came to find the positive side to this: she could eat like a hobbit all day and come the dark of the night, she allowed Eva to handle the exercise portion to burn off the extra calories.
Thanks to their freakish existence, her human body was lean and toned with little-to-no effort. Too bad she couldn’t make a pill for this- she’d never want for anything in the world again.
Cassie made her way to the museum wing’s exit. “Looks like rain. Do you want to go for a run tonight?”
“Not tonight,” Eva told her. “Let’s go home and rest. I want to be on the road by 4 AM. You know how crazy Los Angeles traffic can get during the week.”
Cassie nodded. Although she was thrilled at knowing she wouldn’t have to be publicly nude in the cold, she grew weary at the thought of being up before the sun.
After grabbing a quick dinner from the local sandwich shop, Cassie fulfilled the bedtime routine and jumped into bed. “Eva, I know it’s important to get as much sleep as I can tonight but it’s barely 9 PM. I don’t see how I’m going to fall asleep.”
“Shhhh,” Eva responded calmly. “Just try to relax.”
One would think the Moon Goddess got personalities switched around since Cassie was usually impatient and hungry and Eva was the calming and reasonable force to their united being.
“Eva, be a love and tell me a bedtime story, please.”
“The only one I’m in the mood to share is the one you think is utter nonsense.”
Cassie smiled. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” she settled into her pillow and exhaled deeply. “You may begin.”
She felt Eva’s sense of undeniable triumph. The two always argued about the existence of a human/wolf world. Cassie always poo-pooed the idea to the point Eva became defensive about it. Truth was Eva’s voice always relaxed Cassie. Eva was her sister, her best friend, her guiding light; her everything in their lonely existence, really.
Cassie closed her eyes and listened to Eva’s words, knowing she would only listen to a few lines of nonsense before sleep claimed her.
Eva began, “We are the children of Moon Goddess for she planned our existence with a purpose in mind. We begin with her and our destinies manifest with the help of the three Moirai. It is they who make sure our paths cross with our mate and together, we help fulfill the intentions of Moon Goddess to help bring good to our future pack.”
Cassie listened with her eyes closed.
“The day will come when we smell an Earthly scent that will be like an aphrodisiac to us- it will consume us. We will lock eyes with our mate and feel his embrace before he even touches us. We will be complete.”
‘Hmmm… great wish list,’ Cassie thought.
“I heard that.” Eva grumbled.
What Eva had tried very hard to keep to herself for more than a month now was that she had heard the calling of Moon Goddess and felt the pulling of the Fates.
After all these years, their mate was finally on the horizon.