ONE LOVE STORY TOO MANY

"I can't take you anywhere, can I?" Bell sighed.

I had no idea what he was eluding to, so I could only blink stupidly at his handsome face.

He was really hot when he was mad too. Hahahaha.

{Mate! ❤️ }

I swear I was thinking "hahahaha", out loud it came out more like a "giggle giggle".

Wow, I gave myself a mental slap, and then a mental kick when that didn't work. I must be getting delirious from overexposure to Mate.

Mate smirked. Now he was going to think I was into him! Somebody just kill me now!

Okay, I have a theory that the accidental kiss had caused the mating bands to malfunction. I mean, if the diadem could malfunction, I'm sure mating bands or any magical apparatus could too.

And now the mating bond had taken over and I would soon be nothing more than a mindless love-struck she-wolf. Because, you know, these things happened a lot.

I've heard at least a million stories...they called them love stories, but they all sounded like horror stories where perfectly intelligent girls met their mates and pretty much lost their minds.

Esther (her real name) knew Hank (also his real name) all her life. Even though he was a year older, they were born in the same pack and went to school at New Leaf kindergarten... They were even in the same Lycan Study Group! They were never terribly close those.

"We just didn't have any common topics." Esther explained.

Hank was the hunk of their gen and had warrior potential stamped all over him since he was a pup. Esther was relatively quieter and enjoyed being at home. For the longest time, she wanted to be an artist.

Okay, she had to admit though, she started to notice how handsome Hank was when they were Highschool, but so did all the other girls and Esther didn't have any delusions of her own looks or popularity.

"But you're beautiful, Esther!" I interrupted to point out. I couldn't understand how she could not have known.

"Shhh..." Jessica scolded, "Sam! Let her tell her story."

Jessica loved love stories. (I was just listening because I was chomping down good muffins and the conversation happened.)

"Go on, Esther." Dean urged, "So when did you know he was THE ONE?"

Dean cast me a sideways glance. What? Okay, fine! I won't interrupt!

Anyway, they were so not-close that when Esther's 18th birthday rolled around, Hank wasn't even on the guest list!

So the next day, Esther went to school as usual.

"Yeah, urghhh... Don't you just hate it when the day after your birthday is a school day?" I mean, been there, done that...

"Sam!!!!" Jessica and Dean whined.

I shut up and ate more muffins.

Anyway, Esther went to school as usual, but as the day went on, her wolf became unusually restless even though it was just a very usual day.

She figured a run might do her good. Esther didn't usually like outdoor stuff, but running in her wolf was the exception. Maybe she just needed a run.

She headed straight home after school, intending to drop off her school bag and do just that.

As she approached her home, she smelled the most amazing scent. It was like... she couldn't describe it, but her wolf immediately surfaced.

The other thing that was weird was the grey car on her driveway and her Dad's truck. It was the middle of the afternoon, so there usually wasn't anyone at home.

She carefully turned the knob of her front door and slipped in.

"Oh, there's our Essie!" Her mum smiled the moment she poked her head in, "Look who's here to visit."

It was Hank... And his best friend Flynn... But Esther only saw Hank. More like she smelled him - that gorgeous smell was Hank? The two guys had started their first year at Gate City University and were usually at their college dorms now, so Esther hadn't seen them around for a while now. Did Hank always smell that good?

And then...

"It's his deodorant." I said, "Drew and Shannon and sometimes Link use the same one."

"Sam!!!!" My friends complained loudly.

Okay! Fine! I was just about to explain how the guys used deodorant sometimes - so it could be confusing if you relied too much on scent to identify them.

I ended up calling Shannon "Drew" quite a few times by mistake when he first joined our gang. Yes, even though they were half a head height apart, and had different colored hair and clothes...

And sometimes the guys would share their deodorant. Like if one of them forgot to bring his. Gross, I know... But guys were like that.

So it was important to recognize common deodorants and other wearable fragrances - so you wouldn't confuse each wolf's signature scent from their soaps, shampoos, lotions, or cologne - this was particularly tricky with ladies, but I was proud that I've since learned the fine art of picking out the chemical enhancements to register the wolf's true scent.

Unless the wolf's natural scent smelled exactly like some kind of chemical enhancement. Like Ki who smelled like expensive cologne. In Ki's case, I'd admit, it took me a while to figure out which part of his smell was "Ginger and White Tea" and which part was Ki. It was complicated, and I only managed because I knew what his personal toiletries smelled like... It's not cheating. It was reverse engineering.

"Oh!" Breathed Jessica, "That was so romantic!"

She was referring to whatever Esther said though, not my highly refined method of isolating and determining a wolf's identifying scent - which until today remained completely unappreciated by my gang.

Anyway, you didn't miss anything much, but just in case you had to know... It turned out that Hank had known Esther was his soul mate from the time he had turned 18 a year ago. BUT he didn't know how to tell her. He didn't want to scare the soft-spoken and gentle Esther.

That's the other thing with this mating bond thing. For some reason, the guys would always have this warped perception of their mates - like suddenly she would transform from that girl you've been running with all your life to the most beautiful, delicate, and fragile precious thing that had ever set foot on this earth. Which would eventually turn them into overprotective bozos, BUT she wouldn't realize it at the beginning.

Nope, the beginning would always be starry-eyed and mush-brained and sappy-hearted and hormonally charged affairs. Which I had sworn I would NEVER become, but this was Esther's story right? So anyway, jump cut through all that crazy mushy bits where in between Esther did get scared of how fast things were going and tried to run away to give herself some space but she nearly got kidnapped by rogues, was saved by Hank (and Flynn... but he would forever be supporting actor in Esther's stories. You'd need to hear Macy's story for him to get cast as Leading Male) and Esther would discover that her soul mate loved baked treats, which would catapult her into the baking world and we all lived happily ever after.

Because you know, now we had Esther in our Packhouse kitchen baking sweet treats and making edible art instead of actual art that could only be looked upon.

"Sam..." Jessica groaned, "That wasn't the point."

How could that not be the point? Imagine, if Esther's soul mate turned out to be anyone else? She might still be painting pretty (inedible) pictures! Or worse, what if her soul mate was someone like Flynn? Flynn didn't even like sweets. They had a lot of double dates at new cafes mainly so that everyone could try the baked treats while Flynn sipped on fancy coffee. Omo She might have ended up as a barista!

"Esther. You and Hank were a match made in heaven." I decided.

Esther laughed, "That's a funny way of saying it Sam."

I guess "match made in heaven" was a human phrase. But what I meant to say was that they were a match that MADE HEAVEN... Like double chocolate chip muffin and red velvet cupcakes and strawberry cheesecake heaven that our kitchen now served occasionally.

"Sam, they're soul mates." Jessica sighed like that should explain everything, and then she sighed wistfully, "I wonder if I'd ever meet my soul mate one day."

"Of course you will." Esther reassured the younger girl at once.

"Me too." Dean said, he looked at me, "Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out to be someone you knew all your life?"

No way. I grinned, "Any guy who'd wanna be my soul mate will have to out-run me!"

"But that's impossible!" Dean exclaimed, and I felt quite proud of myself. It's true. I was a very fast runner. (At the time, Jonah and Drew were still lagging behind me.)

"Sam, it doesn't work that way!" Jessica corrected me firmly, "Your soul mate is bound to you by destiny!"

Then let's hope he ran fast, because I was going to speed run to my destiny!

I was never the kind of wolf who had time to stop and smell the roses or all that mushy stuff I left out from Esther's story. (Details, details... All the mush were all iterations of all the other mushes.) Wolf love stories were somewhat like Lycan legends... The more of them you hear, the more they sound alike.

This brings me back to where I was right now, in Bell's treasure vault, straddling his legs and looking straight at him like the rest of the world had just stopped and disappeared, and for some reason, I couldn't care less because he was right in front of me.

Come to think of it, it was entirely plausible that I was the one malfunctioning. Maybe Bell did knock me off my feet a tad too hard. I suppose it would be the reiteration of being swept off your feet by your mate. I was literally ambushed and tackled down.

And instead of getting mad and socking him one, I was currently drowning in his eyes. Did I tell you that Bell had the most beautiful eyes? And those lashes were nothing short of dramatic. Why would a guy need that length of lashes?

Yes, I'm ashamed to admit this, but my brain had just turned into mush. Looking back, it was so obvious - I was an embarrassing sap. But at the moment, I had no self-awareness, I wasn't even quite processing the situation. For example, I could hear the words coming out of his mouth, but for the life of me, I couldn't understand the meaning.

"Whatever possessed you, princess?" Bell was asking me something, I was pretty sure he was speaking in English too. I blinked again.

He had the sexiest mouth though.

And in all the love stories I've heard, I knew what was about to happen next.

THE FIRST KISS.

Wait, didn't we just do that? Although it might have been an accident, and technically not the first, first kiss.

Okay, it was either the kiss or something dark and terrible emerging from the shadows.

"Princess?" Now Bell was frowning, "Are you alright?"

He placed a hand lightly on my forehead - it was very much like how Ki checked on me when I was kind of out of it - as in out of my body. I shook my head to push his hand away, "I'm okay."

It was a reflex response. This was the moment I realized two things about myself. One, I become brain-dead when my Mate was right in front of my face. And Two, my reflex answer to "Are you alright?" was "I'm okay." So, say I'm dying right? If you took my answer as truth, I'll be dead.

"Where the hell were you running to?" Bell was beginning to run out of patience.

"To the end... of this... of this..." I looked around us, there weren't even pillars and arches or anything now. It looked like we were in an underground desert of gold, speckled liberally with random other treasure.

I suddenly understood what Lucky Charm cereal was trying to look like.

"Whatever this place is... where are we?"

For some reason, I'm asking this question a lot in this dream.

"This is my treasure vault," Bell told me as a matter of fact. I nodded dumbly. I mean, at this point, if Bell said this was his cereal box, I would have also nodded. I think my sense of reality short-circuited quite a while ago.

I blamed the kiss.

This kiss, this kiss... That I was not going to think about because it was just an accident. While not thinking about it, I suddenly noticed Bell's face closing into mine. And then I stupidly lifted my face to see better and accidentally kissed him again.

Apparently, the once bitten twice shy adage did not apply..

His lips started surprisingly soft, but that was only a trick because the moment our lips pressed together, he tilted his head and -

I forgot to breathe.

I think... these accidents were getting a little out of hand.