Chapter 29- Rika – My Wolf (VOLUME 1)

*~*Rika's POV*~*

This was a bad idea though. The moment that I was in the hall, closer to the stairs and elevator to leave, that scent was stronger. Was this a person that I was smelling? Was this their scent? And if so, why was it affecting me so much?

I ran. That was all that I could do. I ran and ran until I was in the corridor, then down in the atrium, then out into the open driveway. Several people called after me, Reagan included, but I ignored them all. Even when Reagan called after me, I ignored him. And when he called me mentally, I told him to leave me alone.

'Rika, what's wrong with you?'

'Leave me alone, Reagan, now is not the time.' My tone, even mentally, was short and snappy. I didn't want to deal with him, I couldn't deal with him. Not at the moment anyway.

'Should I come and help you?' He asked, the brotherly concern deep in his voice.

'No. I need to do this on my own. I will talk to you later, when I have calmed down.'

I just kept running after that. I knew that the hunting party was going out into the woods tonight, but I was heading away from them. I was heading out toward the city's lands, not our lands. I just needed to be away from the pack and those that might have something to say to me. I needed to be alone, because if what I thought was about to happen actually did happen, then I didn't want to hurt anyone. Especially people that I cared about.

While I was running, I kept repeating a word in my head. The same word over and over again.

"Mate! Mate! Mate! Mate!" I thought at first that it was me saying it, but it wasn't my voice, not exactly. It was close to my voice, but not a perfect match.

"Is that you?" I asked myself as I ran deep into the forest. I wasn't going to be able to hold out for much longer. "Is that really you?" I sobbed in relief at the thought of my wolf being back with me again.

"Mate! Mate! Mate! Mate!" She said again, her panting need and desire almost overwhelming at that moment.

"Calm down." I told her.

"Mate! Mate! Mate! Mate!" She screamed again. She wasn't listening to me, and in the next moment, I lost control.

My shift was explosive. It happened so fast that I didn't see it coming. And I had still been running as I changed forms. I went from running on two feet to running on all fours.

"I..I..I shifted!" I exclaimed to the empty forest around me. "I shifted." The tears were streaking down my cheeks, dampening my fur. "You're back. You didn't leave me after all."

"I smelled our mate." My wolf said, using my mouth as she did so. Well, she was my wolf, so I guess that it was her mouth.

"Who is it? Where were they? And why did I smell them in a room of mated females?" I was so confused.

"They were there, they just didn't come in. He was there though, and I want to find him. Track him down, right this instant."

"No." I stopped and stood my ground. "I need some answers from you, wolf. You have some explaining to do."

"I want to find him. Go find our mate." She ordered me, but I wasn't listening to her. Now that I had my wolf back, I had my confidence back as well. And what was she going to do, hurt me? She was me for crying out loud.

"Why did you leave me? Where were you? How come I could not shift?"

"Because you were stupid and immature. You told our mate to leave and he did. Now he is back and you need to find him."

"I didn't tell my mate to leave. This is the first time that I have ever smelled him."

"It is the first time that you have recognized that you smelled him. I noticed it before, but you weren't ready for him yet."

"What?!" I screamed at her, which meant that I was screaming to myself in the empty forest. "When did I meet him? And when did I tell him to go away? I have never told anyone to go away. If I would have met my mate, then I would have known about it."

"No, I told you, you were too immature. I didn't let you bond with him. He bonded with you though, and you made him leave."

"What are you talking about?" I was getting exasperated now. "I don't understand what is going on here. How did you stop me from recognizing him?"

"It is me that would recognize him, not you. And without me, you have no access to your shifting and other abilities."

"I know that." I sighed. "Now why did you leave me? And why did you hide him from me? Who is he?"

"I don't know people like you do. I know smells." She seemed to be putting in my head. "He was there a lot then he wasn't. You told him to leave because you were mad at him, and he listened to you. Now he is back, and I don't want to wait anymore."

"Does that mean that you think that I am ready for my mate now? That I am not too immature now?"

"You have grown a lot since he was last here. I think that you are ready. If you need to mature more, you can do it with him. I missed his smell. I had to hide from you when he was here so that I could smell him without you knowing. Then I hid from you because you made him leave. I didn't like that you made him so sad."

My wolf was scolding me because of something that I didn't remember doing. Who was it that I was supposed to have told to go away? I don't remember telling a man to leave. I had never said that to anyone.

Or had I?

The more that I thought about it, I thought I knew who she was talking about. There were only two people that I had told to leave me alone. One was Clovio, and I knew that he wasn't my mate. The other was someone that left around the same time that Clovio did, probably the same time that he did.

"A..are you talking about Westin? My old guard? I..is that who you were talking about? Is he my mate?"

I was in utter shock at this development. This couldn't possibly be happening. How, in all of this world, was he my mate? He was older than me, not that it mattered with immortality and all that, but he was also my guard. How could I have not known that it was him? He was there with me every day. Not always right there in the front, but he was still there.

How could I have seen him almost every day of my life for a year after my eighteenth birthday and not known that he was my mate?

"Why did you do that to me?" I yelled at my wolf. "How could you hide him from me? What kind of wolf are you? Why would you intentionally hide your mate from the human part of you?"

"I told you already." She seemed to sigh at me. "You were so immature at the time, and I didn't think that he deserved that from us. You needed to grow up, but then you started to date that human. And in doing so, you pushed him away from you. Then, when he came to try and comfort us, you told him to leave. You broke his heart. I could feel it, having that connection with the beast inside of him. I felt it and it made me hurt as well."

"So, instead of talking to me like this, you decided to pull away from me and make it so that I couldn't shift. You decided to make it so that I thought that I was losing my wolf altogether and that I was turning into a human? You're horrible, you know that? You are utterly horrible."

"I did what I needed to do for our own good, and for the good of our mate. Now that he is back though, I want him. I do not want to wait anymore. Will you accept him now, Rika?"

"I..I..I think so." I didn't know what else to say. I had an idea of who it was that my wolf was talking about, but I didn't know for sure and that made it hard to give a proper answer.

"Rika?" I heard a voice call out to me. It was vaguely familiar to me, and one that I hadn't heard in a long time. "Rika, are you alright?"