The Snow Wolf's Mate

A Wolf’s Restraint:

[POV: Hayden]

I stood on the balcony just above the courtyard, a glass of untouched whiskey in my hand, watching the flicker of lanterns sway in the night breeze.

Aria still stood near the fire, her silver-blonde hair catching the warm light, her laughter soft but sincere.

I turned away, jaw tight.

“Stop it.” But I didn’t need to say it aloud. Sirius was already there.

“Go to her,” my wolf snarled in my head. “Enough pretending. Enough restraint. She’s ours. Yoka is waiting.”

“Shut up,” I muttered under my breath, gripping the railing harder than necessary.

“She wants us,” Sirius growled again, insistent and heated. “Did you feel her when we ran? Did you feel her when she shifted for the first time? That bond, Hayden—it’s real.”

“It’s just a heat,” I hissed, low and furious. “Nothing more.”

But even I didn’t believe it. The pull hadn’t started with tonight.

It had begun the night she’d transformed. When I held her shaking, broken body in my arms and felt her change in my hands—when her bones cracked and reshaped and she rose, not as the scared girl who arrived at my borders, but as something new.

Whole. Wild. Herself.

That night, something inside me shifted, too.

A door I’d long since locked—barred and buried—had cracked open. And through it had come a wave of feeling I hadn’t allowed myself in years. It had all come rushing back, wild and sharp and dangerous.

Desire. Yearning. Want.

And beneath it… something worse. Hope.

I took a long, slow breath, trying to steady myself, but Sirius didn’t let up.

“She’s your mate,” he whispered now, not snarling. “Can’t you feel it? I do. I’ve known since the first time you laid eyes on her. Yoka is mine. Aria is yours.”

“No,” I snapped, stepping away from the railing. The glass in my hand cracked slightly, spiderwebbing at the stem.

“You don’t get to say that,” I growled.

My voice echoed faintly in the silence of the stone hall behind me, but it wasn’t enough to silence the storm inside.

“She can’t be my mate. I had one. Annabeth was mine. The Moon Goddess doesn’t just give you another when she takes the first away.”

Sirius was silent for a beat, then murmured darkly, “Maybe she didn’t take her. Maybe fate did.”

I clenched my jaw so tight it ached.

Annabeth’s name was a blade. Even after all these years, the sound of it in my mind cut deeper than anything. She’d been my first, my only. My future. And then… she was gone.

I had buried her with my heart. And I’d told myself there would be no second.

That wolves like me didn’t get second chances.

And yet… Aria.

Every time I was near her, I felt like something ancient was stirring inside me. Not lust. Not want.

Something older. Deeper. Recognition.

Sirius howled again in my chest, low and guttural, full of longing. It made my skin feel tight, like I was about to shift even though my body stayed still.

I let out a harsh breath, running a hand through my hair.

“It’s just a heat,” I said aloud again, this time like I was trying to convince myself. “That’s all this is. The cycle’s coming fast, and she’s new, and I’m responding. It’ll pass. It always passes.”

But Sirius didn’t respond with a snarl this time. He didn’t push or fight. He simply went quiet—and that scared me more than his growling. Because in that silence, I could hear what he wasn’t saying.

This won’t pass. Not this time.

My fingers still tingled from earlier that day—when I’d placed the pack mark on her chest. My palm had rested just above her heart. I’d felt it beat beneath my skin like a drum. And I had wanted…

Goddess, I had wanted.

To lean in. To brush away her tear. To kiss her.

The thought alone burned, and I cursed under my breath, tossing the cracked glass onto the stone floor. It shattered, sharp and precise, echoing like thunder.

I couldn’t want her. I couldn’t need her.

Because if I gave in to that—if I accepted the bond Sirius swore existed—I didn’t know who I’d be anymore. And worse, I didn’t know if I’d survive losing her, too.

So I would stay here. I would hold the line. I would be Alpha before anything else.

Let Sirius want. Let my blood burn.

I would not let her become my weakness.