Summary: After saving a wounded wolf bound by hunters, you free him, only to discover he’s Ace, a werewolf who has already chosen you as his mate.
— ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ — ✧ —
A hot summer night drew you outside. There were times when you walked in such moments with a dagger covered in runes and silver bullets in your bag. Like any good hunter, always ready to face the beings that hid in the shadows.
But now you were someone else. You had hung up your hunting gear because you too often asked yourself whether you were truly protecting people or just killing something that was trying to survive.
That's why you no longer hunted. You still carried a special knife hidden with you in case of an emergency, but instead, you opened a small animal shelter. And to your surprise, many supernatural beings preferred the form of an animal to a human.
It was hot, and that night you noticed smoke. The fence by the old orchard was burned, and the wood was still smouldering. And in the middle of the hole, in the dust and ash, something black was lying there.
You crouched closer. Heavy breathing, a trembling side. It looked like a wolf, although bigger than any wolf you had ever seen. Its fur was black as night, its eyes a fiery orange, like glowing embers in a fire pit.
You stopped. You knew it wasn't an ordinary wolf, but something more powerful. You approached him. The wolf raised its head. It growled, and heat escaped from its mouth, almost as if it was breathing fire. It lowered its ears, teeth bared.
"Calm down," you mumbled. "I won't hurt you." The only answer was a look.
Fierce, suspicious, and yet full of pain. His side was rising with difficulty, and there was an ugly, fresh wound on his chest. You decided to take him in until he healed. But every time you approached him, he tried to bite you.
When he tried to stand up, he collapsed back to the ground. You used the moment to throw and pull his jaws together, but only enough so you could get close to him without him tearing you apart. He howled, trying to defend himself, but his strength quickly left him.
You managed to drag him to your home, where you could take care of him and where you knew he would be safe.
"I'm sorry," you whispered, as you bent down to the wound. Heat radiated from it, burning your palms, so much so that you pulled away at the first touch.
You already knew your hands would be burned. Still, you reached out again, cleaning his wound with herbs, applying compresses, and bandaging it with enchanted bandages that were now fireproof.
The skin on your hands turned red, and blisters formed. You hissed in pain but continued. Then you noticed something hidden under his fur on his neck. A collar. Black, with engraved runes that every hunter knew. You wanted to examine it, but as soon as you touched the collar, it gave you an electric shock. You recoiled, while the wolf whimpered in pain.
In the morning, the wolf woke up. He sat nearby, watching you as you prepared breakfast.
"Don't worry. It's not poisoned." You placed a piece of meat in front of him. He looked for a long time before sniffing the food, and his hunger won. With a slow movement that revealed more than an ordinary beast, he began to eat.
Then he noticed your hands, bandaged and with reddened skin that peeked out in places. He stopped eating. He just stared at your palms. And then he turned his head away, as if overcome by remorse.
In the following days, he stayed close. He didn't stay right next to you but rather walked around the house, slept by the fence, disappeared into the forest, and came back again. But whenever you turned around, you knew he was watching you. Maybe even guarding you.
One evening, you were returning from the village. Food was waiting on the kitchen table — bread with teeth marks and a piece of meat, half-eaten. Wolf tracks led from the porch all the way inside. You smiled, amused. The wolf was already sitting in the corner, pretending to sleep. However, when you returned to the table, he opened an eye and watched you.
"Was that you?" you asked with a smile. He didn't answer, just slightly lowered his ears and looked away. You laughed lightly at that before you went to put a piece of meat and something else in his bowl.
You began to eat while he watched the food bowl. But in the end, he took a bite. And when you looked at him, you found that he had fallen asleep with his snout buried in the bowl.
"You fool," you sighed, gently lifting his head so he wouldn't suffocate. And then you noticed the collar. The metal gleamed under his fur. You couldn't help it, your fingers reached out, wanting to uncover what it was hiding.
You expected a shock, but this was too much. As soon as you touched it, the shock was more violent than before. You hissed in pain, and it knocked you to the ground.
The wolf woke up with a start. He jumped to you, his eyes wide. He was not growling at you, but at the collar. Then he lowered his head, pushing your hands away with his snout, as if begging: "Don't do it."
You sat on the ground, gasping for breath, and he pressed himself against you. His heavy body, his heat, his breath. And then he slowly licked your palms. You no longer wore bandages, but you still had visible burns.
You could feel the pain receding. The blisters were disappearing. The skin was healing. His tongue burned, and yet it healed. You looked at him in shock.
"Thank you," you whispered.
You couldn't sleep. All night, you examined books, charts, and old runes. You knew those symbols, the collars that hunters used to bind supernatural beings.
Symbols for were-creatures who lived between the worlds of humans and animals. In the morning, you told him, even though you knew he wouldn't answer.
"So you're a were," you said that morning, even though you knew he wouldn't answer. The wolf watched you intently. As if he understood every word.
You reached out your hand, slowly, deliberately. This time, you didn't touch the collar on your own, you just waited. And he lowered his head. He allowed you to and pressed his head into your hand. You scratched him behind the ears before you decided to touch the collar again.
This time, however, you were prepared and wrote protective runes on your hand. The runes on the collar glowed, the metal crackled and snapped, until it crumbled into ashes.
The glow blinded you for a moment. And when it faded, a black wolf was no longer standing in front of you. There was a man. Tall, broad-shouldered, with hair as dark as night and eyes that still burned with the same orange glow. He had a scar on his chest from the wound you had treated earlier.
He stared at you so intently that you found yourself almost holding your breath. And then his lips moved.
"Ace," he introduced himself hoarsely.
"Ace..." you repeated quietly, almost in awe. He said nothing more, but instead, he approached you, slowly, almost hesitantly.
His gaze didn't leave you. It was a look you had already known from his wolf form, the one with which he had watched you, protected you, and accompanied you. Only now it was human.
"You..." he began, and then shook his head, as if searching for the right words. "You don't know what you mean to me. But I do." He reached out, and the tips of his fingers lightly touched your face. His touch was warm, and yet it was gentle. "You are my mate."
Your heart tightened, although you weren't sure if you understood the full depth of that word. You knew that were-creatures felt that way. But from his eyes, you knew it wasn't an empty phrase. It was something more. Something you weren't going to just let go.
