Page 1 of Mated to Fenrir (Fated Mates Collection #5)

DELIA

I knocked on the front door of my best friend's new flat. Though it wasn't that new, Anise had moved in with her boyfriend about a year ago, but I'd known her living in her old place for so long that this one still felt like it was new.

She pulled open the front door and smiled at me. "Hey, Delia."

"Hey," I responded as I gave her a hug.

"Come in. The others will be here in a bit. Adelaide was supposed to be picking Chelsea up before they came here, but there was something about an escaped kangaroo. I'm not really sure."

I chuckled. "One of the dangers of working at an animal sanctuary, there's never a zero percent chance of an animal escape."

"Knowing Adelaide, it could also be that she and Horus lost track of time." Anise waved me inside, and I followed her.

"It wouldn't be the first time," I joked. Adelaide had told us of plenty of times when she and her boss had gotten a little carried away while working. They'd never put any of the animals they worked with in danger, but they did struggle to keep their hands off each other at times.

I followed Anise inside her flat, looking around and easily seeing where my friend had made her mark on the space. "Where's Kuk?"

"Out for a drink with Baal," she responded. "Which is why we've got a girls' night with no gods." She picked up a bottle of wine and held it out as a question.

I nodded. If I was going to be around my friends and all of their loved-up-ness, then I was going to need a sip or two.

"Not that I really need to send him out to get that," Anise said. "I can just tell him that I want some time with my friends and he'll go do something else. Sometimes he goes to see his sister."

"And he doesn't mind?"

She shrugged and pushed a glass of wine towards me. "What's an evening when you're immortal?"

" You're not immortal," I pointed out.

"True. But I think Kuk's hoping that I'll choose to take that path in the future."

"Will you?"

"I don't know. I mean, it's a big deal, living forever. I didn't give it much thought until I started dating Kuk. But I have to consider it, right? How could I leave someone who makes me feel like he does?"

I shrugged. "Good question."

She sat down opposite with a glass of wine of her own and let out a contented sigh. "I think I'd become immortal for him," she said. "I suppose it's a different question when there are others around who are going through the same thing."

"Have Chelsea and Adelaide talked about whether they'd take immortality?" Both of them were also dating gods, making me the only one of our group who was single and not with a deity.

"Neither of them has mentioned it. But you know how loved up they are."

"Mmm." I took a sip of my wine, trying not to feel the stab of envy over my friends' happiness. I didn't want to take it away from any of them, I just wished I'd been able to find some of it myself.

"Sorry, I know you just broke up with Todd..."

"That was six months ago," I responded. "I'm fine." It was a lie, and I could sense the protest from my inner wolf in response to it, even if she was over him and already looking for the next prospect to be my fated mate.

Anise raised an eyebrow while tapping her finger against her glass.

I sighed and swirled my glass of wine. "I think I'm going to stop looking for my mate."

Anise raised an eyebrow. "Really?" Her disbelief came through her voice. "Even after all the dating events you dragged us to?"

"You mean the ones you bailed on?" I half-joked. I didn't really mind that she'd gone to meet Kuk during one of them, especially when she was happy with him.

"I didn't bail on all of them," she protested.

I sighed. "It's not that I don't want to find my fated mate, of course I do, but it's just more complicated than that, and I'm not sure if I can keep going through all of the pain that comes with getting it wrong."

"Todd?" she guessed.

I nodded. "My wolf was convinced he was my mate." I touched my hand to my chest, feeling her stir within me at my thoughts. "She reacted so strongly to him when we met, and I thought that maybe he was it. But you know what happened there."

"Could she have been wrong?"

I sighed. "It's more complicated than that." I took a sip of my wine and tried to find the words to explain how fated mates worked for wolves.

Anise didn't prompt me, presumably realising that I was working through my thoughts in order to tell them to her.

"Fated mates isn't really a one-and-done thing. So, you could be my fated mate right now, and my wolf would be reacting to you. If you were a wolf shifter, anyway."

"Go on?" She took a sip of her wine, looking rather intently at me.

"Then we could meet again in ten years' time, and you'd no longer be my fated mate. Fate is about more than just the right person. It's about the timing too. What I need in a fated mate now, isn't what I'll need in a fated mate in ten years, or twenty."

"Doesn't that just mean you'll fall out of love with the person you're with?"

"Are you planning on falling out of love with Kuk?" I asked.

"I don't want to, no."

"Then it's exactly the same. The idea is that my mate and I would work on our relationship, and in doing so, we would stay one another's fated mate.

It's about fitting well together now and in the future.

So Todd was my fated mate when we met, which meant that he had the potential to be perfect for me, and that was why we fit so well together for the first few months.

It was only after that that things started falling apart.

It's not totally his fault, I didn't work on our relationship as much as I should have done either, and it makes it hard to have the wolves inside us insisting that something is the thing , and then it not being as simple as that. "

"It's not as simple as that for anyone else either," Anise reminded me.

"I know." I sighed and ran my hand through my hair, getting tangled in the thick waves before giving up. There really was no taming it sometimes. "Not a lot of the early mate bonds last for wolves. Everyone is too young, and they think that's all it takes, so don't put in the work they need to."

"And now that means you're not looking?"

"Yep. No more dating apps, no more parties, mixers, or anything like that. I'm going to be focusing on other things, and if my fated mate makes themselves known, then I might pursue something, but I'm not going to actively try and make it happen."

"So now isn't a good time to mention that Adelaide got us tickets to the Jinx Masquerade next weekend?"

I raised an eyebrow. "How did she manage that?"

"I think Horus is the one who got them," Anise admitted. "I'm sure Adelaide will tell us more when she gets here."

"Well, I suppose a masquerade isn't the same as trying to date," I mused.

"Excellent. Then you'll be needing a mask."

"Where are they even hosting something like that?"

"Their hotel. They have a grand ballroom or something like that."

"Ah. Then I guess we should get some dresses." Even if I wasn't looking for my mate, looking fabulous in a ballgown at an exclusive party wasn't something I was going to say no to.

"I thought you might be harder to convince."

I shrugged. "I've sworn off finding my fated mate, not off fun," I responded.

Anise smiled at me in a way that made me glad I'd said yes. Spending time with my friends would be worth it, even if it did mean heading to another event hosted by the Jinx Dating Agency.