Travis POV
There she stood before me in her glowing beauty. The one I and my beast have been stalking for the past couple of months in our territory, which also includes the town and all its shops. Since I caught her scent at the market among my pack members, I decided to have the store manager keep an eye on her while I wasn't around to watch her myself.
"She's here, we must claim her now before another male tries to!" my beast growled inside me.
Normally some wolves would just give in to such a hasty decision driven by instinct without caring about how it would affect the situation if they're both wolves but since she was human, I knew I must be careful with her. Just the thought of having her so close to me, only to run away if I did such a sudden move made me realize how delicate this situation was. With only the fire illuminating our surroundings, I could only imagine how nervous she must be out here in the woods alone with a strange man appearing from the shadows.
"It's ok, I'm here to help you."
"How did you know I'm lost and needed help, were you following me?" she said looking at me with concern.
"I was out here having some alone time while lighting a fire to keep warm but since you wandered over here in the dark, I just assumed you needed some help".
She then looked away as if realizing her sudden statement must make her sound ungrateful but I knew deep down it was just the opposite. Little does she know that ever since I picked up her earlier today, I've been trailing her through the woods in my wolf form.
Initially, me and my Beta Garrett who's also my brother, were out patrolling the land when I caught her sweet scent on the breeze, and not wanting to involve him in my personal business, I sent him back to the pack village to handle things while I stayed out here keeping watch on my soon to be mate. After following her for most of the day, it was clear like most humans, she had a poor sense of direction judging by how deep she was getting into the pack territory, which didn't seem like a big deal until she got to the final hill with the pack village on the other side.
Even though she is destined to be the Luna of my pack, she was still a human that has most likely never believed in or seen a werewolf and suddenly comes across an isolated village in the middle of the wilderness with pack members walking around in human and wolf form would be too much for her to comprehend, leading to either her passing out or telling others about our existence.
Before she could get over the hill, I let out a loud warning howl from a nearby ridge that would hopefully make her stop and turn around. I guess my howl was so much of a warning to the point of Garrett's mind linking me asking if we were under attack from a rival pack. Not wanting to falsely alert the pack, I told him just to wait a couple of hours before sending out the night patrols, so a bunch of wolves coming out of the darkness wouldn't scare her to death. After that, I had to think fast about how to get her attention back in my direction, so I shifted back to human form and luckily found some clothes lying around.
Being a wolf, we're used to walking around naked in the woods with some stashes of clothes nearby. As soon as I found a shirt and pair of shorts, I quickly got a fire started, hoping she would come to it since it was dark and she was lost. I sat in the shadows hoping my plan would work and was relieved when smelled her getting closer.
As she came up and stepped into the firelight, the radiance of her cocoa brown skin and black hair was enhanced along with her youthful appearance and body. The gods have gifted me the perfect mate that one day will rule by my side as Luna of the Hagen pack and most importantly, the mother of my pups that will take over when I retire so I already knew I'd do anything to keep this woman safe and happy with me.
Another challenge I can't ignore is first, how do I let her know what I am without her freaking out and not wanting to be with me? It's pretty easy for wolf mates to introduce each other to each others wolves because that's automatically something they both have in common but when one mate is a human that's probably been told that werewolves are just fairytale creatures made up in the old ages to scare people, telling them what you are will just make you seem crazy to them. I'll just have to take things slow with her and carefully build up to that announcement but for now, my human side is all she will be seeing of me.
Being a middle-aged Alpha at 40 years old, you'd think I would have found my mate years earlier and had a family by now like most males in my pack but as the years went by, I started to lose hope of ever finding my mate and continue on my packs legacy like my father before me. Sometimes I even doubted if there was someone out there for me since it was taking so long to find them and seeing my younger brother find his mate before I found mine, just made the situation seem more hopeless than before but my wolf kept me encouraged through those hard times by reminding me that we are descendants from the most powerful and first Viking werewolf clan in all of Norway and that the gods would pair me with the woman that was made for me and she was standing right before my eyes.