Page 73 of Mated By the Alphas
I’m a little flustered, but I follow him.
We move through the dinosaur exhibits, and Wyatt brings each one to life with his words. He doesn’t just recite facts, he tells stories. About how the Triceratops had over eight hundred teeth, just for chewing plants. About how the Velociraptor was the size of a turkey and covered in feathers. Then a story about the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs and the crater in Mexico you can still see from space.
“I wish you were my tour guide the first time I came here,” I say as we pause in front of a fossilized nest with eggs. “I might have remembered more.”
“I know enough about dinosaurs to hold a conversation,” he replies, a light chuckle following his words. “But don’t get me started about books, burned libraries, or ancient scrolls. Then you’ll never get me to shut up.”
The more time I spend with Wyatt, the more I like him. I’m also getting more turned on. Aroused. I don’t have anything tosquirm on here to alleviate it and rubbing my thighs together isn’t doing much.
We’re both fighting our instincts, but he seems to have a better handle on it than I do, which is a change. His brothers seemed to struggle a lot more, and I was the one trying to keep up.
“No?” I question, wrapping my arm around his massive limb and tracing his forearm. “I bet I could find a way to distract you.”
“Careful, my lovely mate,” he cautions. “Otherwise, you’re going to get claimed right here in the museum.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I tease.
“I promised you a date,” he says, then his breath stutters as I trace the same spot on his arm. “There’s still more I want to show you.”
Wyatt doesn’t pull away, but he turns, putting a hand on mine and leading me down another hallway.
I’m used to the wolves barely being able to control themselves around me.
I might be the one who loses control first tonight.
CHAPTER 26
Ansley
The more time I spend with Wyatt, the more I imagine what my first time with him will be like.
Will he be a gentle giant, unlike his brothers? Will the same roughness surface once I’m writhing beneath him? Will it just be us, or will he take me back to the safehouse, so he can claim me with his brothers? Three hungry wolves, instead of two.
I struggle to focus on the exhibits as we finish with the dinosaurs and move into the Hall of Mammals. I don’t remember much about this part of the museum. I’m sure we walked through this it, likely with the tour guide rambling on about things while my grandparents tried to get me to pay attention.
“This is where it gets interesting. To me at least,” Wyatt rumbles, stopping in front a case displaying ancient wolf imagery. Cave paintings, carved figures, ceremonial masks. “Humans have always had a fascination with wolves, even before they started writing stories about them. Some feared them. Someworshipped them. Some… they wore their fur, trying to become them.”
“Do you think that’s where shifters come from?” I ask, studying a detailed carving of a wolf standing on its hind legs.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Some of the ancient scrolls seem to think so. That humans somehow merged with wolves and other animals,” Wyatt says. “But humans barely understand where they came from, and there were a lot fewer of our kind. Sometimes there just isn’t enough information, so people fill it in with whatever makes sense to them.”
“Then thousands of years later, people are examining their cave drawings, trying to figure out what they really meant,” I say. “Or digging up old scrolls, I suppose.”
“Or clay tablets,” he says, gesturing to one near the display that is covered in symbols. “This one is from Mesopotamia. Five thousand years old, give or take. It tells the story of a great wolf who protected a village. The villagers worshiped him like a god and said he walked amongst them in human form, when he wasn’t destroying their enemies.”
“That definitely sounds like a shifter,” I say, my eyes widening a little.
“Perhaps. Or it could just be another story, like the rest from that time period.” Wyatt shrugs. “No way to know for sure.”
“No, not unless we ever invent time travel,” I laugh.
“Exactly,” he says. “In ten thousand years, people will probably read stories from our time, wondering if they’re reality or fiction, just like we do.”
“I won’t be around to find out,” I say. “Will you? Morgan mentioned something about Hayden being a centuries old wolf.”
“We live a long time, but not that long. There are stories about wolves that lived a thousand years, and I met some that had been around for many centuries in my youth,” he says. “But Scions live a long time, too. I used to know a witch who said she was over five hundred years old. The Fae that lived deep in the forests we used to roam claimed that those of their kind with royal blood were immortal. Unfortunately, that immortality didn’t survive the Crimson Templars. Nobody truly knows how long they have.”
“True,” I admit. “Hopefully you guys don’t have to take care of me when I’m old, wrinkly and gray, and can’t remember my own name.”
