Ice Claimed by Marisa Chenery

never, ever hurt you. You
mean more to me than life itself. You are my mate.”
    “Okay,” she said in a trembling voice.
    “I guess it’s best if I do this as my mated wolf brothers
did with their mates when they found out they were werewolves. Be blunt and to
the point. I’m a sentinel, one of the very first werewolves. Unlike modern-day
of my kind, I’m immortal. I was turned by the shaman of my tribe during the ice
age. After my wolf brothers and I made sure the new race of man would continue,
the same shaman put us to sleep in a hidden ice cave on a glacier. And there we
slept for ten thousand years. My alpha’s mate was the one who found us and woke
Edensaw from his slumber, where in turn he woke the rest of us. We were created
to fight the dark wolves. And that time has come.”
    Meadow swallowed. It was all so much to take in, but she
couldn’t stop from feeling a little bit of excitement about the fact Durlach
was an ice age Tlingit hunter, one of the people she’d spent all of her career
studying, finding remnants of their culture during that time buried in the
ground.
    “So you aren’t a wolf hybrid,” she said.
    “No. I’m a dire wolf.”
    “Because there were no timber wolves during the ice age.”
    Durlach smiled. “Precisely. The shaman picked the animal of
that period.”
    “And I’m your mate. How? Shouldn’t your mate be one of your
own kind?”
    “That’s what I’ve been wondering,” Taylor said.
    “I wasn’t born a werewolf like the modern-day ones. I was
turned. So it only makes sense that I would have a mortal as a mate. We knew
that would be the case before we went into our long sleep. It’s also the reason
why our shaman gave us the ability to turn our mates once we found them. Make
them werewolves.”
    “Holy shit,” Taylor said. “You can turn your mates?”
    Durlach looked at the other man and nodded. “Yes, but we
have learned the same goes for any mortal. The person doesn’t have to be a
mate.”
    “I’m guessing you’ll want to turn me then,” Meadow said,
drawing Durlach’s attention back to her.
    “When you are ready, but you have to accept me as your mate
first before I claim you. Once I do our souls will join and there will be no
undoing it.”
    “How would you go about doing that?”
    “The first time I make love to you fully you will be mine.”
    That would explain why Durlach hadn’t pushed to have sex
with her last night, even though they’d gotten really hot and heavy.
    “Okay, I think I need time for that to sink in,” Meadow
said. She turned her gaze on Taylor. “While it is, I want your story. You’ve
been living here for three years and not once would I have guessed you could
change into a cougar.”
    Taylor shifted on his chair, looking uncomfortable. “Because
I didn’t want you to know. I usually don’t let that side of myself out very
often.”
    “How did you end up here with Meadow?” Durlach asked. “Up
until today I had no idea cat shifters existed. I know nothing of your kind.”
    “We’ve tried to keep you werewolves from finding out. There
are so few of us. We don’t have packs like you and we keep to family groups
only. As for why I ended up here, I sort of jeopardized my kind’s secret when I
went after a lone wolf who picked a fight with one of my mortal friends. He
hadn’t stood a chance. I broke up the fight, then shifted to my cougar form to
teach the werewolf a lesson. I won, but the lone wolf decided he wasn’t happy
about it and tried to kill me. I ended up taking his life instead. As
punishment, I was banished from my family.”
    “No wonder you never talk about them,” Meadow said. “You
hardly ever speak about your life before you came to work for me.”
    “I can’t ever go back so what would be the point?”
    “And now I understand why you hate werewolves so much,”
Durlach said. “You have to know we’re not all like the lone wolf you fought.
They are alone for a reason. They’ve been kicked out