Free Ryan's Protector - Lupinville 3.3 by Alice Cain

Ryan's Protector
    A
Lupinville Quick Bite Story
     
    Alice Cain
    Copyright 2014
     
     
     
     
     
    ~*~
     
     
    "Don't laugh too hard, pup. You're
next."
    Ryan knew he was staring rudely at the
oldest member of their pack, but he was still trying to decide if he'd heard
the woman correctly.
    Next? How could he be her next matchmaking target? He was only
fifty-eight.
    Most wolves waited at least until their
one-hundredth birthday before seriously considering settling down and finding
someone else when they failed to find their true mate. Ryan hadn't planned on
being any different.
    "I have a true mate?" he asked,
because surely that was what Maggie meant. He couldn't imagine her trying to
urge him into giving up that hope at such a young age.
    "Yes, pup," she said
affectionately. "Your true mate is part of this pack."
    "How is it possible that I've never met
her?"
    He'd come across many people in the past few
years that he hadn't realized were part of the Lupinville pack, but none of
them had been his true mate.
    Too many werewolves had lived in fear under
the previous alphas, but under Noah's leadership they were slowly filtering
back into the community that werewolves needed to be happy. Without their pack
surrounding them, few werewolves lived full and happy lives. It was a quirk of
their species. They needed that contact, that sense of belonging to make them
whole. Without it, many gave into despair, and despite an average species
lifespan of six centuries, lone werewolves died much younger than their
pack-involved contemporaries.
    "He's been protecting you for decades,
Ryan. The last pack gathering your mate attended was nearly thirty years
ago."
    "Thirty? That would have made me barely
twenty-eight." Old enough to claim a true mate—even if
he hadn't been a particularly mature man at the time.
    " Which is why your
mate has stayed away. Under the previous alphas he was protecting
you." Maggie shook her head. "I'm not sure why he continues to stay
away from the pack now, but I can't imagine it's easy for him."
    "Wait... Him? " Ryan asked, again
unsure he'd heard correctly.
    "Yes, pup. Your true mate is male. Do
you have a problem with that?"
    The words were asked mildly, but it was well
known that Maggie wouldn't put up with prejudice in the pack any longer. Having
a gay alpha certainly helped influence the thinking of those who'd been
subjected to intolerance and hatred their entire lives, but accepting others
was a lot easier when it wasn't him directly involved.
    Did he have a problem knowing he had a male mate? He didn't think so,
but right at this moment he honestly didn't know.
    "Are you sure he's my true mate?"
    Maggie searched his face, but she must have
sensed the hope behind his words. He'd spent the past few years alone, not
dating, not really paying that kind of attention to anyone he'd met—female or
male, werewolf or human. None of them had stirred his interest. Maybe he'd just
been waiting for his true mate to arrive.
    "As sure as I can be, pup," Maggie
admitted with a grimace. "I saw the way he reacted the day he first caught
your scent. And he has avoided contact with the pack ever since." She gave
him a sad smile. "Maybe you could simply drive out to his home and check
on him."
    Ryan nodded quickly, anxious to help a pack
member who'd been cut off from them all for so long, but also nervous about
what it might mean if they really were true mates. It wasn't that he would
refuse his true mate when he met him. It was mainly the idea of not being the
dominant partner in the relationship that bothered him. He'd always pictured
himself as the protector and provider when he finally settled into mated bliss,
so the news that his mate was male and older had really thrown him.
    "He lives on the edge of pack lands in
the cabin at the end of the old mill road."
    Ryan knew the area pretty well, but he'd
never followed that road to its end. Even in wolf form he'd never caught a
scent that suggested his true mate