I’m half awake, my eyes still closed, when I smell the most wonderful aroma ever.  It is a heady mix of oak, nutmeg, and leather.  I open my eyes and immediately see Xander sleeping beside me.

 “Mate,” I growl out and my wolf howls within me.  I know that I knew about Xander being my mate before now, but this sudden sensation, this sudden sense of completeness, of being whole, is entirely new.  Is this how he’s felt ever since we met days ago?

 I growl again, nuzzling my nose into his neck, my chest coming in contact with his bare back.  Suddenly, sparks dance along all the surfaces that our skin touches and my dick immediately hardens.

 “Mmmm.  Why are you up so early, Babe?  We can still sleep some more,” Xander says, voice muffled in the pillow.

 “Mate,” I say again, loudly.

 Something in my voice catches Xander’s attention.  He immediately turns to me, his eyes chocolate pools of desire.

 I roll him over so that he is laying on his back and straddle his waist.  Gripping his wrists and pinning them beside his head.  I lean down and nuzzle his neck again.

 “Mine,” I say into his neck, my voice dominant and leaving no room for questions.

 “Yes,” he breathes out.  “All yours.  Only yours.”

 I growl again into his neck and feel my teeth elongate in my mouth.  I scrape my teeth along his delicate skin, a foretaste of the marking that I will give him.

 “Devin?” Xander says.

 “Mmmm.”  My chest rumbles with the sound and I feel my wolf fighting to take over.  Again, I scrape my teeth along his neck, harder this time, drawing a moan from Xander’s lips.

 “Devin, you can’t mark me,” he says urgently.

 “Why not?” I growl out.  “You are mine.  I will make it so that everyone knows.”  I open my jaws wide, preparing to bite down.

 “Remember what the Goddess said,” Xander cries out.

 That stops me.  My senses are muddled by the sound and feel of him.  I’m having trouble putting things together quickly.  I remember the Goddess did tell me something about announcing that Xander was my mate.  I wasn’t supposed to do it until after we received our positions.  They wouldn’t be able to do anything about our mating after that.  I could mark Xander in front of everyone at that point if I wanted to and there was absolutely nothing that they could do about it.

 But that meant that I couldn’t mark him now.  If I did, our scents would mingle together and become one.  Everyone would know that we were mates and we’d be denied our titles.

 For several long moments, I sit straddling Xander, trying to overcome my wolf.  That side of me is purely instinct.  I have to protect what is mine, to mark what is mine.  It doesn’t care about what the Goddess said or that it makes logical sense.  It wants Xander.  Hell, I do, too.  After long moments, my teeth finally retract and I back away from Xander’s neck.  My body is covered in sweat, but I had won.

 “I love you,” I say.  It’s the first time I’ve said it aloud, but not the first time I’ve felt it.  Xander is everything to me.  If I didn’t know that we had another mate out there, I wouldn’t think that I could love anyone else nearly as much as I love him.

 Smiling widely at me, Xander says, “I love you, too.”

 He leans up and kisses me.  I release his wrists and he pulls me into him.

 “You know,” Xander says against my mouth.  “The Goddess only said that we couldn’t claim each other.  She said nothing about sex.”

 A grin creeps across my face.  “I like how you think, Future-Delta.”

 Getting off of him, I roll him onto his stomach.  I trail kisses down his back to his asscheeks.  Pulling them apart, I take a test lick.

 “Awww, fuck!” Xander moans.

 “I think I’ve found my birthday present,” I say.  I eat his ass out in earnest, reaching down and jacking myself off.

 We spend the rest of the morning in bed and don’t leave my room until 1:00.  Everytime we tried to leave, I would catch a whiff of Xander’s scent or he would casually touch me and I would pull him back to the bedroom.

 The next four hours would be brutal as I waited for the ceremony.  I planned on marking Xander as soon as possible.  I didn’t care if that meant that I would do it on the podium in front of the whole pack.  The thought turned me on and knowing Xander, he would love it.

I just had to occupy myself for the next four hours before the ceremony starts.

Shit…