The Price They Paid: Imprinted Mates Series

I realized that it wasn’t a suit. I was a wolf! I strutted in front of the mirror before climbing back onto the bed. The smell of him was strongest here, and I curled into a ball to help calm my nerves.
Wolf? No. This was a dream, and as soon as I went back to sleep it would all be over. It had to be. I wasn’t a wolf for real. I snuggled into the bed burying my head into a pillow that smelled of him. I heard mumbling outside the door before I succumbed to sleep all over again.
When I woke up, darkness surrounded me. I checked my body to find myself covered in a sheet but naked underneath. Skin not hair. I exhaled relaxing back into the bed. It had been a dream.
There was a knock on the door before Alice walked in and flipped on the light. She carried a tray of meats and bread. They smelled amazing, and my stomach grumbled.
Alice giggled. “Good thing there’s plenty more.”
“Thank you so much,” I said as she set the tray down next to me.
“Very welcome. Make sure that you eat very slowly. I don’t want your stomach to become upset.”
I nodded and took the bread slathering butter onto it. Salty cream exploded along my taste buds when I bit into the bread. It was so good. I moaned, loving every bit of it.
“Am I good to come in?” a voice asked from the stairwell.
“One sec!” Alice yelled.
Alice ran over to the chest of drawers and pulled out clothing. She came over to the bed and helped me put on the sweatshirt. I sniffed it and sighed in content.
Alice laughed. “Smells that good, huh?”
I nodded and buried my head into the crook of my arm.
“I’ll take you to meet him tomorrow. I have to get you fed and make sure that you’re well tonight, though.”
I sunk into the bed and began eating again.
“I need to get these pants on you, too.”
“No, thank you,” I said. The sweatshirt was warm, and I didn’t want to get hotter. My skin was sensitive for some reason, and I didn’t want to agitate it.
Alice picked up a shredded sheet from the floor and threw it into a corner before grabbing a blanket from a closet. She put it across the bed and covered my lower half.
“We don’t want you indecent in front of Maddox,” She said.
I went back to eating the bread and butter.
“All good now!” she shouted.
Maddox entered the room, and that’s when I froze. I looked around at my surroundings, Maddox wearing that same green shirt from my dream, and I looked over at the destroyed sheet in the corner. What in the world? And why wasn’t I in the hospital anymore?
“It wasn’t a dream?” I blurted.
“What are you referring to exactly?” Maddox asked. I hate how he was assessing me.
“I’m not crazy!” I shouted.
“No, I’m just trying to figure out what dream you think you had?”
“That I was a red wolf. I growled at you.”
“You did.”
“You commanded me to shift.”
“I did.”
“What is going on here? Somebody needs to explain what in the hell is going on,” I demanded.
“Is that the first time that you’ve shifted?” Alice inquired.
“Shifted?”
“Into a wolf,” Maddox clarified.
He was really starting to annoy me. “And if it was?”
Maddox moved closer and I snarled. “Stand down.”
The command and his movement toward me only riled me further. “Don’t come any closer,” I warned.
I stared at him, and he returned the stare. He was challenging something inside, and it wanted to win badly. It threatened to push forward, but I held it at bay letting the power tingle along my skin.
“There she is,” Maddox said. Slowly he bared his neck and triumph soared through me.
I hadn’t realized that my chest was pumping wildly. I was excited and ready to hunt something, anything. Wolf. I felt it more than anything else. It wasn’t a dream. I had so many questions. I opened my mouth to speak, but then closed it. Wolf. But how?
“I have answers to the questions that you seek. If you’ll eat for me, I’ll explain,” Alice said.
I nodded but then looked over at Maddox. He backed away and took a seat in the chair across the room. The aggression that he wore like a second skin seemed to dissolve at the same moment that he submitted to me. He smiled and just watched me. The bastard was testing me.
“Why?” I asked.
“I’m a dominant male. There’s no way that I’d submit to just anyone as my king and queen.”
“Queen?” I looked over at Alice.
“Seuss is the king of this region. Alpha of our pack. He’s your mate.”
“Mate?” The one-word questions were starting to drive even me crazy.
“Yes,” Alice said. “You’re destined to be together and rule these lands. He’s sick, and the only one that can heal him is you.”
“How am I supposed to heal him?”
“He suffers from a mating curse that gives him pneumonia like symptoms. I can keep him from dying with my healing powers just as I’ve done with you. The curse that he’s under can only be cured by his mate.”
“Who put him under a curse and why?”
“He did it to save you. He had to sacrifice his life to heal yours. That pill that the guy slipped you was to turn off your mating call to Seuss. He would have killed you if you hadn’t gotten away. The antidote requires Seuss to bond to you to heal the effects of the spell draining him of his life force and feeding yours.”
“How do we replenish his?”
“You’ll feed it to him slowly so that you can recuperate what you lose through healing sleep. If you do it too quickly, you’ll heal him but kill yourself.”
“What if I can’t heal him?” I asked.
“Then he dies, and you’ll be challenged for the throne.” Maddox spoke up for the first time since the conversation began. “We can’t let that happen. I’d die first before I let someone take