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Finally whole

"By the gods, you're the most beautiful thing I've seen in my entire life," Apollo muttered while leaning down near my ear. His breath fanning across my neck and shoulder caused liquid heat to pool between my thighs.

"My, you're quite the flatterer, aren't you?" I laughed breathlessly.

"I only speak the truth." His smile was wide and dazzling, and I swear his perfect white teeth were sparkling. "What's your name?"

"Callie," I admitted, and immediately felt my throat constrict when I realized I had given my name. No one knew me as Cali outside of the organization.

"Lovely. Is that short for anything?" Apollo questioned with his wide smile, full of genuine interest.

"Calypso," I whispered. More of the truth slipping past my lips as my ability to lie seemed to have left me.

"We both have Greek-based names. That's an amazing coincidence! Hah!" Apollo laughed and spun me around again. I hadn't realized until that moment he was right. "I'm Apollo," he introduced himself and my lips jerked into a half smirk.

Oh, I very well knew who he was.

"I don't think a single person here doesn't know who you are."

His brow furrowed for an instant before he tilted his head and nodded. "Yes, I'm far more popular than I'm comfortable with if I'm being honest," he chuckled, but his eyes scanned the room before landing on me again, and I noticed how his pupils dilated when he did. "Yet, I don't know who you are. I've never seen you at any of these charity events before?"

"A recent interest brought me here," I answered. My mouth wanted to tell him more than I should.

"I'm so glad it did. I can't believe I found you," Apollo sounded awestruck, and looked me up and down once again with his lips slightly parted.

"Why would you need to find me?" I asked as my brain swirled around in my skull along with our bodies on the dance floor.

"Why wouldn't I want to find you? You're my mate."

Mates.

Within the supernatural community, they were a big deal. A HUGE deal.

And for werewolves, they were the ultimate tie to another person.

Soulmates.

While my heart hammered in my chest to a painful degree, I wondered at how this could have happened to me.

They created me in a lab. Designated a number. Taught how to kill before I learned how to ride a bike.

There was no way I even had a soul.

I couldn't.

Yet... There was some small and long dead thing inside of me that was singing. Screaming and shouting.

I'M FINALLY WHOLE! MY OTHER HALF IS HERE!

But that's impossible.

That whole inside of me that kept me lingering in the dark was suddenly rushing towards the light, and that light seemed to be Apollo.

I felt like I was going to hit that light and crash. Crash hard. And shortly after, I would burn. Burn up in that light that he seemed to radiate through me. His warmth that was cascading over me like a blanket.

It was going to smother me.

Icy dread and sheer panic, like nothing I had ever felt in my lifetime, hit me as though I was being run through with a freight train. My heart was beating so hard in my chest I could easily believe that at any moment, it was going to stop completely.

I was freezing up like a block of ice, and my heart was turning into stone. It needed to be a stone for what I had to do.

This is the only way.

"Are you alright, Callie?" Apollo's deep voice was husky and soothing, and it was almost enough to soothe the sheer panic fluttering through my veins. "You heart rate spiked, and I can smell your fear."

Shit. Werewolves.

Does he know I know what he is? I'm obviously human and they don't just go around telling everyone what they are.

Or maybe he doesn't care anymore since I'm his....

I had to get him talking so I could find a way out of this. "Smell fear? What are you, a bloodhound?" A forced chuckle accompanied the joke. All the while, we continued to sweep over the dance floor, and my eyes scanned my surroundings as my training crept back in through my haze. Like coming back to my senses through a fog.

"Something like that," he chortled. And my body got hot hearing his laugh and feeling his chest rumble against me. His smile was so disarming for a split second I forgot I needed to escape.

A server was walking past with a tray of drinks on his arm. We were dancing near the edge of the crowd. If I could steer us in his direction perhaps, I could create a diversion.

That small kernel of light was coming to life inside of me was screaming at me for even thinking of leaving.

Why leave when we had finally found him. He was home. With Apollo was where I needed to be.

Yet I choked those unbidden thoughts down. Shoved them deep, back down into the darkness where they were only secret whispers of what I shouldn't desire.

What I couldn't desire and what I couldn't have.

"I don't understand what you mean. About a mate. Why me?" I knew my voice came out as barely a whisper as I struggled to ask, to pretend that I knew nothing about him or his world.

Just the pretty little human who doesn't know about werewolves and the monsters that live in the shadows.

"You're mine." The flare in his eyes had liquid heat pooling into my panties and I thought I would burst from the pleasure his voice and body pressed to mine were pouring into me.

Every instinct in my head was telling me to climb him like the massive tree he was and mount him in the middle of the ballroom. I wanted him so badly.

But this was wrong.

But I was his.

And he is mine.

No. Don't think like that. You need to get out of here and clear your head. I need to think. I need to breathe. I can't breathe in here. I can't think. I'm drowning in my head as two sides of myself began tearing each other apart.

I turned my face away from his as if I was shy and attempting to hide my blushing from his statement. Mine.

My face was furiously red with the heat rushing through my body. My nipples were hard and incredibly apparent through the silky red dress that barely hid them in the first place. His touch was sending electric currents through me and I'd never been more turned on in my life from just ballroom dancing chest to chest.

"Yours? I don't belong to anyone." My tone was deceptively cool. A low growl rumbled through his chest and I felt it through my entire body because of our contact. I felt my pussy throb with need, and I bit my tongue to hold back the moan that wanted to slip out.

"Calypso," Apollo purred my name. "I'm yours just as much as you're mine."

The server was getting closer, and I needed to act while I still had a close enough chance for a distraction. If I didn't move soon, I might miss this chance, and I didn't know when I'd have another opportunity to get away.

"I don't know you," I bit back. "We're perfect strangers enjoying a dance." His grip around my waist and on my hand tightened as soon as the words were through my lips. Apollo's nostrils were flaring, and he narrowed his eyes at me.

Those possessive wolf instincts were kicking in and I knew my window of opportunity was closing before this werewolf literally swept me off my feet and took me away. Wolves didn't let mates get away.

Normally, they didn't want to.

... I didn't want to.

"You will know me. Let's go somewhere quieter and we can talk. I can explain everything to you, I promise." Apollo was pleading with me, fighting off his werewolf instincts to pull me into a dark corner and mark me as his mate right now.

My lips parted and for a moment I thought my body was going to betray me and tell him 'Yes'. Instead, I allowed him to sweep me over the floor in another twirl through the dance. It felt as though it had been hours already and yet the first song hadn't even ended yet....

My mouth opened and closed like a fish as I fought with myself. MY body yearned to stay with Apollo, but my brain knew I had to leave. It was time, and I had to go before things got dangerous.

Just a few more seconds...

Throwing my foot wrong in the next part of the dance was easy enough. It sent my body spiraling directly into the server and his tray full of glasses. Apollo lost his grip on me in that moment and I crashed into the unsuspecting boy and every flute of champagne on that silver tray.

The young man fell to his knees between me and Apollo, slipping in all the alcohol and glass crashing on the marble floor. "Oh, no!" he squawked in surprise as he hit the floor.

"Shit!" Apollo cursed as a few of the glasses spilled on his expensive suit. He ducked his head down to look at the server on the floor and the glass littered around his feet.

As if on instinct, Apollo's eyes flitted up, and he scanned the floor where I should have fallen with the server and the tray that was still clattering around on the floor. But I wasn't there.

Instead, I was already slipping through the crowd that had stopped to observe the commotion. My training kicked into gear and I was on my way out of the charity event. As if willing myself to blend in with every other stranger in a fancy dress between me and the open doors that lead to the rest of the hotel.

"Callie!?" Apollo shouted and for an instant... for just a second. I hesitated. My body froze and a strange pang went through my chest. This was a feeling I was wholly unfamiliar with.

It was physically hurting me to leave him.

And yet I disappeared through the doors all the same.

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