Before I Rise
The Woman in the Woods

*Edited*

Marcus’s POV

16 years later

I was once again standing outside the pack house facing the woods. A woman stood before me on the forest’s edge, bathed in the full moon’s light. She was wearing the same long white dress that reached the forest floor, with her long, dark blond hair falling down her back. It was the same woman that had been haunting my dreams for the past few months on and off.

She began to walk into the forest without looking back at me. She didn’t have to; I always followed her. Something was alluring about the mysterious woman. I had never seen her face before. That may be why I followed her without fail. The curiosity of what she looked like got the best of me every time.

We walked deeper into the forest, not saying a word to each other. The first few times I dreamt of her, I tried calling out to her, but it always fell on deaf ears. We continued walking deeper into the forest, stopping once we had arrived at a crystal-clear blue lake.

Suddenly, a crack of thunder with a flash of lightning was over our heads, making me cringe internally. I became alert to my surroundings; the anticipation was eating at me about what would happen next. This was different from the previous times I had dreamt of the woman.

The water in the lake began to boil, and all activity in the forest came to a standstill. My breathing picked up as my whole body screamed for me to get the hell out of there. I could not move my feet in the opposite direction. It was like I was frozen in place.

“Marcus,” I jumped as I suddenly heard a woman’s voice. It was almost as if she was whispering in my ear, even though she still hadn’t moved from her place in front of me.

“Marcus,” she whispered again, a bit louder than before, with a hint of panic.

“Marcus.” She called to me as she started to turn. Excitement filled my entire body. I had been waiting to see the face of the woman that had been plaguing my dreams. A flash of white light blinded me just as I was about to see her face for the first time.

“Marcus!” My eyes flew open at the harsh sound of my name. I rubbed my eyes, looking at my surroundings while trying to desperately calm down my racing heart. “Dude, I’ve been trying to wake you up for like ten minutes! We have an issue.”

I was still trying to get my heart to calm down when I looked up at the person who had so graciously woken me up. “What’s the issue?” I grunted at my Beta, Jacoby.

He ran a hand through his curly black hair before plopping down onto one of the leather chairs in front of my desk.

“There’s a trespasser on our land, a woman. The twins are bringing her in for questioning.” He said as he lifted his shoe-covered feet up on my desk, knowing I hated it when he did.

I reached over and pushed his feet off, earning a mischievous chuckle from him. “Why are they bringing her in for questioning when they can just do it themselves?”

He shrugged a shoulder at my question. “Not sure. All I know is that they claim the woman has no idea who she is or how she got here.”

I felt my wolf, Xavier, stir within me. This wasn’t a normal thing that happened around here. Hell, it’s been months since our last rogue sighting. He was just as interested as I was in what Jacoby had just informed us.

Tell the twins to bring the woman here! Xavier demanded.

I immediately frowned. No, there’s no point. Like all other trespassers, the twins can question her in the interrogation room.

NO! Bring. Her. Here.

I rubbed my head as a pounding headache began to form.

“Are you okay?” Jacoby asked before I could snap back at Xavier.

I shook my head. “It’s my wolf. He’s been giving me hell the past few days. I don’t know what’s going on with him, but it’s getting annoying.” I grumbled.

Jacoby’s blue eyes grew in size as he smirked at me. “You know, that’s how my wolf was right before I met Julie.”

I immediately glared at him, knowing where he was going with this and not liking it one bit. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Mmmm, I don’t know. Sounds like it means your mate is just around the corner.”

“Drop it,” I warned him. “Have the twins take the woman to the interrogation room. They can conduct it themselves and report to me when finished.”

Jacoby let out an awkward chuckle. “Well, I might have told them to bring her here.”

I rolled my eyes at him and let out an exasperated sigh. “Of course you did.”

A few close people to me knew I wasn’t keen on replaceing my mate. It has been something I have been dreading ever since I turned eighteen a few years ago. So far, I have successfully avoided the whole mate thing. However, a part of me knew time was running out. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. My knee-jerk reaction was to reject her and move on from it, but I knew it would hurt Xavier and could potentially hurt the Pack. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I saw my father become a lifeless vessel after my mom, his mate, was murdered. When he wasn’t staring into oblivion, he was drinking his sorrows away and taking out his anger on me, or whoever else was physically closest to him. It drove a rift between him and me, along with the Pack losing the respect and admiration they once had for him. It cost us countless alliances, some of which had been established since the beginning of time. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to me. I was constantly afraid that I would replace my mate, fall head over heels for her, and then lose her all within the same breath. I couldn’t save my mother. How the hell would I keep my mate safe?

“You want me to tell the twins to take her to the interrogation room?” Jacoby asked, interrupting my downward spiral.

Before I could answer him, the door to my office opened, and the smell of vanilla with a hint of blueberry hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the most mouth-watering smell I have ever encountered; it almost reminded me of my favorite food… blueberry pancakes.

I looked over to who was standing there, desperate to see where the smell was coming from when I saw her. She had a heart-shaped face and dark blond hair with a slight curl. Her mud-stained white shirt and light blue jeans hugged her in all the right places, showing off her luscious curves. It felt like a lightning bolt hit me straight in my heart as my brown eyes connected to the most vibrant green eyes I have ever seen.

Our mate is easily the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen. Xavier said in an awe-struck way.

“Alpha, what would you like us to do with her?” One of the twins asked me, breaking me from my trance.

Just like that, cold hard reality hit me right in my face. The trespasser was my mate. It took everything in me not to bolt from the room as soon as I realized who exactly she was to me. I didn’t know if I would throw up or pass out. I felt like I was sucked into a black hole.

All eyes were on me, waiting for me to say something, but all I kept looking at was the woman in front of me. It felt like if I looked away, she would disappear from me, which probably wouldn’t be a bad thing as I had no idea what I was going to do with her now.

“Marcus, are you okay?” Jacoby asked, with a concerned expression on his face.

I shook my head to clear away my thoughts. “Yes,” I looked at the twins trying desperately to avoid eye contact with the woman between them. “Take her to one of the vacant rooms upstairs. I’ll have my cousin meet you up there with a change of clothes for her.”

The twins didn’t hesitate in nodding their heads and ushering my mate out of the office. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. My stomach was still in knots as my thoughts continued to race around in my head. I had no idea what I was going to do. I could feel Xavier’s anticipation to go and be with our mate, but I needed a moment to gather my thoughts and feelings before seeing her again.

Jacoby cleared his throat. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“No!” I blurted out. “She’s my mate.”

Confusion danced across his face. “Who is?”

“The woman that was just in here.” I rubbed a hand down my face in frustration at the turn of events. “What the hell am I going to do?”

“Go and get to know her, man. Once you do, you’ll feel better about it. Don’t make any rash decisions that you’ll end up regretting later.”

I nodded my head in agreement. He was right, but it wasn’t making me feel any better.

“Can you contact Alicia and have her bring up some clothes for the woman?” I asked him.

He gave me a face-splitting grin, “Way ahead of you, boss. Alicia should be already up there helping your mate.”

I cringed at the mate comment. “Let’s keep that between us for now. Please, for all that’s good, do NOT tell my cousin.”

Jacoby’s face suddenly morphed into terror. “Uhh… how mad would you be if I told you I already told Alicia?”

It took an act of god to keep me from tackling him to the ground. Any chance of this remaining quiet went out the door as soon as he told my cousin. I love Alicia, but I swear that girl personally ran the pack gossip mill. I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow, the whole Pack would know that I had found my mate, their future Luna. Any decision I made now would affect the Pack more than I wanted it to.

“Geeze, thanks a lot.” I sarcastically said to him. I stood up from my desk, already over this conversation.

Jacoby stood up and looked at the floor with a guilty expression. “I really am sorry. It probably was a bad idea that I told her. She just asked me questions about it, and I caved. You know how she is.”

I let out a light chuckle at that. I did know how Alicia was. She was good at pushing until she got what she wanted. “It’s fine. It probably would have gotten out eventually. Might as well rip the bandaid off.”

I moved towards my door, already second-guessing my plan.

“Are you going to go see her?” He asked, drawing my attention from the door back to him.

I was quiet for a few seconds, still debating whether I should or shouldn’t see her.

“Yeah, but I was going to stop by the kitchen first and get her something to eat in case she was hungry.”

Jacoby nodded approvingly. “That’s a good idea! The one thing I learned from being with Jules is to always make sure you have snacks on you. Women get extremely angry when not fed properly.”

“You act like having a mate is like having a gremlin.”

Jacoby shrugged his shoulders at me while he followed me out of the office. “It’s basically the same thing.”

“So what you’re telling me is that Jules is a gremlin?” I asked, making sure I understood his logic.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

I finally cracked my first smile of the day, something Jacoby was surprisingly good at making me do. “Well, I guess I’ll have to inform Julie of that.”

He stopped mid-step and turned to look at me with fear in his eyes. “Why the hell would you do that? Please don’t!” He begged me.

I laughed at him and said the only thing I could think of. “Cause payback’s a bitch.”

I continued laughing as we walked towards the kitchen while he pleaded with me not to say anything to his mate. By the time we actually stepped foot in the kitchen, I had sworn I wouldn’t say anything just to calm him down.

I quickly worked on making a sandwich for the woman upstairs. My stomach was in knots, threatening to spill up the breakfast I had eaten earlier in the day. I hoped that doing something as mundane as making a sandwich would calm my nerves, but it had the opposite effect. I spent most of the time debating what kind of sandwich I would make her.

What if she was allergic to peanut butter? What if she hates tuna? Was she someone that likes a lot of mustard or very little on their sandwich? Did she prefer mayo or miracle whip?

Jacoby was hysterically laughing by the time I finished making her sandwich and was still laughing as I left the kitchen. My nerves grew as I walked up the stairs to the third level where she was staying. I don’t think I have ever felt this way. I was not even this nervous when the Alpha title got passed down to me, and I definitely threw up that day.

I stopped in front of her door and took a couple of deep breaths in, failing to calm my racing heart. After a few seconds, I realized that I was going to have to suck it up and do this. I raised my hand and knocked on the bedroom door.