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Tenoch and I argued back and forth until the night ended and morning arrived. Heading back to the pack house, I walked up to my room, exhausted, and decided it was worth a shot. I would ask her to be my chosen mate, and if she said no, I would beg her to stay by promising to stay away from her unless it related to work. It would hurt, but I would rather see her from afar than not at all. I had already lived that way since I was fourteen and she ditched us. What was the rest of my life?
I walked over to her place. It was early, but I wanted to catch her before she went to work, and I knew she was going in before six every day since we got back, trying to get all the information from those hard drives that she could.
I stopped a few blocks away when I saw her outside her house wearing pajamas and talking to Paolo. I was going to keep walking toward them when I saw Paolo hug her and kiss her. I felt my heart fracture into a million pieces. I shifted and ran off, Tenoch letting out a howl of pain when we reached the forest.
I knew she’d gone on a date with Paolo before, but she’d made it seem that she wasn’t interested. Hell, maybe it was me who pushed he r into his arms last night. The thought made Tenoch howl again. He’d fallen for her as hard as I had.
After running off our pain in the forest for the second time in the span of twelve hours, I made a few more decisions. I was going to go look for my mate. Everyone always said finding your mate made every other feeling go away. It would go a long way to convince Evie to stay. I walked back into the pack house and up to my floor. Jo and James were waiting for me in the kitchen.
“I’m not cooking this morning. I have to go into the office to get some stuff signed,” I lied and walked toward my room to shower and change.
‘So you’re running away then?’ Jo mind-linked me.
‘I’m letting her go. There’s a difference.’
‘I thought you loved her,’ he accused.
‘She loves Paolo. I saw him kissing her this morning. I’ll be going to find my mate after the next full moon that Crescent Moon is hosting,’ I answered.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you at least going to talk to her before you do this?’ he asked.
‘We talked. All I need to do is convince her not to leave again.’
I went to work in the office downtown, and though I was done before lunch, all I could do was sit in my truck and sulk. I didn’t go home until I got a meeting request from Evie for the training that all the ranked members needed to take. I made sure to stare at the presentation, even though I desperately wanted to look up into her eyes and beg her to give me a chance. I felt her trying to mind-link me after the meeting was done, but I wasn’t ready to talk to her. I needed to find the strength to tell her I would never touch her again.
After another night of shit sleep, I left the pack house and made my way toward Guardian Moon to make sure there was nothing we still needed to deal with before we went to pick up Blue Moon.
“Cory, can I have a minute?” I heard Evie’s voice behind me and froze.
“I have a meeting with Guardian Moon. I’ll reach out tomorrow,” I said and continued walking without looking at her.
“Cory Alexander Salonen, you can’t avoid me forever.” The anger in her voice gave me pause. I stopped walking and turned around.
“I’m not avoiding you, Evie. I’m just busy. We will talk after the full moon is over. There’s too much at risk right now to get distracted. I’m sorry.” I half lied and continued to walk.
‘I won’t let you hide from me after today. You may be alpha, but I’m the one that can find you wherever you go,’ she warned me via mind-link.
Her warning forced a slight shiver to run through me at her promise and I continued toward Guardian Moon. Uncle Lalo and I went over the patrol rotations of both packs for the night, and the escort that was leaving after lunch. We couldn’t afford any weak points. Uncle Helios suggested it would be fine if they wanted to skip one full moon, but David refused. He said if we destroyed the unity we had worked so hard to create among the packs, Tezcatlipoca would win. He wanted his pack to see the measures the packs were willing to take to keep everyone safe; that despite living in three separate locations, we were all one group.
“Are you okay, Cory?” Uncle Lalo asked.
“I’m fine,” I told him. He laughed and sat down.
“I may be old, but I’m surrounded by women. ‘I’m fine’ never means it’s fine.”
“I’m not a woman, Uncle.”
“And yet I can tell there’s something going on, so clearly, it holds true for men, too. You want to talk about it?” he asked. I considered his offer, but in the end, I just shook my head.
“Alright, well, if we’re not going to talk about whatever is bothering you, let’s have lunch, and then we can go, but I say this from experience, Cory, the only way to fix anything, is to talk it out.”
After lunch, we left with the warriors and grabbed the two buses from Blue Moon full of pack members. There were warriors surrounding the buses in various vehicles to ensure our safety all the way to Guardian Moon. All trained warriors who volunteered for the position. The progress was slow, but we arrived back at Guardian Moon around six that evening without any incident. Both packs were already gathering outside for us when we pulled in.
I hung around for a while, watching. Everyone was tense and gathered in groups close to the pack house, though I was happy to see the three packs intermingling, not letting what happened divide them.
