Page 9 of Awakening His Mate

I check on Dove, who is standing close by, her palm slick with my blood, before I peer down at my wound. The skin is knitted together, the deep gash closed as if it had been stitched back together cell by cell.

Our captive is lying on the ground, with Hester and Apryle standing over him. Tessa remains a distance away, her hands pressed over the small curve of her stomach, while her mate, Abel, hovers close by. The big wolf isn’t much of a talker, and he has become even more protective of Tessa since they found out her first heat was a success and she’s expecting their first pup.

That was also a surprise.

Wolves can only get pregnant during a heat cycle, but not every cycle results in pregnancy. In fact, fertility rates among our kind are low, and a lot of mated pairs wait years for pups. With Tessa being a hybrid, no one was sure if she’d be able to conceive at all, yet she’d fallen pregnant the first time. I know both of them are excited about their baby, but it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Things are volatile right now, and we’re still being hunted. We need to get some inside information from this kid we captured to protect ourselves and Tessa’s baby.

“What are we doing with him?” Despite feeling strong again, my voice is hoarse, as if I’ve swallowed glass.

“We have to find out what he knows,” Hester says, straightening from her crouch in front of the kid.

“Yeah, how?” The idea of torturing information out of a boy makes me uneasy.

“By whatever means necessary,” Cade answers. My alpha’s darkened eyes tell me exactly what he’s thinking, but I still have to ask. I can’t believe he would condone this.

“Meaning what?”

“Use your imagination, Jackson.”

Sawyer appears with Roux next to him, their hands clutched together. “Do you expect us to wine and dine our enemies?”

The sarcastic smile on his lips annoys me. He turned morose and grouchy when he and Roux first realized they were mates. Her initial rejection of him changed him completely, but now that they are together, their mating bond strong, Sawyer’s irritating humor and laid-back demeanor have also returned. I think I liked him better when he was pissed at the world.

“Sawyer,” Roux murmurs the warning, but he lifts their joined hands to brush his lips over her knuckles. The way she looks at him makes jealousy rear its ugly head inside me again.

Will Dove ever look at me that way?

“We’re not torturing a teenager.” I growl out the words. We need answers, but there are ways to get them that aren’t going to leave me questioning myself.

“Who said anything about torturing? We’re just going to use our powers of persuasion to get some answers.”

“I mean it. No hurting him.”

“You do remember that ‘kid’ tried to filet you like a fish,” Cade says, waving his hand in the direction of my bloodied skin.

I do remember it—vividly—and I don’t know why I’m defending this boy. I went out into the woods intending to kill anyone I came across that posed a threat. I killed two others. I would have killed him too, but for some reason, I’d stopped Dove from ending his life.

“I’m aware of what he did. I’m also aware of the fact that he’s just a kid. The Order brainwashes them, Cade. We shouldn’t kill any of them. We should be trying to fix them.”

“Is that before or after they try to scramble our brains with their magic?” Sawyer pulls Roux into his side, resting his chin on top of her head. “I didn’t have you down as a hug-it-out kind of guy.”

“I’m not,” I grind out. “But maybe we need to step back for a second before we take someone’s life.”

“These fuckers want us dead, Jackson. They want to kill us and take our mates. I prefer to kill them first and ask questions later.”

“No one’s torturing the kid,” Cade interrupts before I can retort. Clearly, our alpha can see how much his brother is riling me. “But we do need him to tell us what he knows.”

“I want to be there,” I say, making it clear that I’m not asking for permission.

“Whatever.”

“Why’d you go out there again?” Wyatt asks.

He’s not said a word until this moment, and I’m not sure why he chose to speak now, but there’s no judgment in his words, just curiosity.

I twist around and see he’s standing behind me, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. His skin is pale, and his eyes are sunken in a way that says he hasn’t been sleeping. I hadn’t noticed, too focused on my own shit, but looking at Wyatt makes me feel a pang of regret for not paying more attention to him.

I want to ask him if he’s okay, but when he meets my gaze, I see the hardened wall between us—one that I won’t be able to scale unless he allows it.

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