Page 23 of Puck of My Life

“Yeah. You can. It’s probably a lot to take in.” He had no idea.

I started firing questions at him, and he answered each and every one very factually and in easy-to-understand terms. And by the time I got through all my Shifter 101 questions that I’d missed with Archie, I was feeling much better. I trusted my mate completely, but it’d been so ingrained into me that you always got facts from two sources that this was exactly what I needed.

“Did Archie scent you those eight years ago? Did he know he was yours?”

“He did.”

“Then why weren’t you together until now?” There was judgment in his tone, but given what I knew about fated mates, it was well earned.

That was when I told him about Garrick. Not with his name in particular, I wasn’t sure how hush-hush all that was, but I told him that his Alpha threatened to kill me.

“He what?”

“He wanted to kill me.” Which I believed Archie when he felt it was a true threat, but found it difficult to believe he had meant dead dead.

“I think you need to go back to the beginning and tell me all the details you know.”

Truman was a lot of things, but I’d never considered him a tense or nervous guy… until today. He didn’t like the story, especially when I told him Garrick was still alive.

“Is he still Alpha?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

My stomach dropped at that one little word.

“I don’t wanna scare you, but you need to understand. An Alpha willing to threaten a human mate will always be a danger. Eight years passing doesn’t mean he still wouldn’t want you dead. And you’re marked, and you’ve been together publicly. If Garrick gets wind of this⁠—”

“Shit.”

“He’s not gonna be happy. You’ve been hidden from him this whole time. Whether it was intentional or not.” He wasn’t being supportive make-me-feel-better shifter confident like I wanted him to be.

“Do all of you hate human mates?” Neither he nor Archie had said so, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t the reality.

“No. Of course not. In fact, some packs welcome them. They interact with humans on a regular basis and everyone is equal. Historically, though, humans have been dangerous to shifters.”

That made the situation make so much more sense. If shifters were the danger, of course he would be upset, which meant if Garrick knew me, things would get better. I wasn’t a danger. I wrote fluffy feel-good articles about restaurants. If I let him see that, see that I was someone who wouldn’t bring danger to the pack and that I loved my mate, then I could fix this.

I wanted to run it by Truman. He understood pack dynamics more than I did, but Louisa came in with a problem for today’s headline. So instead, I went back to work.

As was my way, I let the idea fester and grow throughout the day. I thought about calling Archie, letting him know what I was thinking, but he’d been pretty protective since we got together. It kinda matched the energy of his possessiveness. He reminded me to lock the door and to text him when I got home, the buddy system, and all silly things that I probably would’ve done anyway. It wasn’t controlling, it was protective and adorable and sweet. He didn’t need to worry about this while he was away.

I ate my ramen, while thinking about my conversation with Truman. Archie couldn’t be the one to deal with Garrick because he’d already been told no, and Garrick was the boss. But Garrick wasn’t the boss of me, and it wasn’t like I was challenging him. I wasn’t a wolf. I didn’t want his job. I just wanted to talk to him. I’d dealt with grumpy people and handled people who didn’t wanna talk to me at work quite a few times over the years. How different could a wolf be?

Archie already gave up eight years with his family. And in that time, he’d done it to protect me. And now it was my time to return the favor, to make it so that he could be with his pack again. Packs were like a huge family from what I could tell, and Archie staying away from his family for me—it didn’t make sense.

My mate had an upcoming trip that was longer. It would be the perfect time to get this over and done with. I wouldn’t be missing time with my mate, and I’d have a huge surprise for him when he returned.

I mapped out how to get there, making sure I could be there and back in time. I was doing this.

My phone buzzed.

Checked into my hotel. Miss you already.

Miss you too. Good luck tomorrow.

I needed luck too. Because if I didn’t do this right, then my mate was going to miss even more time with his pack. And while we hadn’t talked about exactly what our future would look like, I wanted it to include kids, and they deserved extended family too.