Page 35 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

“It’s fine,” I tell her. “There’s no school in the morning. I’ll come get her tomorrow afternoon, or you can run her back, and we’ll all go to lunch afterward.”

“What are you doing?” Jessa breathes low.

“It’s the first real friend Bella’s ever made.” I hold her gaze. “I want her to have it before you pack Mia up and leave.”

The girls catch that I’ve come down on their side, and they swarm Jessa, hanging off her arms, pleading in stereo.

“Fine. Fine.” She throws up a hand. “Go pack your bag.”

The girls tear off down the hall, and Jessa rounds on me. “You can’t just decide that without me.”

“Do you have a problem with my child under your roof?”

“No.” The word comes out clipped and frustrated. She tries again. “You don’t know me. You’re going to let your kid sleep at my place? What if I’m someone dangerous?”

I let a smile spread slowly. “You couldn’t be more dangerous than I am.”

I lean in for the rest of it, letting it go low and warm. “Next to me, you’re a harmless little bunny.”

She bristles on cue. “I can be dangerous.”

“Yeah?” I tip my head. “Show me.”

Her eyes narrow, and I drop my gaze to her mouth and leave it there. “I’ve got a real taste for bunnies.”

“Try anything,” she warns, “and I’ll break your nose.”

“That a promise?” I laugh and ease back a step. “Although I have to say I’m fond of my nose right where it is.”

I straighten and let her have some room. “Let the girls enjoy themselves. I’ve got work to handle tonight anyway.” I level a look at her. “Keep them inside the apartment. Don’t let them wander out. I’ll pick Bella up tomorrow afternoon.”

Jessa lets out a long breath and gives up the argument she never wanted.

The girls thunder back with a packed bag and a stuffed rabbit under Bella’s arm, and the goodbyes take ten minutes before Jessa loads them into the rental and pulls out.

I stand in the drive until the taillights wash out of sight past the tree line.

Then I take out my phone and call Adrian.

The woods hold the cold close to the ground, and the wet hasn’t fully left the air from the storm two nights back. Adrian meets me at the edge of the old swing, his shaved head beaded with damp, the scar through his eyebrow catching what little light comes off my phone.

“I combed every foot of it.” He keeps his voice down out of habit, though there’s no one for a mile. “The vial was all there was. Nothing else dropped, no tracks I could lift, no second container. And wolfsbane burns off fast once it’s open, so whoever set it down was here minutes before Bella stumbled on it. It wasn’t hours.”

“She inhaled the fumes off an open vial and went down for two days.” I drag a hand over my jaw. “If she’d touched the liquid, or if she’d had her first shift already, we’d be having a different conversation. A grown wolf in her place would be worse off than she is.”

“You think she’s lucky.”

“I think she’s alive.” The word comes out rough. “I can’t pull a single scent off this ground. It rained that same night, the whole drive while I carried her to the healer, and the rain stripped everything clean off the trees and the dirt both. Whoever stood here walked away without leaving me a thread to follow.”

Adrian is quiet a moment. “Somebody got within twenty yards of your main house, Marc.”

“I’m aware.” That part sits heavy and cold in my gut.

“You think Bella’s the target?”

“No.” I say it fast, then stop because I owe him better than reflex. “I don’t know what I think. I don’t have enough to think anything yet. A vial doesn’t tell me who carried it or who it was meant for. What I know is that it turned up a stone’s throw from where my niece plays, and I won’t have her anywhere near it again.”

“Could be somebody cut through your land taking a shortcut.” Adrian doesn’t sound like he believes it either. “Dropped it by accident, didn’t double back for it.” He shifts his weight. “It happens. People cross the territory who shouldn’t, and they don’t always know whose ground they’re on. Have you told the alpha?”