Page 17 of Never His Mate

Thank the Luna for Aleks’s chamomile tea. Without it, I don’t think I would’ve been able to sleep a wink.

All I keep thinking about was the sensation I was being followed, the scent of an unknown wolf on the breeze, and the wolf tracks leading out of Accalia and into my new city. The Mountainside Pack is the local shifter power, but they’re not the only shifters nearby. It’s possible that the wolf tracks belonged to some other shifter, but then Aleks explained that they led straight from the mountain.

Between the Mountainside wolves guarding their territory and the vamps’ paranoid patrol, odds aren’t so great that a third supe decided to test the Cadre. It has to be one of my former packmates. Makes sense that I wouldn’t recognize their scent, too, since I only spent a month living among them a year ago. Packs change, and as the Alpha’s intended—plus an omega—I’d been coddled. Out of a pack of more than fifty members, I maybe met half that before I left.

What’s an unknown wolf doing in a Fang City? The thought keeps me up until Aleks’s tea finally kicks in. I’ve spent a year hiding out, covering both my scent and my tracks. The only way I could be followed now would be through my whisper-thin bond with the pack’s Alpha, and since there’s never been any kind of tug from Ryker in the time after I ran out on him, I can’t imagine why he’d come looking for me now.

He’s probably perfectly happy with his chosen mate, I figure. He wouldn’t leave the mountain after so long just because of me. I mean, maybe I spent the first couple of weeks in Muncie looking over my shoulder, but when one full moon passed, then another, I had to accept that Ryker’s rejection was final.

Still, just because he doesn’t want me, that doesn’t change what I am. I’m an unmated alpha female who would be a prize to any shifter with ambitions of his own. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a Mountainside packmate or any other shifter. They can’t find out I’m a lone wolf, not if I don’t want to lose the life I’ve spent the last year putting together.

After a lifetime of pretending to be someone I’m not, I’ve gotten pretty good at bluffing. So when Aleks asks if I’m all right, I act like I could care less that there might be a shifter in town. I even tell him, in as casual a voice as I can manage, that I thought I might’ve picked up on a shifter’s scent on my way back home from Charlie’s.

That… was probably a mistake. I should’ve known better. Not only is Aleks a savior, but he can be pretty overprotective. As soon as I tell him, he has to hear all the details. Where was I? Did I see anyone? Did I recognize the scent? Did the necklace break before or after I caught it?

It’s that last question that makes me realize that Aleks isn’t thinking of himself as a protector of Muncie. He’s worried about me, and he proves it by offering to stay home with me.

As if I need a babysitter.

No, thanks.

I point out that the Cadre comes first. That Roman won’t be happy if he ignores a summons just because he’s concerned about me. Even if the wolf is here because they’re looking for me, I can deal with it. What about the unsuspecting humans who might run across a shifter who, for all we know, could be feral?

It’s a possibility. I mean, no shifter would choose to leave pack territory and head into a city full of our enemies unless they lost their mind. I certainly hadn’t been thinking clearly when I sped off the mountain. I expected any vamp who caught up with me might bite first, ask questions later, and I thank the Luna every damn day that I met Aleks that night. Not just because I ran into the Nightmare Trio first, but because—the mood I was in—I think I would’ve slaughtered them if I had to and, yeah. I was pretty feral myself.

A feral shifter is the most dangerous creature in our world. The second you pair a beast’s strength with a lack of any human empathy, it’s a disaster in the making. If I gave in to my wolf’s single-minded desire to survive and my human’s bloodthirsty nature, I would’ve been unstoppable. They would’ve had to put me down if I actually let go.

A pack stabilizes a shifter. Like the Cadre has created tight-knit vamp communities in their Fang Cities, living among their own kind keeps a balance between both halves of a shifter’s soul. It’s why Roman thinks of me like a ticking time bomb. Technically, I am.

But I’ve put down roots. I’ve made friends. Unless someone pushes me—and, thanks to Aleks’s fang, no one’s tried since Gretchen wanted to drain me—I’m not a danger to anyone in Muncie.

Until now. Until there’s another wolf skulking around, threatening me and my new life here.

I’m not afraid of the unknown wolf coming at me, though. As an alpha, I don’t get afraid. But… maybe I’m a little concerned that the wolf will reignite the war between vamps and shifters. The truce between our kinds is shaky at best. If a wolf goes feral in Muncie, I’m screwed.

I need Aleks to do his job. And, if I have to, I’ll do mine.

After all, I am an alpha.

Though I can tell he’s only reluctantly going, Aleks leaves the apartment around eleven, an hour before his shift should’ve begun. As one of Roman’s most trusted guards, he patrols a full eight hours every night no matter what; it’s the price of being part of the Cadre, and if I don’t understand it, I figure it’s a vamp thing and I’m not meant to. Since vamps usually sleep through the day—turns out pop culture got some things right—and they only need a couple of hours to recharge, the eight hours isn’t really a sacrifice for such a long-lived vamp like Aleks.

At his urging, I drink a second cup of tea with him before he goes. I’m still obsessing over what the sudden appearance of a second shifter could mean when I finally feel drowsy. I let it take me under, hoping that Aleks will be back when I wake up again in the morning.

His scent is renewed when I shuffle into the living room, but a second sniff confirms that it’s old. He must have stopped by earlier, but then left again.

A quick glimpse at my phone confirms it. Though Aleks rarely uses his—that one’s a two-century-old vamp thing—he’ll sometimes send me a message when he’s on patrol. The Cadre forbids their guards from talking while they’re on duty, but he can spare a few seconds to shoot off a text.

No sign of the shifter, he confirms, and Kellan discovered another set of tracks leading out of Muncie. The consensus is that the wolf high-tailed it out of the Fang City as soon as they could, heading back up the mountain.

Just in case, though, Roman has called for all of his full-turn patrollers to meet at his penthouse office in the middle of the city. Until they can figure out whether it was a one-off or not, they’re increasing the perimeter checks, but they also need to be careful not to draw the attention of the humans who have no clue that they live under the protection of a group of powerful vampires.

They did the same thing last year when I drove into Muncie. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Aleks filled me in later. It’s how I know that none of my former packmates ever came after me. If they had? The Cadre would’ve known.

Honestly, a supe can’t take a dump in Muncie without Roman Zakharov knowing about it.

You’d think I’d feel a little relief that the shifter had bolted. And I do… kind of. Call it alpha intuition or what, but I can’t shake the feeling that there was a reason why they risked death by fang by coming into Muncie on their own.

And, Luna, I really, really hope it’s not because of me.

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