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By agreeing to mate Rafael when he’s ready, I left West free to search for his fated mate. For nearly two and a half years, he refused. He wouldn’t leave pack land on the rare chance he stumbled on his fated mate somewhere in the outside world. Level-headed when it comes to everything except his feelings for me, he figured that he was safe on pack land.
He was wrong.
Six months ago, he was sitting with me at dinner in the pack circle, trying to get me to eat food he chose just for me. It was a common occurrence, but what happened next wasn’t.
Frustrated with my polite refusal, he glanced away. His eyes landed on the pretty delta in our age group he worked as the pack’s stylist. At the same time, Quinn’s soft gold gaze flickered West’s way andboom. In an instant, I knew.
He found his fated mate. The only female meant for him. His body jerked, surprise andlusttwisting his features. Before that day, I was the only female he ever looked at like that, and as reality set in, I shoved my untouched plate away from me.
The sounds of the plate scraping across the outdoor table snared West’s attention away from Quinn. He blinked, shaking his head, clearing it, then he smiled at me.
It was tight-lipped, but it was a smile.
He never smiled at Quinn. Not then, and not in the months since. He’s saved all those crooked grins for me, and as much as I hate myself for treasuring them, too, I’m secretly grateful for them.
I just… maybe he should spare one for his fated mate.
It’s been six months. He didn’t quite reject her, but that’s because—as Beta—he didn’t have to. West just continued to act as if nothing had changed, and the whole pack followed his lead—all the way up until the moment Quinn vanished.
That was a few weeks ago. She went out into the woods on the edge of pack land despite a warning that the pack patrols thought we might have an unfamiliar shifter testing our borders, and the next time a sentry passed that way, all they found was a pair of two separate sets of paw prints in the dirt and the tattered shreds of the shirt and jeans Quinn had been wearing that day.
The consensus was that she was taken; definitely by a shifter, if not a feral. While West—at Bishop’s command—led a search for the missing she-wolf, my brother made contact with the Gravetail Pack, checking to see if any of their wolves were involved. They weren’t, and with Quinn blocking West from finding her through their mate bond, no one knows where she is now.
I like Quinn. I hope she’s okay, and that she returns to Hickory. We never had much in common; she’s a feisty delta who enjoyed mating as many males as she could before the Luna gave her to West, while she teasingly referred to me as Li’l Miss Pack Princess even before she found out her fated mate was ignoring her to spend time with me. She put on a brave front, acting as though it didn’t cut at her every time West picked me over her, but I’m an Omega.
I know exactly how much she hurt. Just like I could tell that she would disappear into the woods to be alone so that the pity from the rest of the pack didn’t make her pain even worse.
I tried. Reminding West once again that we both have fated mates waiting for us, I nudged him to accept Quinn. He refused. As he said, he would have me or no one, and six months after the Luna tempted him with his true female, he was still trying to convince me to reject Rafael.
I won’t, and I only hope that West hasn’t lost his chance at forever with his fated mate already.
“Any news on Quinn?”
I shouldn’t have asked, and I regret it almost immediately. Even saying her name is like a stab right at the most vulnerable parts of this male.
In front of the rest of the pack, he refuses to let them see. He pulls on that emotionless mask of his, his “Beta” expression, and acts as though it doesn’t bother him one way or another that his bond with Quinn Malone has a jagged edge.
But that’s in front of the rest of the pack.
In front of me? I see past the mask, and not only because the Omega can tap into any packmate’s emotion unless they purposely block us.
“No. Bishop is sure it’s the wolf who’s been sniffing around the last few months who took her. We just don’t know why, though we can guess.”
I can, too. No matter how sheltered I’ve been, when a rogue male shifter makes off with a pretty, unmated female, it’s kind of obvious what he wants with her. Lone wolves want mates as much as the rest of us, and if he saw the opportunity to snatch one, he might.
But if itisa feral… she’s okay. She has to be. Even if she’s purposely blocking West from finding her, if anything happens to her, there’s no way she can keep him from finding out now that they have a thread tying them together.
Just like how, despite West wanting the whole pack to think Quinn is nothing to him, I know better. He loves me, but he never wanted to hurt her. Rejected her would turn her into the pack outcast, the female not good enough for our beloved Beta.
Too bad that West accidentally gave that exact impression by avoiding her these last six months…
West is standing on my porch, one hand on the railing, the other reaching out for me again. I don’t even think he’s aware he’s doing it. Part of his mind is on Quinn—where it belongs, I admit if only to myself—while the other…
He stumbles. Surefooted and confident, West doesn’t stumble—but he just did.
I lay my hand on his arm to steady him. He’s already recovered by the time I touch him, and I draw my hand back quickly once I see that he’s standing straight-backed again.
Still, I have to ask.
