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Trace slammed his hand against the steering wheel in frustration at his stupidity and selfishness. He should have lifted the veil as soon as the memory of the Feldman Hotelhad passed. Sparing her the awkwardness of meeting with Jess and the intricacies of their relationship with Sweetwater wasn’t worth this.
He parked hastily on Main Street, not caring whether he was inside the lines. A quick sweep of the other parked cars said she probably wasn’t at the school, but Trace forced himself to believe that maybe she just parked around the corner.
The alpha stalked to the elementary school and buzzed to be let in. Heather Carpenter, the secretary at the front office, unlocked the door from her desk.
“Alpha, it’s good to see you today,” she said cheerily, though concern was etched on her face. “Is there something I can help you with?”
He forced himself to calm down. It wouldn’t do any good to scare Heather. “I’m here to speak with my mate, Ms. Carpenter. Will you please page her down here?”
Heather looked away to focus her concentration on the floor in front of her. “I’m sorry, alpha, but Mrs. Everett isn’t here. She…didn’t clock in this morning.”
His blood ran cold as she confirmed his worst fears, but there was still something she wasn’t telling him. Trace tilted her chin up and forced her to look him in the eye. “What else do you know, Heather?”
She swallowed hard before answering. “There’s been talk, alpha. Some of the teachers saw her park across the street. They were excited to see her back, so they waited for her on the sidewalk.” He waited for her to continue, not moving a single muscle. “And, well… they saw a man, a male werewolf, come up behind her. At first, they thought that he might just be a friend. He isn’t from our pack. But then…well, sir, they say that she jumped into his arms and kissed him. Then he carried her back into the car, and they left together.”
Chapter 18
Trace tried hard to restrain himself when Heather Carpenter told him what she had heard. Whatever happened, it wasn’t her fault, and he didn't want to take out his panic on an innocent member of the pack. He asked her to call Randy on his behalf and have the beta meet him at the school. He also told her to set up a conference room and collect the teachers who saw his mate leave. He needed to speak with them directly.
He left her to fulfill his requests and went outside to take a closer look around Main Street. If the male wolf had taken Mariam away in the truck she drove, there was probably a car parked on the street that didn’t belong to a pack member.
Deep down, Trace knew who it must be: Mariam’s old fuckboy, Patrick. Images of that asshole being intimate with his mate had entered his mind only last night as Mariam had compared the quality of her encounters.
At the time, he had only cringed, hoping that she would gain a little more awareness that they were now sharing a consciousness. Trace’s wolf had gone berserk over the memory, calming only a fraction when she assured themthat sex was undeniably better with her true mate. He had clung to her words, praying that they were true. Their lovemaking had been earth-shattering, at least for him.
He caught Patrick’s scent on an old truck tucked back on the other side of town hall. Trace recognized it instantly as the vehicle that had been parked outside Mariam's house back at Dark Claw. The fucker must have driven it here in hopes of convincing her to leave with him.
What if she wanted to leave with him?
The thought spread like poison in his mind. Desperate to combat it, Trace focused on the last conversation he had with Mariam that morning. He had been transparent about his need for her, and she had promised to return to him. Had it all been a sham? That might be the only conclusion that made sense, considering how she had blocked him out of her mind. Why would she do that if she had been taken against her will?
None of it made any sense, and meeting with the teachers didn’t help, either. Their stories mirrored what Heather had already told him. They couldn’t even say for sure whether Mariam had gotten into the truck of her own volition. When Randy asked if she seemed to consent to the kiss, their answers had been a meek but definitive, yes.
Upon hearing that, the beta quickly thanked and dismissed them to return to their classes. His eyes had been on Trace, waiting for an explosion of some sort the instant they were alone, but it never came. Instead, he slumped back in his chair at a loss for words.
Trace’s wolf was ready to go find her the instant he learned she was missing, and he growled at his human’s lack of urgency. He knew all he needed to know aboutMariam’s wolf; nothing could convince him that her animal would willingly desert them.
Trace smiled sadly, thinking of the time they had spent together running with the pack. That had hands down been the best night of his wolf’s entire life, perhaps only competing with the way he felt being able to join her in their collective subconscious.
He agreed with his animal right away; Mariam’s wolf would never leave them willingly. But Mariam herself? The woman he had chased across the country? She gave him pause.
“What do you want to do, boss?” Randy asked, leaning against the wall, and giving Trace a wary look.
“What?” he snapped. The question had broken him out of his trance and unleashed the anger within the alpha. “Let me guess. You’re too tired to track your alpha female across state lines again? You want to stay home and play house with my sister instead?”
Randy narrowed his eyes, matching his energy. “I’ll let that one pass, Everett, but keep Justine out of this. That’s the only warning I’ll give you about that.”
Trace slammed a fist down on the wood conference table, cracking it down the center. His hand ached from the impact that would have shattered a human’s bones, but he ignored it. He straightened after a moment, remembering where he was and hoping that none of the classes had been disturbed by the noise.
“Forgive me,” he said, genuinely sorry. “What should I do, beta?”
“Honestly, I don’t know what I would do,” Randy said, coming up beside him and examining his injured hand. “From what I could tell, Mariam loved living in Tumblewild. Gabe told me she wanted to join the pack long before she knew you were part of it. She has made some good friends here, and she even allowed you to complete the mating bond, right? Something just doesn’t make sense.”
Trace frowned. Randy was right; if Mariam had planned on leaving that morning, she would have never had sex with him last night. What was the purpose of sealing their bond if she just wanted to leave? Could it be that she just wanted to give him a false sense of security? Or maybe her hormones had gotten the best of her, and she regretted it later?
He closed his eyes at the thought, hating the possibility that Mariam hadn’t really wanted to be with him. But no— that didn’t make sense, either. He had been able to see and feel her genuine thoughts that morning.
Plus, she didn’t know he was going to let her go to work until after breakfast, just moments before she left. Had her boyfriend been on standby for days, just waiting for her to slip away?
