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“Hey, either go and actually speak to her or stop staring that poor woman down like you want to wear her skin.”
Oren jerked back at that. “I donotlook like I want to wear her skin.”
“You’re not seeing it from this angle.” I made sure to keep my voice low. Most cryptids wouldn’t be able to hear me over the loud din of the café, but shifters certainly could if I wasn’t careful. Oren likely didn’t want underlings overhearing.
“Maybe.” He didn’t say anything for a moment, and I thought the conversation might be over, until he let out a small sigh. “It’s just…it’s hard not to stare when she’s stuck in my head all the time.”
“Literally or figuratively?” Still, considering she was a skilled telepath, it was a legitimate concern.
Oren, however, didn’t seem to appreciate my levity, rolling his eyes while also raising his wrist with the mandatory inhibitor bracelet we all wore to keep such cryptids out of our minds. “Laugh it up all you want, but just know that I’m storing all this away for whenyoufinally fall for someone. Just watch. Karma’s gonna come for you and slap you with some fated mate bullshit you can’t requite.”
I laughed. “I very much doubt there’s anyone like that out there for me. Fated mates are rarer and rarer these days, and it’snot like I have the time to go gallivanting around. Not with all we’re planning.” I tried to keep my tone jovial, yet I couldn’t help the stab of bitterness within me. Because even though I knew it was insane, impossible,unreasonable, I felt I’d already met my fated mate and lost her.
The memory was burned into my mind. It was three years ago. I’d been going through my normal morning routine, preparing for a supply run I probably shouldn’t have gone on but insisted upon, anyway. One moment I was standing there, shaving, and the next my inner wolf was goingwild.
It was like the entire world was frozen in place, leaving me functioning at a completely different speed than everyone else. I remember turning around as if I'd find the reason for my enthrallment in my bathroom.
Naturally, it wasn’t there, but that didn’t matter with my body’s reaction. No, I was so wound up, so excited, that I could barely breathe. The entirety of my being was reaching out, trying to find the mate I could only sense.
It was the only time I’d ever roamed around the fort in my sleeping clothes, but I couldn’t bear to waste a second in my search for the unwavering signal. It called me, urgent and unrelenting, demanding that I find the woman meant for me at a molecular scale.
But I couldn’t find her.
I'd searched for her several times over, scenting and sniffing for hours and hours. I'd even neglected my duties, locking myself into an inescapable hunt, until suddenly, the pull vanished.
One moment I was being drawn toward what felt like the center of the universe, and the next second, there was nothing. It was like someone suddenly cut the tether mooring me to my destiny, and I was just set adrift into a vast emptiness.
I’d never felt that pull since, never felt the draw again of the woman meant to be mine, and it still felt like part of me was missing and always would be.
“Captain Kai?” Oren said, seeming to finally realize I’d drifted off. I supposed I couldn’t blame him, considering I hadn’t told anyone about what I’d experienced. There were questions about why I'd been running around in my civvies like a feral shifter, but I’d been able to pass it off as a particularly powerful sleepwalking session.
“Yes?” I said back, although I could hear how hollow my voice sounded, as it often did when I thought of my lost mate. While I liked to keep up a confident and easy-going front, I couldn’t always bury just how depressing the whole situation was. I longed for her, more than I ever knew possible, and late at night, it was hard not to wonder why I'd sensed her, only for her to disappear from the face of the Earth.
Was she dead? Had she just arrived at the fort and somehow been dispatched? I’d scoured the records of that day over and over again, yet there were no reported kills or losses. So what, then? She’d touched down from the heavens only to be swallowed by the ground?
Perhaps. That was as good an explanation as any.
“Are you all right? You seem distracted.”
“I’m fine,” I said more tensely. How did I explain to my best friend that I felt like an intrinsic part of me had been stolen away? That even the hedonistic hookups I occasionally fell into felt hollow and unsatisfying, leaving me craving something I'd no name for? “Just stop staring at the psychic, all right?”
“Yes, sir.” He could tell I was in a sour mood.
“You’re dismissed,” I said before heading out of the cafeteria. I didn’t want to indulge in self-pity and fall into pouting, so I decided to go for a run in the safer area of the wild lands surrounding us. Usually protocol didn’t recommend anymilitary member go speeding around outside the fort walls all on their lonesome, but many shifters needed such freedom. There’d been plenty of studies of the effects long-term confinement had on several different types of shifters, and all of them were pretty damn horrific. Madness, aggression, depression, even suicide. If there was one constant, it was that our kind needed space to run and be under an open sky.
A run definitely seemed like the best course of action for me. Who knew? Maybe while I was out there, I'd pick up any sign of our missing scout.
Chapter 3
Ayla
Oh my God!
I was still flushed while I lay in my bed, my heart fluttering at everything that'd happened. Part of me knew it was pathetic to be so wound up by Kai justsmilingat me, but the vast majority of me didn’t give a flying fuck, because my fated mate saw me. He really saw me, and he’d grinned like he was happy to see me.
It was a bubbly, giddy feeling that had me rubbing my legs together like the world’s largest cricket… only to feel the impact of a deep, bitter heartache that made things hurt worse than ever. It was a vicious cycle of elation then desolation, keeping me up when I really,reallyneeded sleep.
After an hour, or maybe even two, of shuttling between two extremes, I realized sleep wasn’t going to be touch me with a ten-foot pole. So, instead of just lying there useless, I decided to get up and see if I could replenish some of the herbal stores in the infirmary. Usually, we were pretty good about keeping them topped up, but better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
