Page 7 of Betrayed Auctioned Mate

“In all the time I knew him.” My memories of Byron are almost entirely positive, though faint. We worked together on lots. Our jobs were aligned that way, and I suspect the same will be true now.

To imagine Byron—and, indeed, the rest of the boys—settled with mates like this is surreal. It’s as if when I stepped into Rosecreek, I entered a world where we were all capable of that kind of thing, this soft-edged, suburban paradise Aris has managed to settle. God knows how.

Birds over the barracks. The smell of chloroform. Ado’s laugh. My bloodied fingertips, shredded from failing to crack the lock.

Olivia peers over her shoulder at me. She has been talking this whole time, though I get the sense she isn’t an especially chatty person. I think it was to keep me at ease. But she must be curious, too.

“You and Ado?” she asks.

I shake my head. “Ancient history.”

Olivia hums. She closes my empty case and packs it neatly into the top of the wardrobe.

“I didn’t think he was the type to ever date… anyone,” she says. “He’s very—um—”

“Impossible,” I fill in. “Impervious.”

“Kind of, yeah.” Olivia sits on the windowsill beside me. With the glass against our backs, the room seems to darken.

I want to indulge her curiosity. Simultaneously, I want to never have to talk about this stuff ever again.

She speaks before I can. “If things are uncomfortable, Aris will make sure you don’t have to work with him much,” she says. “He’s a good leader like that.”

Humming, I place my hands flat on the sill on either side of my hips. I know she’s right, but some part of me also knows that if it will affect the outcome of the mission, Aris will have me work with whoever I have to.

I wonder how much Aris remembers about what happened. Did he, too, agree to leave me behind? Did he send anyone to look for me, or did he leave it to Ado?

“I’ll be fine,” I say, trying to believe it. “I’m starving, though.”

Olivia leads me through the upper floors of the pack center to a lived-in-looking kitchen on the far side. I spot other people’s food on the counters and inside cupboards: three types of cereal, two types of milk, two kinds of bread, a fruit bowl overflowing with apples, bananas, kiwis, and more. I wonder how many members of the pack actually live here. Certainly not all of them. Nonetheless, they probably spend a lot of time here—I get the sense that the pack center is a second home to those for whom it isn’t a first.

We make sandwiches and sit to eat them. I catch Olivia scrolling through her phone, smiling. Probably texting with Byron, who’s due back here in an hour or two for the briefing.

A shape moves past the door, then into the frame. Lingering, Ado does a double take as he sees me again.

Despite our best wishes, we stare at one another. I see one of Ado’s broad, veiny hands flex and unflex at his side. Hemust have just come from the gym, because his black hair curls slightly at his forehead, tousled and sweaty, and I see his broad-set chest rise and fall beneath his tank top. I glance back up, and his sharply focused eyes are still fixed on my face, full of their singular, serious intent. My face heats.

Olivia shifts in her chair, and the air breaks. Ado continues down the hall. I see his shadow as it disappears out of sight, as if he was never there. I could have imagined him.

Chapter 4 - Ado

Keira has let her hair grow out.

Fuck,I think, and splash my face with water, hunched over the sink.

It was shorter when I last knew her, half an inch below her shoulders, and it hung straight. She took care of it meticulously. Once, she told me that straightening it every day was the only time she had to herself.

Now it’s long and thick, honey-blonde curls cascading loosely down her back, the front pieces pinned artfully back out of her face. It’s proof she changed, proof the time really did pass. I think of her loose linen pants and that little black halter neck and have to splash water in my face again.

It took me a moment to recognize her when we first saw each other in the meeting room, though I could tell by the look on her face that she knew me instantly. She went pale—or maybe she’s just paler now. As a contractor, she probably spends less time out in the field, if any, and I don’t know why, but that thought makes me feel set alight, as if she has divided off from me and I can no longer reach her.

We could be strangers now. It’s been years. I flex my hand around the rim of the sink and try to convince myself it’s true.

“Ado.”

I don’t startle. I heard him coming, moving to stand in the doorway to the lower floor’s stalled bathroom.

Aris repeats himself when I don’t answer. “Ado. On this planet with us?”

---