Page 11 of Mated

I shouldn’t have gone out for food. I should have stayed with her and ensured she didn’t wake up before I got back.

I’m running as I dial one of my best hunters.

Bardo is immediately on the line. I don’t even hear the phone ring before he is answering.

“Sir?”

“Bardo, I have a runner from the apartment. Heading toward the park, I think. White wolf, champagne tips. Female.”

“Not a description I recognize.”

“My new mate.”

There is a pause for a fraction of a moment before he responds. “Understood.”

I run in the direction she went, following the increasingly faint scent. The city is a stinking, turbulent place. Every car that goes by disturbs the air, and the people rushing back and forth add their individual scents to the general melee.

There’s only one merciful thing about this entire situation, and that is the fact that the smell of fresh blood and viscera is not filling the air. She must be terrified. That’s the only explanation. If hunger were driving her, she wouldn’t be running past all of these walking meals. She would be in a feeding frenzy.

Guilt flashes through me. I know better than this. I am the damn alpha of the Denholm pack. My job is to manage the pack, to take care of others, and to ensure that things like this don’t happen. There are betas and even deltas who have managed their mate’s first shift better than this.

I think I see a flash of white-ish fur every now and then, but it always turns out to be a shopping bag or a coat, or some other piece of human clutter that is only serving to separate me from the woman who needs me most.

I get to the park. Bardo is approaching from the north as I rush to the south. He doesn’t have her scent yet, but he knows what a wolf looks like, so he has that going for him. We spot one anotherfrom a distance of several blocks, nodding briefly before we head into the wooded interior.

It’s a nice day, and the park is packed. A carriage with tourists hanging out of it is being drawn down the path as I join a pack of joggers briefly at a full sprint in my work attire.

“Isn’t that Cain Lupin?”

I hear my name and know that a scene is being made. Goddamnit. There will be pictures from this whole affair. There will be conspiracies as to why the hell I’m sprinting through the park. The stock will drop, or maybe rise, depending on what they decide it all means.

I don’t care, as long as I get Kira back safely.

“HEY STOP! WHOSE FUCKING DOG IS THIS?”

I hear a cry in the distance, my first indication that I’m on the right track.

By the time I get to the source of the distress, I find a hot dog cart completely broken apart, ravaged by a beast with more hunger than sense.

The proprietor is furious. There are buns everywhere. Not a single hot dog has survived Kira’s raid. The awning is askew, the wheel is off the cart, and I am going to have to provide adequate compensation before the day is out. Just as long as she doesn’t kill anybody and nobody kills her, that’s all I’m hoping for.

Kira’s scent, the smell of hotdogs, and an organic sage body wash combine as I hone in on her location. She’s finally stopped. I can tell that because I am picking up her trail ever more strongly with each step.

“Aw, baby. Are you hungry, sweetie? Aw poor thing. Here you go. Yes, that’s a good girl! What a good girl!”

A blonde woman with big sunglasses, pink lipstick, and a t-shirt that reads Live, Laugh, Love, is letting Kira lick an ice cream from her hand.

The relief I feel is almost equal to the confusion I feel at seeing my mate, who should be absolutely maddened by bloodlust right now, engulfing sugar and fat at an astonishing rate.

“There you are!” I call out, coming to a halt next to Kira and the kindly middle-aged woman who has no idea whatsoever the service she has just done me.

“Is she yours?” The woman looks at me with a broad smile. “She’s such a beautiful girl! What is she? Some kind of malamute or shepherd cross? Lab, maybe?”

This is the benefit of her having non-standard colors. She looks like a dog. Everybody who saw her on the way here must have mistaken her for a runaway. I breathe a sigh of relief on top of the sigh I already breathed.

Kira is still lapping, her eyes fixated on the ice cream. She won’t care about anything besides food in this state.

“I’m sorry, I lost her collar. I mean, she slipped out of her collar,” I explain.

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