Page 2 of The Wolf Prince's Mate

A couple months later, he asked me to sketch out my version on a tattoo he’d wanted for a long time. He had a clear idea of what he wanted it to look like in his mind, but had never found an artist who understood, so he never got the tattoo.

I hit the mark on the first try.

We spent eighty-something hours perfecting his sleeve in the following months. It had been a few weeks since we finished the last session. We had tossed a few ideas back and forth for a leg sleeve, but nothing had hit right, yet.

I wasn’t there about a tattoo, though.

Not this time.

“This was waiting for me inside my truck,” I said, lifting the sketchbook.

“You have at least a dozen of those,” Clay said, around a mouthful of food.

I had far more than a dozen, but that wasn’t the point.

I flipped the first page open to show him the foul image on the paper.

Clay went still. “Was your car locked?”

“Of course it was.”

Clay flipped the page over.

He flipped through the next few, too, before finally stopping on the last one that had been used.

The image on the page was burned into my mind.

It was a charcoal, hand-drawn portrait of me, with a pair of hands wrapped around my throat. My lips were parted, and my eyes were unfocused. Beneath the portrait, it said:

YOU BELONG TO ME, LITTLE WOLF

“Fuck,” Clay finally said, closing the sketchbook and lifting his hand to the bridge of his nose. “Insideyour car?”

“Yes. Sometime between last night and this morning. I got back from the studio at nine PM, and headed outside to leave at eleven thirty this morning. I have appointments scheduled.”

He let out a long breath and picked up his phone off the desk beside him. I knew whose number he would dial before he even started—and I knew he was only calling rather than using the pack’s mental link so I could hear the conversation.

It rang once before Hunter picked up.

“Why are you calling me instead of using the mental link?” my least-favorite Savage brother asked.

“We have a problem. Did you sense any danger between 9 PM and 11 AM?” Clay asked.

“No. What happened?”

Clay glanced at me. He wanted my permission before he shared what had happened.

I nodded grudgingly. Things would be worse for me if Hunter found out after everyone else.

“Nova’s stalker is back.”

“What?” Hunter growled.

“He dropped a sketchbook in her car. The pictures he left for her are… gruesome.”

“Meet me there. Bring it with you.” There was a heavy pause. A frustrated breath. “Bring her, too. She might recognize the scent of someone we don’t know.”

Clay’s gaze flicked back to me.

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