Page 198 of The Alpha's Second Chance Mate

That’s when I remembered where I knew her from. We’d graduated together.

“Yes,” Tess said, a haughty tone to her voice. “Long time no see, Stormy.” She gave me a withering look and curled her lip in disgust. “You too, Avery. Still chasing shifters to bed?”

“Hang on,” Stormy said, color rising to her cheeks. “Are you really going to degrade Avery for being with a shifter? I recall you being the biggest tail chaser in school.”

Tail chaserhad been, for as long as I could remember, a derogatory slang term for anyone who sought out sexual relations with shifters for the excitement of the chase.

“If my friend Porter is right,” Stormy said, “then I bet you’ve had alotof bites from shifters, and I don’t see a tail on you. A wet nose, maybe, but no tail.”

“Oh, screw you, Stormy,” Tess said. She pushed her cart to the side and stomped toward the door.

“You all should stop blaming the pack for what happened to that man,” I said, raising my voice so everyone within earshot could hear me. “They had nothing to do with it, and all this whispering only makes you all look like assholes.”

A few people grumbled, but no one argued back. We paid, and as we made our way to the door, a woman approached us. She was in her late twenties and obviously pregnant. She was also a shifter. I recognized her from Cole’s pack.

“Thank you for that,” she murmured.

“For what?” I asked, unsure what she meant.

“For sticking up for us,” she said. “The last few weeks haven’t been easy for the pack, and now the rumors are starting about this man who turned into a wolf.” She shrugged helplessly. “It’s rough. None of us know what to believe, and the humans are giving us all wide berths. It’s nice to hear a human say something good about us. That’s all. So, thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank us for being decent people,” I said. “None of the shifters in this town have done anything wrong.”

She cast her eyes down and gave me an embarrassed smile. “That’s true, I guess. It’s just that we don’t know what happened.We’ve been hearing a lot of crazy stuff the last couple hours, and it spread like wildfire. I’ve got human friends who won’t return my calls or texts because they’re afraid.”

“Listen,” I said, touching her arm. “I promise you, Cole is going to get to the bottom of this. You can be assured of that.”

I wasn’t a wolf, and I never would be, but it still made me feel good. After another awkward smile, the woman hurried from the store, and Stormy and I met up with Porter outside.

“Shit’s getting hairy,” Porter said. “I got a lot of dirty looks from folks heading inside.”

“Cole’s got to do something,” Stormy said. “This place is gonna be like a powder keg in a day or two.”

She was right about that, and Cole didn’t waste any time. When we got home, Cole and the others were there, along with the most terrified wolf I’d ever seen in my life. Until the moment I came upon the poor beast in the garage, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what a depressed wolf looked like, but the moment I saw the creature, I knew that was exactly what this wolf was. The sad, dejected look in its eyes made my heart hurt. It would have been bad if it had only been an animal, but knowing that an innocent man was stuck inside there was almost too much.

“He’s not doing great,” Cole admitted. “After what happened with his wife, he sort of fell apart.”

I stepped out of earshot of the wolf. “What happened with his wife?”

Cole cast a regretful look into the garage. “We didn’t know what to do with him. We can’t change him back, and I don’t know ifwe’ll ever be able to. On the way back, we decided to stop by his house, thinking his wife would take him in. Let him live there until we finally figure out what kind of drug Kyle is using.” Cole shook his head. “We fucked up. It was a bad idea. The woman lost her shit. Totally fell apart. She couldn’t even look at him, much less take him in. You could tell it broke the poor guy’s heart.”

I put a hand to my mouth, looking back in at the poor animal—no, the poormantrapped in an animal’s body.

“I wish I could do something for him,” Cole said sadly. “I told him he had free reign of my property and could run around in the yard, but all he wants to do is sit here in the garage.”

When Stormy and I had returned home to find this new arrival, all the men looked uncomfortable and sad. They understood the gravity of this, knew that Kyle was upping the ante even more. It made me wonder if this was part of his plan. To sow enough chaos that Cole wouldn’t be on his A-game when they finally met face-to-face.

“What’s the plan now?” I asked as we headed back to the house.

“Farrah and Trent are making calls. Pack meeting tonight. I want everyone there. I need to get the word out and try to calm things down before panic ensues.”

Three hours later, we were getting ready to head to the high school auditorium for the meeting, and I was preparing a plate of food for our guest.

“What’s that?” Trent asked.

“It’s for Gabe.” I refused to call himit, or an animal or wolf. He was a person and deserved to be called by his name.

“You can try, but I haven’t seen him eat or drink anything since we found him.”

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