Page 10 of Betrayed Kidnapped Mate

He grins at me, punching me lightly in the arm. Despite the circumstances, I can sense that he’s happy for me. Finding your mate isn’t something that every shifter gets—only about ten percent of all shifters find their mates, and not all of those are great love stories. Which is evident in the fact that Linnea is setting up a women’s shelter for shifters at all.

Sometimes, the person you’re mated to can be the person you hate most in the world. There’s not a lot of research on it, but my hypothesis there is that love and hate aren’t actually opposites—they’re both opposite extremes on the continuum. This means apathy is actually the opposite of either love or hate, and the two emotions are closer than people think.

I imagine it like how, if you walked in a circle around the world, you’d end up in the same place you started. Get far enough away from something, and you’re on top of it again.

“She’s close,” Aris says, and I see Ado visibly relax on the other side of the room. He seems very uncomfortable in this situation. I can almost feel how much he wants Linnea to come in and take over so Rosa can calm down.

Olivia is crying now, too, as the women talk to each other softly in the corner. Every once in a while, I feel Rosa’s eyes on me, but I keep my gaze on the table. I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is.

A moment later, the door opens, and Linnea walks in, her dark curls piled up onto her head. She’s breathing hard. I feel Aris immediately relax next to me at the sight of her.

“Okay,” she says, glancing quickly at Rosa. “All of you, get out of here.”

Aris, Ado, and Byron all stand, turning to leave, but I stay put. Linnea fixes her gaze on me.

“You, too,” she says, almost like a teacher talking to a naughty student. I stand, but my body physically aches at moving further away from Rosa. I want to take her in my arms and help to comfort her. It’s excruciating to know that I’m part of what’s causing her pain.

Aris locks gazes with Linnea, and something seems to pass between them. As she looks at him, Linnea works her hair out of the hair tie. After a moment, Linnea looks back at me, her eyebrows raised.

“It will be okay,” she murmurs; somehow, it’s comforting. Coming from Linnea, it’s more than a platitude. “I promise. But I need you to leave her for now. Until she can calm down. You know the way you feel about her? She feels that toward Kaila times a thousand. It’s making her act this way.”

I roll my lips and bite down hard, pushing away from the bar and following Aris out into the sunshine.

“It’s gonna be okay, buddy,” he says, and I push him away. He laughs loudly as we head back toward my Jeep.

“It’s better when your wife says it,” I say, then dance out of his reach when he tries to cuff the back of my head.

Chapter 6 - Rosa

I watch Bigby and the other men like a hawk as they leave the bar.

The woman who just walked in comes over to our corner of the room but doesn’t get into my space. I stare at her. She seems nice, but I’m ready to poke her eyes out if she looks at Kaila wrong.

The woman is shorter than me, with a mess of dark curls that spill out over her shoulders. She’s curvy and wearing a floral summer dress and sandals. Through my natural instincts, I can sense that the alpha keeps glancing in her direction as the group of men walks away, that she’s the luna of the pack. It makes sense, as she gives off a very comforting aura.

“Hi,” Kaila says, opening her eyes in my arms. I clear my throat, smiling gently at the woman.

“I’m Linnea,” she says, her warm smile popping dimples and making her face scrunch up. “I’m Rosecreek’s Luna. I spoke with your mother, who explained your situation to me. I was once in a similar position to yours—living under a corrupt alpha. I had even—” she sucks in a breath like it’s difficult to say, “—I’d even found someone willing to erase my scent.”

Olivia gasps, putting her hand to her mouth. The idea of it is appalling—through blood-bonding or mating, a shifter can always move from pack to pack. New bonds will often form if you just live within a pack for long enough. But once you erase your scent? You can never mate or bond with anyone again. The idea of it is just cruel. Lonely. A last resort.

Knowing this about the luna softens me. First, I feel for her, and second, it finally feels like I’m talking to someone who understands me.

“Here’s my proposal,” she says, holding her hands up and palms toward me as though showing she’s not armed. “I show you the facility I’ve set up for this program—for sheltering women and children. You can take a look and decide for yourself if you want to stay. But no matter what, you can’t breathe a word of it to anybody else after I show you, okay? It staying hidden is imperative for keeping other women and children safe in the future.”

“Okay,” I say reluctantly when Olivia gives me a look that says What’s the harm in looking?

“But it’s imperative that you never tell anyone else about it.”

“You have my word that we won’t share this with anyone. I wouldn’t ever want to jeopardize a woman's safety in my position. Or any children.”

Kaila squirms in my arms.

“Mom,” she says, though her voice is still steeped in sleep. I bristle with anger again at the fact that Bigby drugged my daughter—giving the two of us the same dose. He could have killed her. “Put me down.”

I comply, setting Kaila on her feet but keeping an eye on her in case she looks woozy. She runs to Olivia, burying her face in Olivia’s stomach. Olivia hugs her back and whispers something I don’t catch.

As Linnea guides us, I think about the Jeep, noting that our things are still inside. My heart is racing. I just have to trust these people and know they’re telling the truth. They’ll let us go if we don’t want to stay.

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