Page 12 of Her Second-Hand Mate

“Oh, and wait until you see the Gamma, Theo! He’s this young and buff male who basically lives at the gym, and I’ll bet you anything that, if you start talking to him about mates or females, he’ll let you know that he likesa certain kind of female. It’s so infuriating!”

“What on Earth does he mean by that?”

“No one knows!” she laughed. “We keep trying to figure it out, especially Elliot is really invested in it at this point, but that’s all Theo will say.A certain kind of female,” she said in a fake deep voice as she stood up and imitated a hulking male waving his arms around like a gorilla, which made me laugh more than I had in weeks.

I had tears in my eyes by the end of it.

“Grace, you’re killing me,” I wheezed.

“Eh, in my line of work, you better learn how to laugh, or you’ll spend your life crying.”

“Oh? What do you do?”

“I’m a domestic violence therapist and I do trauma counseling. We have a mental health wing at the University Hospital here in the pack, but I also travel to different packs to treat those who need it.”

My heart hurt for the wolves who needed her expertise.

“Is there a lot of domestic violence among mated couples? Are they abusing females, or children, or... how does it work?”

“If the wolf or bond is damaged enough, for whatever reason, matesdoharm each other. Some wolves with certain disorders harm their pups. Not to mention the influence of alcohol and various drugs.”

“Wow. That’s insane.”

“I know. The majority of my domestic violence patients, however, are still from romantic relationships who are not fated mates.”

I briefly remembered how indifferent Father was to Eden and I shuddered before replying, “Still, fated or not, that sounds awful. There is so much ugliness in the world and you are forced to see it all.”

“I know,” she agreed sadly. “Still, anything is better than treating pups after trauma or loss.”

It took all my strength not to think about why no one like Grace had been sent to our pack after Mother’s death.

After Grace left, I realized that I’d finished most of the cleaning, and I already had a rough idea of which carpet would go where.

I went up to the guest suite to see its size and determine how much work needed to be done there, but was greeted by a storage unit instead. It was full of boxes and suitcases ofstuff.Just two minutes of snooping confirmed it was all Cassie’s.

There were a lot of (very expensive and fashionable) clothes, a whole big moving box of photos, boxes and boxes of (expensive, neck-breaking, and colorful) shoes, as well as a box filled with what looked like papers and documents.

I closed the door before I gave in to my impulse to snoop. Not on my first day here. I leaned my back against the door when I heard someone downstairs. I inhaled through my nose.

“I’m up here,” I called to Dominic.

“Ah, so my mate does have legs,” he smiled when he saw me, and I realized that this was the first time he was seeing me in something other than my long dresses. My face felt warm.

I didn’t want to say something stupid like “I do,” so I said, “I was cleaning.”

“I see that. Are you hungry?”

“A bit.”

“I brought some food from the pack kitchen.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“Why do you sound surprised?” he frowned.

“I don’t know. Because I am?”

“Why?”

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