Page 9 of Undesired Mate

Clara’s plaintive question is only one of so many running through my head. It’s enough to make me wish I could clamp my hands over my ears to block it out, but that wouldn’t help when the sound is inside my skull.

I have no choice but to turn away, since the sight of her helpless on the bed only inflames my already overpowering urge to do much more than leave my scent on her. It’s not enough—a quick fix, like a bandage over a wound. The wound itself is not healed, only covered up. The deep, throbbing, incessant desire to complete the bond won’t be ignored. My skull is going to crack if this goes on much longer.

“I can’t trust you to do what I tell you to do.” Pulling on a T-shirt, I try to ignore the way the fabric chafes against my overheated skin. Every part of me is alive, aware, tingling and sizzling. I need to shift—that’s the problem. I need to work out all of this boiling, seething tension.

The problem is, I can’t do it in front of her. I don’t know whether my wolf would be able to contain himself now that I’ve gotten this close. Using her body for my pleasure only heightened the intensity of my craving.

“How long will you be gone?” I hear her twisting on the bed, hear the sheet moving under her, and the springs under that.

“As long as I need to be gone.” Once I’m finished getting dressed, I give her a single glance. Hot, almost painful flames lick their way up and down my body, and I turn away with a growl. “Try to stay comfortable. Take a nap if you can,” I grunt before leaving, desperate to put some space between us.

Fresh air is surprisingly helpful, an array of new scents and sounds slamming into me, giving me something else to turn my attention toward. Sunshine warms my skin as I follow the sound of voices and the intense energy of fellow pack members.

Of all scents hanging in the air, competing for attention, one stands out above the rest. Not only the scent, but the feeling of uncertainty. Questioning, doubting, everyone on high alert now that there’s a foreign presence in our midst. My wolf rouses, prepared to defend if need be. I might be in the grips of indecision because of her, but I won’t let them interfere. And I won’t let them touch her.

The familiar sight of the pack alpha brings me to a halt. “Go easy,” Thorn warns on his approach, pausing for a second with his hands raised. “No one is interested in starting a fight.”

I hate that he had to say it. It takes drawing a deep breath until my lungs are ready to burst, but I manage to get a grip on myself. “I’m not interested in fighting. Only…”

“I know.” It’s a relief not having to explain what is inexplicable. I don’t have the words for this. I can hardly remember why I wanted so badly to find my mate now that she’s brought me nothing but trouble. This was supposed to be the start of my life, the fulfillment of fate. Instead, I can only wish for yesterday, as the unease and suspicion of my pack grows like an invisible cloud spreading over all of us.

It doesn’t take long to find out why. “We had a visitor,” he tells me in a curt voice. “An envoy from her pack. They want her back.”

Something ripples through me. The growl of my wolf getting louder until it’s the only thing I can hear in my head. Cold certainty roots itself in my gut. “No.” It comes out sounding like the wolf’s growl, something inhuman. Primal.

“I knew you would feel that way, but there’s still the matter of her mate.” He levels a hard, unblinking gaze my way. “You will need to make this right. She is not one of us. She belongs to her pack.”

“They rejected her, and now they want her back?”

He shook his head slowly, sagely. “It is not for us to decide.”

What if there is some other reason they cast her out? It might be better for the pack if I hand her over, no matter how my wolf rages at the thought. All he wants is to claim, to mark. Yet here I am, weighing my options. “Did the envoy leave word of where they could be found?”

“He said they would wait near the place where you found her.” His arms, already as thick as the trunks of young trees, flex when he folds them. “He said you could send her back there.”

“What’s his name?”

“Shane. He’ll be waiting.”

“I left her in my room. She won’t escape.” Still, I feel better knowing someone else knows where she can be found. This is not a kill mission or even a battle. I’m gathering facts, information. There’s no reason I shouldn’t come back soon.

Though that’s up to them, too. Shane and whoever else is involved in this.

Rather than shift, I go on two feet, since I’m still too worked up to trust my wolf won’t do something drastic. Not only that, but I think more clearly this way, and thinking is what I need to do most. That envoy took a big chance crossing into our territory, lingering there. This must be important to him, but then, if it was, why would the pack have rejected her in the first place? I might get some answers from them that she doesn’t feel like giving up.

I can smell them before I see them. There’s three of them, waiting by the stream where Clara’s scent still lingers faintly in the air. I hate to think they could track her here based on that. She is not theirs. She belongs to my wolf.

I know when the largest of the three turns to watch my approach that I’ve located Shane. He isn’t only an envoy, that much is obvious from the intensity of his stare. His eyes glow with a golden light that deepens the closer I get. This means more to him than a simple diplomatic mission. “Where is she?” he asks, dispensing with politeness and looking past me like he expects to find her bringing up the rear.

“She’s someplace safe.” I take in the three of them one at a time, sizing them up while they do the same to me. The other two aresmaller but no less powerful looking. Their sarcastic sneers don’t do them any favors—I’d like to wipe those looks off their faces, especially since they’re on our land as a favor from our alpha. “Considering you shunned her and left her out here, it strikes me as strange that you would want her back.”

“That’s our business. Our pack. Bring her to us,” Shane insists, his jaw ticking while the others growl softly like they’re hoping for a fight.

“I need to know why. Why was she shunned?”

One of the smaller shifters snickers, exchanging a look with the others. “Why do you care?” he demands in a deep voice.

“Because she’s with my pack at the moment, and I found her in our territory, which means we deserve to know how she ended up here.” I lift my shoulders in a shrug. “Did you send her to spy on us? To gather information?”

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