Page 2 of Tolerated By the Sigma (Mate Hunt 7)

She answered almost immediately. “Hey, girl. You okay?”

“Not sure, to be honest. Some hot, inked up werewolf showed up and broke my date’s face. I barely got a look at him before his eyes turned red. Sab… he’s my mate. Are you almost here? Backup would be good right now.”

She paused for a minute, then asked, “What?”

“He’s my mate, Sab. Or I’m his… I thought I’d already met all the single werewolves in town.” I shoved a loose strand of my obnoxious, naturally-platinum hair out of my eyes, so I could watch the man transform a bit easier. “Are you almost here?”

“Ryder went to rescue you for me, Char. That was Ryder. That shouldn’t be—how are you his mate?”

My heart about stopped, my mind moving a mile an hour. The man was only partially shifted, and there was something slightly familiar about him, but if we were talking about the same guy, he hadn’t been nearly this massive, or hairy, or tatted the last time I met him. “Ryder… you mean Oscar Hughes?”

There was a pause, and I heard muffled words on Sab’s side of the call. “Yeah, Ryder is Oscar. But… his mate rejected him.”

Shit.

This was not good.

Of all the men I could get mated to…

How the hell had this even happened?

“Fuck me backward,” I groaned, stepping out of the bathroom and peering out the window. The gas station’s lot was empty, besides the one worker’s car, my asshole date’s SUV, and a motorcycle. “All he’s got is a bike, and I think he’s going to kill this asshole if I don’t get him out of here. Is he staying in the townhomes?”

“Yeah, Dax’s old place,” she confirmed.

I ran a shaky hand over my forehead, then shoved some more hair out of my eyes because damn, the stress was getting to me. “Alright, I’ll be there soon, assuming I manage to get that death trap back to town in one piece.”

“We’ll get Dax’s stuff out, too. That should help Ryder’s wolf, right?”

Shit.

Yeah.

Hunting wolves were defensive—they were best behaved in their own territory. And considering what this one in particular had already gone through, something told me he was going to be even more difficult than most wolves when they were hunting.

I nodded, agreeing with her though she couldn’t see me. “Probably. Shit. Can you have one of the guys there call my sister? One of them must have her number.”

“Yep, will do.”

At least I wasn’t going to have to break the news to Violet myself. She was the closest thing I’d had to a parent since I was a kid, and damn, she was going to flip out.

“Thanks girl. See you soon.” I hung up, and stared down at the shifting man. He was almost fully-wolf, and I knew I needed to figure out a way to get him out of the gas station.

I stepped around the small hallway and waved at the bored-looking man at the cash register, who was staring down at his phone and scrolling. Fights and shitty situations like this one weren’t uncommon in a town of werewolves—not in the slightest.

So, I cleared my throat and broke the silence. “Hey, I need you to help me get this inked guy back out to his bike. His wolf just started hunting me, and if he shifts next to this other dude, someone’s going to die.”

And it wouldn’t be the sexy, tatted guy who’d called me his mate.

The guy helped me drag Ryder’s shifting wolf’s heavy ass to his motorcycle. We made it in the nick of time; the wolf finished taking over just as the other guy let go and stepped back.

Ryder’s wolf snarled at the other guy, who then flashed me a grimace before striding back toward the gas station without so much as a“good luck”.

“Fucker,” I grumbled after him, wiping my sweaty palms on my jean shorts. Ryder’s wolf continued growling as he poked and prodded me with his nose. He probably smelled the other bastard on me, and it was clearly pissing him off.

I grabbed the motorcycle’s key out of the ignition, where it had been sitting, and held it up to show the wolf what I was doing.

“Come on, dude. We’ve got to get back to your house so we can figure out what the hell is happening here. You can try to ride with me, while I attempt to figure out this motorcycle, or—“

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