Page 9 of Tracking His True Mate

After hours of using back roads and small highways, I felt confident that I had lost him. I pulled into an old motel after midnight, careful to park in the back between other cars. I even bothered to scrape the Dark Claw pack emblem bumper sticker off the back, praying that Patrick wouldn’t mind when I returned the truck to him.

Of course, he won’t mind,I chided myself.He’s your best friend. He cares more about your safety than a stupid sticker.

Patrick and I had bonded over a lot of things over the years: we had similar temperaments and interests, neither of us held the same conservative beliefs as our pack, and more than anything, we wanted the other person to be safe and cared for.

If the goddess had any sense at all, she would have made us true mates based on those factors alone. Patrick had said as much many times, but I was always secretly glad that she didn’t. I wasn’t willing to give up my freedom for anyone, including Patrick.

When I finally reached the room, I made sure the locks on the door were secure and that the emergency fire window in the bathroom opened wide enough for me to squeeze out. It felt weird to be so on edge, but I knew that I’d have to get used to checking for alternate routes of escape. Being paranoid was my new normal.

I collapsed on the bed, using the TV for background noiseand a nightlight to help settle my nerves. When I finally did sleep, it was restless and full of nightmares. Maybe not nightmares, exactly, but there was a suffocating combination of panic and angry wolf snarls. It all sounded so close that I woke up in a cold sweat a few times, convinced that the grey wolf was there in my room. Each time I awoke, I was more relieved to find the room empty and quiet besides the chatter of the late-night home shopping network.

I gave up on sleep around eight in the morning, forcing myself from the lumpy mattress and into the shower. I used the shitty combination shampoo and conditioner to wash my hair and the small bar of motel soap to scrub my body. I wanted to save my own products in case I ran out of money and needed to camp in the car.

The miniature coffee pot provided a hot cup of caffeine, which also helped to perk me up. I sat on the bed, counting the money that Patrick had given me and trying to decide on my next course of action.

I had four hundred dollars; that was it. My heart sank because I knew it was probably all the money in Patrick’s old coffee can. As a mechanic’s apprentice, he made about the same amount as I did working at the library, but he had the added expense of having his own place. While the rent at the pack-owned apartment building was prorated, it was still more expensive than free. Hopefully, Ella would give him the money I had stashed in my bag. It wasn’t four hundred dollars, but it was something.

I wiped a hand across my forehead. I had the room for another half hour before I needed to check out, and more importantly, I had to keep moving if I wanted to stay aheadof the grey wolf. I didn’t know what kind of resources he had at his disposal, but if he was staying at the Feldman Hotel, it was probably more than mine.

I hesitated, debating whether I should call Ella or Patrick from the hotel phone. Those were the only numbers I knew by heart, and I wanted to let someone know that I wasn’t dead. I picked up the receiver on the old phone and started to dial. Ella answered on the first ring.

“Mariam?” she asked, her voice anxious.

“Hi, Ella,” I answered, twisting the cord through my fingers. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m okay. I won’t be coming home for a long time, but I love you.”

We weren’t a family who talked about love very often and I could tell that my words threw her off a little bit. “Um…thanks. I love you too, Mare. Jeremy is really upset that you left, and Trace has taken off to find you, but I’m guessing you probably already know that….”

I frowned as she continued to ramble. Trace must be the name of the grey wolf.

“Listen, I need to go, but I’ll talk to you again soon,” I promised. She was about to protest, but I cut her off and hung up.

The clock on the wall said I still had fifteen minutes until I had to check out of the room and I really wanted to call Patrick, but Ella confirmed what I already knew: my mate was on my trail and I needed to leave as soon as possible.

I grabbed my things and hurried to Patrick’s truck, tossing them both in the back. Tonight, I would have to sleep in the truck, maybe in the back under the stars. I needed the money for gas, and a motel bed wasn’t much of an upgrade.

I drove in silence as if the radio might make too much noise and give away my location. Road signs told me when I entered one state and left another, but they revealed little else.

I had started out in Northern California, but I had already driven through Nevada and entered Utah a few hours earlier. I was bolder now, using the main interstates instead of sticking to the more rural roads. Since I only had a free map from a gas station to guide me, I couldn’t really afford to get lost in some backwoods town. With no phone, I had no GPS.

I sucked in a sharp breath, remembering that Jeremy had tracking information placed on all pack member’s phones, just in case there was an emergency, or someone went missing. The fact that I had to leave my phone behind was actually a blessing in disguise.

Night rolled in again, and I found a Walmart parking lot to settle into. It wasn’t an ideal place to camp because I had to sleep on the bench seat in the back instead of shifting and sleeping in the bed, but the lighted area made me feel safe, and at least there was a bathroom where I could freshen up in the morning.

I killed the engine and crawled into the back. I used a rolled-up sweater as a pillow, vowing that tomorrow morning I would splurge and buy a blanket from the big box store.

I slept restlessly again. This time there was a lot of men shouting. Or maybe I was the one shouting in a man’s voice. It was hard to tell what was going on exactly, but the whole thing was exhausting. I woke up a sweaty mess, desperate to get outside and feel the fresh air.

I eased out of the back, grabbing my toothbrush and toothpaste from my pack, and shoving them in the pocket of my sweater. Walmart might be forgiving, but I didn’t want to advertise that I was using them as a makeshift B&B.

One clean mouth and a new flannel blanket later, I was back in the cab drumming my fingers on the steering wheel. I had escaped, and I was surviving, but for how long? I needed to find a job and a place to stay if I wanted to last for any real stretch of time away from my pack.

My wolf also needed other shifters to commune with, but I was worried about what other packs might already know about me and my situation. There were rare stories of wolves being returned to their alpha if they tried to leave and join a new pack. Whether that was a mandatory obligation or just a courtesy was a mystery to me.

I cursed myself for not knowing more about werewolf laws and politics. I worked in the pack's library, for crying out loud. All that information had been right there, at my fingertips. A human library wouldn’t have the answers. Most of them were entirely unaware of our existence. And any information posted online wouldn’t necessarily be reliable. I groaned in frustration.

Maybe, if I could find a pack and stay just long enough to use their library, I could get some answers. I could make up a story about just passing through if anyone questioned why I was there. I could even provide a fake name.

Happy to have a plan, I needed to decide which pack I should visit. It had to be one that was not directly aligned with Dark Claw, and they had to be friendly enough not to close off their borders to visitors. One pack stood out in my mind: Tumblewild. The Tumblewild pack was known forbeing more progressive in some ways, and I knew they were open to visitors, and possibly even new members.

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