Page 17 of How I Met My Mate

For a moment, neither of us speaks. We just sit there, two people who were supposed to be bound by fate, undone by the simplest, ugliest word in the world—doubt.

I can’t stand this, sitting here in this suffocating fog of heartbreak, so I leap to my feet.

Most of my life, I was moved from one home to another.

When things get tough, you leave.

That’s what I’ve always learned.

I don’t want to start crying, because once the tears start, they will never stop.

This could have been my home. He could have been my person. I break into a sprint, running towards my car. “Alexis, wait!” Cole shouts after me, his voice ragged with emotion.

But he doesn’t chase me. He lets me go.

I slide into my car and drive away.

Chapter Ten

COLE

The pack council, my mother, and Dax are all staring at me.

My wolf is going insane.

Mate, mate, mate. My mate is devastated and hurting and gone.

Focus, I think desperately.

“We’ve tried to call your brother but he’s out parasailing with his bride for the day,” Council Member Hermann says to me. “No offense,” he adds. “This affects more than just the local pack members.”

“None taken. The fated mate situation is distracting me and the timing is far from ideal.” I would love it if my brother were here right now, but everything is falling on my shoulders.

I look over at Dax. “Let’s go over everything that we know about Robert. Out of all the Frostbane members, he’s never been one of the troublemakers, as far as we know.”

Dax nods. “Agreed. Normally our pack members wouldn’t hire a Frostbane to work for us, but he had a good enough reputation that McFiggins was willing to give him a chance. He’s an orphan, his father was killed in a death match when he was around twelve, his mother died of grief shortly afterwards. He gets picked on a fair amount by the other pack members because they’re a bunch of aggressive shitheels and he’s as far from Alpha as could be. He’s considered kind of a nerd at high school. Very smart.”

I nod, and my brain drifts back to Alexis, desperately wondering where she is. Images of her lying tangled in my arms torment me.

I extend the claws of my right arm and sink them into my leg so sharply that they pierce my jeans and draw blood.

The pain snaps me back to focus.

“So what he’s done so far is somehow caused four people to shift involuntarily. The shift lasts several hours before they return to their normal state, and they have amnesia. They’re not violent, and it doesn’t leave any lasting effects. Also, he coated a spoon in silver and left it at the coffee shop.”

“And he didn’t even try to hide that the spoon came from the Frostbane pack,” one of the council members shakes his head in disbelief.

“Well, brilliant people don’t always have common sense.” My leg itches as my wounds heal themselves. I struggle to form thoughts. “Smart. He’s smart. He’s a good student.” There’s something there, something nagging at me… “What does he specialize in at school?”

“Science.” My mother speaks up. She’s the superintendent of schools for the Moonstone pack. “We had a tri-pack science fair and he won in his category, which was – chemistry. He did experiments with some unusual rocks found in the Frostbane mines.” Her eyes widen. “My goodness. Why didn’t I think of that before?”

“So what’s our next move?” Hermann demands.

“We reach out to the Frostbane Pack and demand a meeting in town, with the Frostbane pack Alpha and a legal representative in attendance,” Dax says. “If he’s the one who did it…” he draws a finger across his neck.

I nod grimly. I don’t like this at all. Robert’s always been polite and respectful, one of the few decent Frostbane members, and he’s only 17, but if he’s conducting illegal experiments that risk starting a shifter-human war, we have no choice.

“Next order of business,” Hermann says. “What can we do about the human reporter and what she’s observed so far?”