Page 21 of Wolf Unseen

“Yes you did, but I will let it pass because you’re right. I should have done more,” she admitted with a sigh. The cat jumped up into the witch’s arms and butted its head against her chin, demanding a fuss, which it soon received.

“Do you still have Lorna’s things?” I asked, hoping she said yes.

Miranda nodded and pointed to a cardboard box in the corner. “Help yourself. Now I must get back to helping the others. If you have any more questions, I’ll be free this evening.”

“Thank you,” I replied with a relieved smile. “And I am sorry if I offended you. Lorna’s all I have, and I’m terrified something bad’s happened to her.” Once again, tears pricked my eyes, much to my embarrassment. Being openly emotional in front of strangers was not like me.

To my surprise, Miranda placed the cat on a side table and then patted my arm.

“Try not to worry, little wolf. I’m sure Lorna is safe and well somewhere. No doubt with one of the handsome shifters she was seeing.” Her smile failed to lift my spirits.

Lorna running off with a handsome shifter was exactly what worried me. My sister had no common sense or experience with males, and she wouldn’t have recognized a red flag even if it slapped her across the face ten times.

“Yeah,” I said through gritted teeth. “I hope so.”

Once Miranda had gone, I dug into the contents of the box. It was mostly clothing and random toiletries. I discarded those. She and I were different sizes, and I didn’t need any skincare products.

Her phone was missing, so she must have taken it with her, and I couldn’t find her passport and shifter ID card either. If she’d taken those too, it suggested her departure had been planned. But why wouldn’t she tell me or keep in touch after she left?

I was just about to give up when my fingers brushed over a notebook stuck at the bottom of the box. When I opened it and saw pages of handwritten text, I realized it was Lorna’s journal.

My sister’s writing was hard to read. She had a habit of crossing out text with a heavy hand and then doodling as if she’d lost focus. I lay back on my bed and scanned each page, searching for clues to what had happened in the weeks before she vanished.

Have my first date! She’d written at the beginning of August, a few weeks after arriving in Trinity Falls. I smiled at how excited she sounded and then chuckled when she described her shock at being asked to cover half the cost of a margarita pizza.

“Welcome to the world of dating,” I snorted.

I read on, amused at her descriptions of the males she’d met and the dates she’d been on.

The mountain-lion shifter from Moonfall was an asshole. I skipped out after one drink. Must thank Sukie for giving me an excuse for ditching him. Note to self: avoid mountain-lion shifters.

Most of her entries were in this vein, and most of the guys were from Moonfall, most likely because they were around her age. She rated her dates and talked about stuff she’d done, such as going on hikes in the forest. I got the impression she was just happy to be living her life away from our father’s toxic orbit.

There was nothing useful until I reached the entry about her first full moon party experience in July.

I met a cute male!!!! Oh my stars, he’s so handsome. There followed two pages of dreamy musings about whether this was her soul-bonded mate and if so, did he feel the same as her?

There were lots of entries about the mysterious male from that point onward, but she never used his name or confirmed what his beast was. I wasn’t sure why, unless she was worried someone might find her journal.

Was this male mated to someone else? Goddess, I hoped not. Wolves were often polyamorous, but dating outside of the harem could be tricky because female wolves were jealous bitches.

She called him T, which I took to mean his name began with T rather than his beast type began with the letter T. Was he a wolf or a feline? Or something completely different?

“Why are you being so vague, Lorna?” I muttered, reading yet another block of text describing how amazing and handsome this shifter was. Ugh. Lorna had made the asshole sound like a god among shifters, and I suspected he was far from it.

References to T increased as the diary entries approached the August full moon party. She’d been excited about going to the party, mostly because she planned to meet up with T again.

T can’t meet me this evening; he’s too busy, she’d written more than once. I miss him so much. I rolled my eyes. T being too busy to see her made sense if he was a student working a summer job. It might also be because he had another mate and was a cheating, lying asshole.

On the day of the August full moon party, Lorna had excitedly described how she couldn’t wait to spend quality time with T.

T says he has something important to discuss with me! Oh my goddess, does he realize he’s my mate? My leopard is sure he’s our mate, and I feel the same way. Nobody makes me feel the way T does.

There were no more entries.

With a sigh, I picked up my phone to call Felix. It was time to fill him in on what I’d discovered.

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