Chapter 19
Remy
I stare at the gashes on my arm, then wrap a bandage around the damaged flesh.
I let a fucking vampire land a shot on me. I rarely get hit. I’m too quick to get hit. Then again, I usually don’t leap over my brothers to be the first one to attack. Hayden and Jaxton are better suited for that.
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, leaning down to look at the map on my laptop.
Deep down, I know why I was careless. It’s because I can’t get Ansley out of my head. Can’t forget her scent. My brother’s mate shouldn’t be tangled up in my thoughts like this. She’s not mine and she’ll never be mine. She’s already been claimed.
I’ve seen things like this tear packs apart.
One wolf falls in love. Another realizes the she-wolf is his mate.
She’s forced to choose. Betray her heart or betray the one she’s fated to be with.
That’s if the two wolves don’t settle it themselves with a fight that doesn’t end until one of them no longer has a heart in their chest.
“I won’t fight my brother. I won’t betray him,” I mutter to myself, my tone lacking the conviction it normally does.
This situation makes no sense to begin with.
Falling in love is one thing. It’s a special bond, but most wolves would choose their true mate over love if faced with that choice.
Two wolves feeling the pull towards the same she-wolf is unheard of.
But Ansley isn’t a she-wolf. She’s some other kind of Scion. This is uncharted territory.
And it goes deeper than that. If one of our kind chooses love and bonds with a wolf that isn’t their mate, it means they’ll never find their mate.
It severs their connection with whatever force draws the mates together.
Love is more complicated. It lingers, but choices that are made cannot be unmade.
A true mating ritual bonds two wolves for life.
“Hayden has already claimed her, so it should be impossible for me to feel what I feel,” I snarl, slamming my hand on the table, immediately regretting it when pain shoots up my arm. “Damn it!”
I feel Hayden approaching and tense up. He could tell something was wrong yesterday. The hunt kept us distracted. Kept me from losing my mind, every time I caught a whiff of her scent on my Alpha. It’ll be fresh again today. I hope I can handle it.
I lean back in my chair and wait for Hayden to come inside The Den. Our other brothers haven’t arrived yet, but they should be here soon.
“Hayden,” I acknowledge him somewhat tersely and silently curse myself for it. The scent is even stronger today. Practically overwhelming, even after a shower.
“Good morning, brother,” he responds, then he gestures to my bandage. “How’s your arm?”
“It won’t slow me down much,” I grind out. “I’ll still be faster than you, unless you want to tear the pavement apart when you run.”
Hayden stares at me for a moment, like he’s trying to read my expression. He’s our Alpha, but he’s not as perceptive as Jaxton. Unfortunately, I think even a human could tell something isn’t right with me.
“Something’s bothering you, Remy,” he says. “You didn’t want to talk about it yesterday. I respected that. But what are you hiding?”
“Nothing, I’m fine,” I mumble.
“Don’t lie to me, brother,” Hayden grumbles, putting his fists on the table. Even in his Third Form, I feel his Alpha presence. “If it’s something that could jeopardize the pack, you need to be honest with me. I’ll pull rank if I have to. Please don’t make me.”
I could never refuse a direct order from the wolf who leads our pack. I thought I could hide this better, but I’m coming apart at the seams. Even now, her scent is driving me mad.
“Did you complete the mating ritual with Ansley?” I ask, meeting his gaze.
“Close enough,” he growls. “I didn’t knot, but she is my mate. I feel that in my soul.”
“And you knew this, because you saw her at the bar? You got her scent and it started fucking with you, right?” I continue.
“Yes, brother,” he answers, and I see suspicion in his eyes. “Why?”
“Because now it’s fucking with me,” my voice is barely more than a whisper. “When I brought you the car, I caught her scent. Faint, but there. It hasn’t gone away, either. Even now, smelling her on you, every instinct… every…” I trail off, not wanting to say it.
“What do you mean?” he asks, leaning closer.
I’ve said too much. There’s no way to backtrack. I wish Jaxton was here. He’d punch my face so hard I wouldn’t be able to say it. He lives in isolation, but this p
ack still means more to him than he lets on. I’m about to tear it apart at the seams.
“My instincts are telling me she’s my mate, Hayden.
I’m sorry,” I say, pushing away from the table.
“I won’t fight you. I won’t challenge you.
I understand you are the Alpha and if you feel the pull, then it’s not my place to question it.
But that’s the problem. I can’t explain it any better than you can explain what she is. ”
Hayden glares at me, his face getting more intense by the second. He could make the first move. I’ve told him I feel drawn to his mate. I’ve seen wolves die for professing their love for a she-wolf who has already found her mate.
“I’ll leave. I’ll go rogue. I don’t want to, but I’d rather disappear than fight you,” I try to keep the despair growing inside me out of my voice.
“Fighting me would mean death,” he growls, narrowing his eyes.
“It might mean death,” I clarify, an edge to my voice. “Being the Alpha doesn’t make you invincible and I’m faster than you, especially in a fight.”
“You think you could take me?” he scoffs, his natural Alpha instincts bristling his hair, even in his Third Form.
“Plenty of cocky Alphas got their throats ripped out because they were overconfident,” I remind him. “It’s not something that has to be settled with blood. Like I said, I’ll leave. I will not challenge you.”
Hayden continues glaring at me. I said it. It’s out there. Leaving is the only choice I have. New York? Russia? How far do I have to go to escape her maddening scent? To no longer feel a pull towards my brother’s mate.
I guess I’ll find out.
After I gather a few things, I start walking towards the door.
“Remy, wait,” Hayden barks. “I need to tell you something.”
“What is it?” I ask, guardedly turning to face him again.
“Part of the reason I haven’t completed the mating ritual with Ansley is because it feels like there’s something missing,” Hayden sighs. “What if… what if she’s not just my mate?”
“Our kind doesn’t share,” I say. “Ever.”
“Ansley defies everything we know, brother,” Hayden says. “Remember what happened when the wolf showed up when we were young? The one our mother almost wed before she realized our father was her mate?”
“Vaguely,” I say. “I remember our father ripping his throat out… then his heart.”
“I asked him about it, some years later,” Hayden explains. “He said it wasn’t something he did because he wanted to. He said that the idea of another wolf even looking at his mate that way filled him with so much rage he was chewing on a heart before he even realized what he’d done.”
“Are you going to go for my heart first or my throat?” I ask, letting my bag drop to the ground. I thought he was going to let me leave. Clearly, I was wrong. “You’re only going to get one shot. After that, you won’t touch me again.”
“Neither, Remy,” he sighs. “I don’t feel that rage. I’m not even angry. Not really. I think that means something. Don’t go. We need to figure this out. It might help us understand what she is.”
“She’s your mate. That’s all that matters,” I grind out, reach for my bag.
“It doesn’t feel like I would be sharing her with you, brother. I don’t even feel jealous when I think about it,” he continues. “It feels… right.”
As I listen to my brother, I realize I feel the same way. If she was only meant for me, I wouldn’t let anything stand between us, even my Alpha. I’d have her. Claim her. Mark her. My instincts would demand it. I’d die trying to get to her, if that’s what it took.
“Are you sure?” I question, still struggling to make sense of it.
“As sure as I am that she’s my mate,” he answers. “This feels like the missing piece. It could be why I haven’t been able to knot. Because she’s meant for both of us.”
“If that’s true, then how do you think she’s going to react?” I ask, carrying my bag to the table and unpacking.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “We’ll tell her tonight. First, we need to find these fucking vampires.”
I open my laptop, wait for it to load, and pull the maps back up. As I do, I see a notification from a camera near one of our safehouses. We set up surveillance to be safe. I got a notification when Hayden left this morning. This one is more recent.
“Well, your mate… our mate… she’s a defiant one,” I say, turning the laptop around. “She didn’t stay in the safehouse.”
“What do you mean?” he yells, looking at the screen. His eyes flicker with anger when he sees Ansley driving away. “Fuck. I told her to stay put.”
“Where do you think she’s going?” I ask.
“Work,” he says, shaking his head. “She cares about that job more than she cares about her own safety.”
“Are you going to go drag her back to the safehouse? I can let the others know you’ll catch up with us later,” I say.
“No, she’s still my mate. I’m not going to embarrass her like that, even if she defied me. I’ll go keep an eye on her,” Hayden says. “I doubt vampires would storm into York Financial. That’s too risky, even for them.”
“They may not even be looking for her,” I say. “Even if she’s a Scion, they’re going to be more worried about us than her. We’re the ones hunting them.”
“Yeah, but I’d still feel better if she was at the safehouse. If she’s out on her own, I need to be close,” he explains. “But she’s definitely getting punished tonight. I already had to spank her for lying to me.”
“Mm, then maybe tonight isn’t the night for us to talk to her,” I respond.