7. Archie
ARCHIE
Mate.
The word landed in me like a puck off the crossbar, and for a second, I couldn’t move. I stood against the wall with my club soda halfway to my mouth and my head ringing.
It wasn’t possible. Walter lived on the other side of the country. I’d spent years counting the miles between us and calculating how many seconds and minutes it was since I’d seen him. It hurt, but it was similar to how I kept pressing a bruise after a game.
Walter was a continent away, living the life I’d bought for him with my own.
But the scent didn’t care what I knew. It was here, in this ballroom, meandering through the light fixtures, furniture, chandeliers, suits, dresses, and jewelry.
It was the cleanest scent I’d ever encountered, like freshly fallen snow, untouched by footprints, in the middle of the forest. There was no mistaking it.
My wolf and I had never forgotten that scent because it was embedded in our memory.
His sense of smell was better than mine, and he wasn’t wrong now.
Find our mate. We can’t lose him again.
For once I didn’t fight him. He may have expected me to say Wait or We can’t do it here.
I put the glass down on the nearest table and moved through the crowd.
I hadn’t made a plan and put one foot in front of the other.
I turned my head as I walked, breathing and letting the scent pull me the way a current pulled you when you stopped swimming against it.
And then I saw him.
He was standing near the edge of the room, half-turned toward the stage, and I paused. I couldn’t move, and I clutched my throat because I’d suddenly forgotten how to breathe.
Eight years had changed him. He was taller and broader across the shoulders than the bored teenager who’d trailed into the hardware store with his uncle.
His face had lost the last of its boyhood and gained experience and a few lines.
He was an adult, and I wondered if he’d realized any of his hopes and dreams.
But it was him. He had the same dark hair, and he was standing a little apart from the room. Like me, he wasn’t joining in but watching. He had a tablet in one hand, and he was tapping on it as he furrowed his brow.
My mind went back to that snowy day and how I’d planned to visit him and his uncle at the hotel. Not that they had any clue that I was going to knock on their door. And I would have if I’d gone there when I closed the store.
But I’d decided that was creepy and to wait until the following day, which turned out to be a day too late.
He’s our mate. There was no grief in my beast’s tone, just certainty.
As I stared at the man that I’d kept alive by running away, I knew I couldn’t continue as I had been. I was done running.
This was the first time I’d allowed myself to say those words in my head, making it real. But reality brought danger, and how did I balance that with Walter’s safety?
I hadn’t healed since I left my hometown, and living far away hadn’t done a damned thing except prolong the grief. The mating bond wasn’t quieter, it had just made me lonely and my life a misery.
And now the universe had picked Walter up and set him down in my city, in the middle of my life.
He was so close, I could scent him. But I wasn’t eighteen anymore.
At that age, when I met Walter, I’d been a scared kid with no one backing him up.
Our powerful Alpha was in my folks’ home, dictating what I was going to do.
And all I could offer Walter was to run.
To keep him breathing, I had to leave because a kid couldn’t fight an Alpha and win.
Now I was likely bigger than Garrick and stronger. I’d spent eight years learning how much punishment my body could give and take. And I finally wanted something enough to fight for it.
If Walter would have me, I would be his, for as long as he wanted me, whatever that looked like. That wasn’t a decision I had to make. It just was because fate had already played her role and intervened in my life.
But wanting him wasn’t enough, because the threat that had sent me running was still out there.
As long as Garrick was Alpha, Walter’s life would be forfeited the moment I claimed him.
Garrick had promised me that with my parents within earshot, and I’d believed him then and I still did.
He would never allow a human into the pack, and he would remove the problem the only way he knew how.
So in order to be with my mate, I had to remove Garrick.
That decision was cold, as so many aspects of my life had been. And it was terrifying.
If I wanted Walter, and I wanted and needed him more than I’d ever wanted anything, then I had to challenge Garrick for the pack and win. I had to become Alpha myself, so that no one—not Garrick, not any of his Betas, not any alpha wolf in the pack—could ever threaten to put my mate in the ground.
I’d told myself that I had no choice back then, but I’d been wrong. There was always a choice, but I’d been too young and frightened to do it. But not now. I wasn’t scared of what I had to do.
I moved toward Walter. He didn’t look up, and I maneuvered around a waiter and a man with a gold watch that could have eliminated poverty in the entire state.
I hadn’t prepared what I’d say. I only knew I had to be closer.
Were his eyes still gray? And did he remember the cashier who’d given him and his uncle directions?
I’d looked at him a moment too long that day and there was something on his face that recognized me. Not as a mate but as more than a stranger in a store.
What I refused to consider was did he have someone in his life? And worse, could he be married?
I was so close to him, but there were so many people in between us, and before I could get to him, a hand closed around my arm.
“Archie.” It was the captain, and he was already steering me away. “There you are. Come on, they need us up front. We’re on.”
“On for what?” I could hardly speak because fate was intervening again and taking me from my mate.
“The auction. They told us at the start of the night, you just weren’t listening.” He was already walking me farther from Walter, toward the stage, and I couldn’t refuse to move without everyone noticing. “Come on, smile. It’s for the kids.”
The whole team ended up on the stage while a cheerful emcee worked the microphone.
It was a live auction. An experience where each of us was a lot to be bid on that included a private skating lesson, a signed jersey, and a box seat for a home game. Paddles went up and the numbers climbed as the emcee kept the whole thing rolling with jokes I hardly heard.
Because my mind was on Walter.
I stood in the line of my teammates, and I lifted a hand when the emcee said my name and the bidding on my lot began. From up on the stage I could see the whole ballroom spread out below me, table after table of faces turned up toward the lights, and I searched every one of them for Walter
The lights were in my eyes, and the one face I needed had slipped out. My wolf paced, and he was furious to be trapped up here while our mate was getting away from us again.
We’re not losing him this time.