Chapter Six
Patch
“You’re coming for dinner tomorrow, aren’t you?” Dax asks, pulling his T-shirt over his head. There’s a sheen of sweat on his skin, despite the chilly air of the pre-dawn morning.
Drew perks up next to him. He still hasn’t shifted back, and when he sees me looking, his tongue lolls out of his mouth in a friendly grin.
“I’m thinking about it,” I mutter, dragging my own jogging bottoms back on.
Alpha Axel’s been really chill about us shifting of late.
I mean, he always has been, but he made a specific point of letting me know, just before Dax left, that he doesn’t mind if I’m in another pack’s territory, so long as I’m safe.
Of course, I’m more than safe with Dax and Drew. Dax would never let anything happen to either of us, and Drew is Alpha Kieran’s little brother, not to mention the mate of both a vampire and one of the last surviving mages in the country.
I’m pretty sure his vampire mate, Adam, is lurking somewhere in the park right now. I didn’t catch sight of him while we were running, but I picked up traces of his scent.
“He said he won’t ask you again. Not unless you make it clear you want him to.”
I sigh. A little dramatically, maybe, but it only makes Drew huff and Dax let out a sigh of his own. He’s not talking about Jamie, though I’ve been turning our last meeting—him cornering me outside the pub, more or less—over in my head for the past couple of weeks.
I don’t think I’ve gone so long without seeing him since we first met. I don’t think I like it.
“I’m not moving packs, Dax.” I don’t look at him for a few seconds because I don’t want to see the way his expression falls.
When I do look over, Drew shifts back and starts dressing.
“You should come to dinner anyway,” he says, tone soft.
For a big wolf—he’s bigger than me and almost as big as Dax—he’s got a gentle nature.
It means I don’t want to upset him. No one does.
“I think I’m gonna make something with pasta.
Fish, maybe. Vince keeps sending me recipes, but I said if he does that, he needs to come and help. ”
Dax huffs a laugh. “He’ll be there,” he promises, and I spot that same softness in him that always arises when his mate is mentioned.
I’m beyond envious of what he and Vince have. Drew and his mates, too, though having two of them… It’s unheard of. Judging by the conversations I’ve overheard among the rest of my pack, I’m not the only one who thinks so. Some of them have decidedly negative opinions on the matter, truth be told.
Those opinions aren’t escaping to Alpha Kieran’s pack, though, because they’re intimidating, to say the least. A strange little pack, from the outside, but what they’ve already achieved—the lengths they’ve proven they’ll go to for each other—is beyond what most wolf packs nowadays seem to embody, at least to me.
I glance at Dax again. He’s fully dressed now, stretching his arms over his head.
“What?” he asks when he sees me looking.
“Is Jamie going to be there?”
As soon as the question escapes, I wish I could take it back. Drew’s eyebrows flick upwards, but Dax homes in on me with a little frown.
“Do you want him to be?”
“I…” My tongue feels heavy. I’ve not told Dax what happened. I’ve not told anyone, though Flynn still knows something is up and seems determined to get it out of me. It feels like it would be a betrayal, and even if Jamie isn’t my mate, even if I rejected him, I don’t want that.
“He hasn’t said he’s coming,” Drew cuts in, and when we both look at him, he shrugs. “He and Nick just got their new housemate, didn’t they? I don’t know if Vince even asked him this week, but the invitation is always there.”
My wolf whines at the thought that Jamie won’t be there, though a second ago, I’m sure I wanted that to be the case.
“Are you going to come, then?” Dax asks me. “Tomorrow?”
“Uh…” It occurs to me that he doesn’t know whether I want the answer to be yes or no. That he might think, now that Jamie isn’t coming, I’ve got no desire to spend time with them at all. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“Good,” Drew says with a firm nod, then walks ahead of us and out of the park.
Dax hesitates for a moment longer. They both know something else is going on, but Drew is clearly deciding to stay out of it.
“Don’t worry about it,” I mutter, but Dax drops into step beside me and nudges my shoulder.
“Is everything okay? Did something happen?”
“He…” I sigh. “It’s nothing, really.”
“Patch.”
“He’s not my mate.”
That brings Dax up short. Drew misses a step ahead of us, glances back once, then makes his way forward when he realises we’re stopping to talk. Sure enough, a shadow detaches itself from the trees once he’s a fair distance away and Adam plasters himself to Drew’s side.
“Does that matter?” Dax asks.
I get it. It’s not like it has before. Dax was always the one looking for his mate, always searching for a romance that would end happily. He found it. I’m happy that he has.
Honestly, I don’t even know why I’ve become so obsessed with the idea over the past few months. Maybe it’s just that there are so many wolves finding their mates now. Maybe it’s seeing my best friend find his person and moving on…
“I think so,” I say slowly. “I thought… I thought it might be him, but that feeling comes and goes so quickly. It’s not him. I’d know if it were.”
Dax nods. He knew after the first night he and Vince met. We’re both in tune with our wolves, our instincts. I’d know. I would.
“So why don’t you want to see him?”
“He wanted—He asked… I think I was cruel, but I didn’t want to be.”
“What happened?”
“I didn’t want to say it was about us not being mates. And I am worried about him. I don’t think he’s been out with anyone since Tim attacked him.” I shake my head. “It wasn’t about me, anyway. He just wanted someone safe.”
“He said that, did he?”
“Not as such, but—” Dax shoves me hard, almost knocking me over. I scowl at him, my wolf making an irritated, questioning sound.
“Don’t make assumptions,” he bites out. I flush. I get it. He and Vince made so many assumptions, and it almost broke them apart.
Well, that and Vince’s commitment issues and Dax not bothering to tell him they were mates. A whole heap of things, really.
“I’ll apologise next time I see him,” I say with a sigh, “but it doesn’t matter. I’m still not getting involved with him. I think my mate is close, Dax. I’m sure. I can feel it.”
Dax stares at me for a moment, uncharacteristically serious before his familiar smile overtakes his face.
“Good,” he says, and this time he nudges me gently. Affectionately. “We’ll finally be able to go on an actual double date.”
I snicker. We catch up to Drew and Adam, who are waiting for us by the park gates.
“Did someone say a double date?” Adam asks eagerly.
“When Patch finds his mate,” Dax says.
Adam grins up at Drew. “Seven of us on a date. That’ll be fun, right?”
I don’t know what expression crosses my face, but Dax laughs outright. “Wait until the rest of them hear,” he says. “It’ll be the whole pack before you know it.”