20. Mack
20
MACK
A fter an awkward and tense round of introductions in the backyard, there was a long pause which no one wanted to fill. We’ve all now settled in the den and things are still awkward.
Clary is the shifter who is currently sitting on one of my armchairs. He has shown no signs of aggression, but my wolf hasn’t stopped snarling at me for not having killed him when we had the chance.
I’d been talking with Bennett in the den while Aerin had been outside in the garden getting fresh air. I’d been half listening to Bennett because anytime Aerin is alone, I get edgy and worried.
Then she’d yelled my name. And the way she’d fallen into the house from the garden, eyes wide, blood on her face…
My heart had literally stopped.
First a shifter had turned up at the hotel trying to claim my territory. Then Aerin was yelling about a shifter in our backyard. I put the two together and thought the shifter was here to grab Aerin.
I glance at her again, just to reassure myself that she is okay.
She’s sitting on the couch, as far away from the stranger as I could put her, and she’s clutching a damp washcloth that I had Bennett get for her nose.
She gives me a reassuring smile, as if she knows I’m still worried.
“Someone took my mate,” Clary says, surprising me.
I still want him gone. Bennett is eyeing him as if waiting to have an excuse to kill him. The only reason neither of those things is happening is because Aerin wanted to talk to the guy. So we’ll talk. Then he will leave.
I eye the shifter warily. “Took her?”
My wolf settles down the slightest degree. If he has a mate, then he’s not here to grab Aerin.
The thing is, can I trust a single word he’s saying?
“I don’t understand,” Aerin says, frowning. “She’s not here.”
Clary folds his hands together as he sinks back into his seat.
I put him in his mid-twenties, and he doesn’t seem to be trouble. But if he meant well, and he was only here to talk, nothing was stopping him from knocking on the front door instead of scaring Aerin by creeping up to our house from the back.
This is yet another sign that maybe it’s time we moved from this house. Every time something happens, it happens here, and it makes me feel like Aerin isn’t safe.
“I thought you could help,” Clary says, looking at Aerin. “I heard that…”
Aerin releases a long, heavy sigh as she massages her forehead. “Shane Dacre was telling everyone about how powerful I am?”
Clary nods.
I mentally curse Shane.
Aerin is still clutching the damp washcloth after wiping most of the blood from her face. She’s missed a few spots, but once we’ve found out exactly what Clary is doing here, and I’ve made sure he leaves, I’ll check Aerin over to make sure she’s okay. She has grass on her shirt, so she must have fallen, though she doesn’t look hurt. Her nosebleed has stopped, but it still troubles me.
Shifters don’t have nosebleeds for no reason. A hard punch in the face would do it, but if Clary didn’t touch her, then why was she bleeding?
I’d intended to rush through this interview so I can find out what happened to trigger her nosebleed, but the topic of missing mates doesn’t lend itself to rushing through it.
“Where are you from?” I ask.
“New Mexico.”
We all stare at him.
Winter Lake is on the east coast. I can see the sea from some parts of town. New Mexico is… hundreds of thousands of miles away. Practically on the west coast.
I don’t even want to know how many hours on the road that would be from here to there. And I assume he drove. Shifters and planes don’t mix. Something about being stuck in an airplane sitting shoulder to shoulder with so many regular humans, and so many smells, doesn’t appeal to us.
“You drove here?” I ask.
He nods. “I was going to fly, but there was some stuff I needed to find out on the way.”
“And you came all this way alone?” Bennett glances outside.
He’s been tense since we sat down, and I can’t blame him for it. I am as well. Did Clary come here alone? Is this an ambush, and he’s here to talk us into lowering our guards with a story he cooked up while the rest of his pack attacks?
I tell myself that can’t be the case. If Ivy and my dad hadn’t called and told us what they had, I wouldn’t believe a word of what Clary was saying.
“Is your mate an omega?” Aerin asks, and I know she must be thinking what I am.
Clary nods. “My pack wasn’t the first one or the last one that was hit,” he explains.
I frown. “What do you mean, hit ?”
“After someone took Leah, I tried to find out why. Our neighbors were missing their omegas as well,” he explains.
We all glance at each other.
It looks like Ivy was right to be concerned.
I had thought—we had all thought—that this situation was because of Aerin. It made sense that someone would attack the Lonergan Pack located deep in rural Virginia. There is no other pack in the country with a greater number of omegas.
After we rescued Aerin from Nolan Lonergan, she told us that the pack was once a sanctuary for omegas.
Ivy and Aerin function as a link between the packs. It made sense that if someone went after Ivy’s pack, they’d maybe come after us. But this changes things.
If Clary, all the way from New Mexico, had someone kidnap his omega mate, then things are going on a larger scale than any of us was aware of before.
“How many packs were hit?” I ask.
“Every pack I passed through either had an omega missing or an attempt made to snatch them,” he says. “About ten. That’s just the ones who would talk to me.”
So that’s the thing he wanted to do on his drive to Winter Lake. He was on a fact find mission.
We again briefly look at each other.
A little more of my doubt about Clary fades, and I stop eyeing him with the wariness I was before. It sounds like he might be telling the truth.
“Do you or anyone else know who is behind it?” Aerin asks.
Clary shakes his head. “Definitely shifters, but no one recognized their faces or their scents. It took a while to even find that out. All the packs I visited were jumpy and thought I might have been involved.” He briefly laughs, and it’s a nervous sound. “If it wasn’t so important to find Leah, I wouldn’t have gone to them at all. I’m surprised they didn’t immediately kill me and ask questions later.”
That makes sense.
Someone takes their omega, or tries to, and shortly after, another unfamiliar shifter comes along asking questions about whether or not they had an omega missing.
I’m surprised he’s still alive.
“What about your Alpha?” Bennett asks, sitting back in his seat.
“We all tried to look for Leah, but we couldn’t track her,” Clary explains. “They didn’t just leave our town. They left our state.”
I read between the lines. “Your Alpha didn’t want to go after them.”
Clary sighs. “He wanted to. Jo is a good Alpha, but our pack is small. He didn’t think it was safe if we went up against a bigger pack. We would lose and we would die.”
So the Alpha decided the needs of the rest of the pack were more important than finding a missing omega. It must have been a terrible choice to make.
“That’s why you’re here,” I say.
He nods. “Jo gave me money and I call and check in with them. Wherever Leah is, I have to find her. I don’t care how long it takes.”
Months ago, someone took Aerin, and I didn’t even question not going after her. Clary sounds like he did the same thing.
I like this shifter a little more.
“How long have you been looking?” Bennett asks.
“Two weeks,” he says. “And I’ve still gotten nowhere.”
The timeline matches up with what was happening with the Lonergans. So a coordinated attack?
“What about the Boones?” Aerin asks. “Did you stop in Minnesota?”
Bennett snorts. “As if anyone is going to make the extremely short-sighted and suicidal mistake by wandering into Douglas Boone’s territory.”
“I’m not sure. I… like you said, didn’t want to put my neck out in case they decided to kill first and ask questions later, but I doubt they would have.” Clary focuses on Aerin. “Everyone knows you ran away from Shane and that you settled somewhere on the east coast. A remote retirement town. And that you can do things no other omega can.”
I wish I had killed Shane when I had a chance.
Letting him live after the Alpha challenge we fought, and I won, means I’ve exposed Aerin to more harm than if no one had known what she was capable of.
Clary continues, “To be honest, I was surprised to see you here and eating at the diner. I thought you would be?—”
“What do you mean, eating at the diner?” Bennett’s voice is gravel as he sits up in his seat.
Clary sits back and his gaze is nervy. “I just meant…”
Aerin is staring at Clary and she whispers. “You were in the dark blue car. You drove past when I was eating lunch with Penny. I saw you.”
I realize I made a mistake letting this shifter into our home. He might have been telling the truth about someone abducting his omega, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still be hiding something.
I get up.
Clary’s eyes widen as he scrambles to his feet. “I know how it looks, but that isn’t what you think.”
“Then how is it?” Bennett’s voice is silky as he shoves himself up. “Because it looks an awful lot like you weren’t just sneaking around the backyard, you were also in town, watching Aerin.”
Clary holds both hands out as if to keep Bennett away. “I didn’t know what to say, okay? I thought at first that someone would have taken Aerin. But she was here, and I started thinking that maybe…” His voice trails off.
I cock my head as I ponder his reason for not looking any of us in the eye. “You thought what?”
“That you might be involved in whatever is happening,” he says in a rush, as if he’s worried we won’t give him a chance to finish speaking. “I thought I could hang around a bit, see for myself if I could find Leah, and then approach you. I didn’t mean to make you think I was involved, and I didn’t mean to scare her in the forest.”
I blink. “What do you mean, you didn’t mean to scare her in the forest?”
“It was you,” Aerin says quietly, not sounding surprised. “When I was walking back to the house after we saw the bear, I thought someone was watching me. It was you. Wasn’t it?”
No one speaks for a beat.
“Bennett, ensure he gets to his car and leaves Winter Lake,” I say coldly.
Clary steps forward. “But I?—”
“Aerin fell .” I talk over him. “She was hurt because of you. You need to leave my town now.”
“But my mate?—”
“Is the only reason I’m letting you walk out of here at all. We’ve heard about what is going on, and we will get to the bottom of it, but we’ll do it alone, without you sneaking around and trying to claim my territory. I don’t know you and I don’t trust you, not after everything you’ve done since you’ve arrived. Bennett.”
“But I?—”
“You’ve said enough,” Bennett cuts him off.
As Bennett grips him by his shoulder and marches him out of the room, I cross over to Aerin and sink to a crouch in front of her.
“This bloody nose. What happened?”
“Shouldn’t we talk about the missing omegas and the?—”
“Later,” I quietly interrupt her. “That can wait. Why were you bleeding?”
She stares at me for several seconds, then her eyes fill with tears, and like every single time she’s hurting, I hurt too. “It’s gone.”
“What’s gone?”
“All of it. All my powers. Everything. Before, I could feel it a bit, sometimes. But it’s not there anymore, and I think it’s gone forever.”
She bursts into tears.
I gather her into my arms, feeling helpless, with no idea what to say to stop her from hurting.