Chapter 2
Rhett
The roar of the plane was uncomfortable to my sensitive hearing, but it was nothing compared to the roar of my pulse as I stared at the woman curled against me. Her head was on my shoulder, her arm stretching to rest in my lap.
The muscles in my legs twitched. I wanted to lift her until she was tucked against me. I wanted to hold my breath, so I didn’t risk waking her and ending this moment.
In my pack, the elders constantly reminded young shifters of one painful truth: fated mates were becoming rare. So rare that some packs had gone an entire generation without seeing a fated mate pairing.
And mine walked right up to me at the airport and announced herself.
I lifted my free hand to rub my jaw, making sure it was still on my face and not left on the floor at the airport.
Usually, my wolf was quiet during air travel.
He hated small spaces, and he hated the stink of fragrance that permeated every human space.
Today, I could hardly keep him under my skin.
Suddenly I needed Angie seated beside me to keep me from shifting and racing half-mad up and down the aisle of the plane.
I upset her when we boarded. Her displeasure was obvious. But it took every ounce of my willpower to act natural, to make the words coming out of my mouth sound coherent instead of drooling all over her like a lovesick puppy.
My eyes traced the lines of black ink across her chest. Another design peeked out of the wide collar of her shirt. I wanted to see every one of her tattoos. To memorize the lines of them, to lick across them and taste her skin.
The front of my jeans grew too tight, and I inhaled for calm.
Calm?
How was I supposed to stay calm when I just found my fated mate at an airport, where she was traveling to an unknown location for an unknown amount of time? She could get on another plane when we landed. She could be flying to China, and I might never see her again.
My stunned bliss was short-lived, the onset of panic making my skin feel tight. She wasn’t a shifter. I couldn’t just drag her to the nearest hotel and make things official.
I’d just spent weeks with my alpha and his upper ranks in Seattle, hunting down a sicko kidnapping shifters and helping them protect their mates. From what I’d seen, human mates were challenging—stubborn.
I had to expect the same from Angie.
What if she had a boyfriend? Fire burned in my veins for an entirely different reason, and I lifted a lock of brown hair to my nose. There was a streak of blue underneath, and I couldn’t help the twitch of a smile.
She smelled like shampoo with a caustic hint of hair dye. Her skin had a lingering scent of fragranced lotion—vanilla and something floral. Fragrance made it harder to catch scents that might have rubbed off during contact with another person, but not impossible.
No other male scent marked her, at least not recently. Somehow, that wasn’t particularly reassuring.
Killing her boyfriend didn’t make a fantastic start to a relationship.
The flight attendant passed with the drink cart—conveniently forgetting to ask for my drink order—and I was uncomfortably aware that we were already a third of the way through our flight.
I had a little over two hours to figure out how I was going to convince a complete stranger that we were fated to be together.
Angie woke as the plane slanted sideways, slowly winding toward the Fairbanks airport. Red veins stood out around her irises, making the blue color brighter.
Blue eyes to match her blue hair.
She blinked rapidly, gaze moving between her hand and my lap, where she was all but groping me.
“The only thing that would make this worse was if I drooled on you,” she groaned.
I wanted to say something reassuring, but I was too consumed with nerves to speak.
Soon enough, we were hitting the tarmac. Angie gripped my hand the entire time. My mate wasn’t a fan of flying.
Passengers jumped to their feet the moment the plane stopped moving, unhooking seatbelts and throwing open overhead bins.
“Are you in a hurry?” I asked her.
Maybe she had a connecting flight, and I could stall her long enough that she missed it. Then again, who had a connecting flight from Fairbanks?
Angie checked the time on her phone. “No. I still don’t have a hotel reservation.”
“My wolf doesn’t like close quarters,” I explained. “I like to be the last person off the plane. It’s—well, it’s safer for everyone involved.” Especially now that I had an unmarked mate, one I couldn’t let stand between two men in the aisle of the plane without going feral.
Her eyes widened. “Sorry for crowding you the whole flight. I didn’t realize…”
“You didn’t crowd me.” I said, stopping her before she got any ideas about putting space between us. “You aren’t the problem, remember, babe?”
“Right,” she whispered, “we should probably keep up the act until we’re off the plane. I don’t have time for federal jail time.”
I nodded my agreement, staring at the seat in front of me as people shuffled out. My wolf was more on edge than he’d ever been—even more than during the high-stakes investigation I just closed back in Seattle—and I didn’t want to risk eye contact with a curious human.
Angie yawned beside me, stretching her arms into my personal space. She didn’t protest when I lifted her duffel bag from the bin and put it over my shoulder.
“Thank you.” I smiled politely at the flight attendant as we exited the plane, despite her unfriendly expression.
Angie put her hand on my arm, leaning up to whisper, “What’s with the attitude? There was the gate agent, and then the flight attendant. What did you do to offend them?”
I met her gaze, letting her see a brief flash of wolf in my eyes. “Some people don’t think shifters should be allowed around the general population.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her brow furrowed, and she said, “I thought all that stuff on the news was just them stirring up drama.”
“It is, but that doesn’t mean people don’t believe it. I’m generally considered a danger to society.”
“They really weren’t going to let you on the plane without me,” she said, incredulous.
“Shifters don’t have the same rights as human citizens.”
“That’s really messed up. I had no idea.”
“Have you seen the news lately?”
Angie flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I’ve been too preoccupied for doomscrolling.”
“Let’s just say I think things are going to change very soon. My alpha is making sure of that.”
Her hand was still on my arm as we entered the airport, and I took advantage of that, steering us past a crowd waiting at the gate and walking casually toward the baggage claim.
“Well, I guess I should thank you for getting held up at the gate. I would’ve missed my flight without you,” she said as we approached the baggage carousel. The hand on my arm migrated to her bag. “Tell your mom I said happy birthday, babe.”
“Wait!” I gripped the strap of her bag, keeping it from sliding off my shoulder. “What are you doing in Alaska?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my blue suitcase slide onto the conveyor belt.
People stuffed themselves into coats and winter layers before exiting through the sliding doors, letting in gusts of frigid air.
I couldn’t help but notice Angie’s padded leather jacket.
It was barely suited for Seattle weather at this time of year.
She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot before finally unzipping her purse and pulling out a tiny red box.
My heart sank as she opened the box to reveal a simple diamond ring.
“Who is that for?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“Me,” she huffed. “Or it was. Now it’s for some random chick in Alaska, probably. I wonder if she knows he’s going to give her the ring he bought for me.” The last part was muttered under her breath.
Air sucked back into my lungs, and I blew it out slowly, calming my wolf before he burst free in a possessive rage.
Angie looked at me, then back to the ring, before slamming the box shut and stuffing it into her purse. “He wanted me to mail it to him, but after the shit he pulled, the least he can do is look me in the eye and tell me why.”
Okay, maybe I stopped panicking too soon. Reconciling with her ex wasn’t entirely out of the question unless I killed him.
Or marked Angie first.
My wolf vibrated unhappily in my chest, making my voice harsher when I asked, “You flew all the way to Alaska to give an engagement ring to your ex-boyfriend?”
“Fiancé,” she corrected, shoulders tense. “The dude wanted me to marry him. This is the type of situation that warrants flying all the way to Alaska!”
She put a hand on her heaving chest, glancing around at the curious passengers who were now straining to hear our conversation.
Quieter, she added, “He said he needed some space to think, then moved out of his apartment without telling me, and took a pipeline job in another state! I would have thought he was missing or dead if I didn’t show up at his apartment to bring him breakfast and find the landlord changing the locks. ”
“Sounds like you dodged a bullet.”
“Thank you.” She crossed her arms. “I did. But I still deserve the truth. He texts me six months later and asks me to send the engagement ring to a P.O. Box in Alaska. He even wanted me to pay for shipping.”
“Do you want me to kill him for you?” I wasn’t going to let on that I was serious unless she agreed.
“No, I want to give him this ring, show him my favorite finger, and walk away from this whole shit show with as much pride intact as I can.” She reached for her bag again. “Thank you for getting me on that plane—“
“I should be thanking you.” This was it. She was trying to leave.
“It’s stupid that they have all these shifter rules.”
Our eyes locked, hers ringed with exhaustion and sadness.
“I have a favor to ask you,” I blurted, readjusting the strap of her bag so it was still securely out of her reach.
“What kind of favor?”
“My mom’s health is really failing. She lost her mate last year. Without the bond, she’s…well, let’s just say, she isn’t herself.”
“I’m so sorry. But what can I do? It’s not like I’m a doctor.”
“I have three brothers. None of them are mated. My mom always wanted to see us settle down before she passed.” My throat constricted around the last word, as if even speaking it could make it happen.
“My oldest brother would pull his own teeth out before taking a mate. My younger brothers are both commitment-phobes. That leaves me.”
Angie cocked her head, as if she knew what was coming next. “I need you to be my mate a little longer. Come to my mom’s birthday party in Glacier Run.” Her eyebrows shot up, so I hurried to add, “In exchange, I’ll come with you to confront your ex. You can pretend you’ve already moved on.”
I flexed one of my arms and gave her a winning smile. “I’m sure I’m at least taller than the guy.”
My smile stretched as Angie laughed, shaking her head. “But aren’t mates like husband and wife? How will you explain it to her when I go home to Seattle?”
You won’t, if I have anything to say about it.
“I’ll come up with something. I might have to return to Seattle for work in a few weeks, anyway.”
“Where is Glacier Run, exactly?”
“It’s a few hours outside of Fairbanks. I can show you on the map.”
“Are you one of those—what are they called? Wild ones?”
This time it was my turn to laugh. “Wildlings. And no, Glacier Run is as modern as it gets in rural Alaska. We have houses, electricity, water—even a coffee shop. There are just as many humans as shifters.”
I didn’t know Angie yet, but I could tell by the sparkle in her eyes that she found the idea exciting.
“I didn’t know there were shifter towns.”
“Glacier Run is one of a kind—for now.”
“Will I have cell service if I decide you’re driving me to a remote location in the Alaskan wilderness to have your wicked way with me?”
I clenched my fists, trying not to let my own excitement scare her off. “Most of the time, yes.”
“How long are we putting on this ruse?”
“One day and one night. Just until the party is over.”
She pressed her lips together, pretending to consider.
I could tell by the smile she was holding back that she already had her mind made up.
“It should be a red flag that you’re willing to lie to your mom, after you were willing to lie to the gate agents, but I think you get a pass because your heart is in the right place. ”
I slid my fingers through hers, unable to keep myself from touching her any longer.
“I never lie. I just stretch the truth.” I led her to the baggage carousel, using my free hand to heave my suitcase onto its wheels. “Okay, babe, time to meet my family.”