Chapter 16 - Mara
The coffee shop’s glass is so clean it reflects my face back at me, which is a cruel joke for someone who wants to disappear right now.
I’m sitting at a window table in the Bluebird Café, pressed as far into the corner as possible as I try to blend into the background completely.
Outside, Main Street is a picture-perfect example of spring; every business has impossibly bright flower baskets strung under the eaves, kids on bikes race through the square, and the air here is so clear it feels artificial.
I can see the general store, the bakery, even the stone face of the library that’s somehow both imposing and inviting.
If I turn my head, I catch the copper flash of the pack’s Town Hall sign glinting in the sunlight.
It’s almost pretty enough to make me forget that I don’t belong here.
I try to look casual, but my hands betray me because I’m fidgeting, so I put them under the table.
Sara is at the counter, chatting with the barista in a way that suggests she’s been doing it for years.
No one pays me much attention, but I feel the low-level undercurrent of being observed anyway; it’s like when a stranger would walk into the bar and shift the air in the room just enough to make the locals aware that something’s off.
It’s not hostility here, at least; if anything, the energy is curious and gently nosy.
But I’m still an outsider, and in a town like this, that’s all it takes.
Sara glances over and gives me a thumbs up.
I force myself to smile, and she beams back.
I try to return the smile, but I can’t compete with her natural soft edges and easy warmth.
She seems to have made it her mission to guide me through the gauntlet of local gossip, saying things like “Don’t worry, everyone’s just glad Cade is seeing someone” and “everyone’s just fascinated, you know; you’re the alpha’s mysterious city girl. ”
She means well, and I want to like her—I do, actually—but I can’t stop thinking about what else she said. About how everyone expects Cade to find a luna, how it’s the only thing their pack is really missing.
I can’t be Luna. I’m not a shifter; I don’t have a wolf.
I’m a human.
Albeit a human with some random bloodwork abnormalities, I still don’t think that changes who I am. And I’m not a shifter.
I shake my head. Why do I even care? Cade brought me here, kept me captive, and, admittedly, gave me the most pleasure I’ve ever felt in my entire life.
But he’s not promising forever; we’re not even in a relationship…
more like a situationship. Besides, he’s so much older than me; he’d want a woman like him to be Luna.
Not someone like me who’s bounced around bar jobs trying to take out the hunters for revenge.
I doubt he thinks I’m Luna material anyway.
I’m not Luna material.
Sara returns, balancing two cappuccinos and a plate with two slices of cake; one looks like lemon and the other dark chocolate, so full of frosting it should be illegal.
She sets the tray down and slides into the seat across from me; her presence is so immediately comfortable it’s hard not to relax, though I keep my spine straight, as if good posture will spare me from whatever this conversation is going to be.
“Sorry,” she says, breathless, “everyone is out, and about today, the line was crazy; it’s not normally like this, but it’s getting busier on weekends now.
” She grins, then pushes a cappuccino toward me.
“I hope you like foam. I told them to go easy on the cinnamon, but you never know with Betsy. She’s got a heavy hand. ”
“I’ll live,” I say, and take a sip. The cinnamon is aggressive, but the coffee is good. I can feel Sara watching me, not in an uncomfortable way, just like someone who’s genuinely invested in the outcome of my first sip.
She nudges the cake plate toward me. “I couldn’t choose, to be honest, so I thought we could share.
The chocolate one is the new ‘house specialty.’ Betsy was saying people have been getting territorial about it, so I wouldn’t eat it too close to the window if I were you.
” She says it with a completely straight face, and I almost choke on my coffee.
There’s a lull as she stirs sugar into her coffee, and I do my best to look like a person who has never once in her life plotted against a paramilitary organization.
For a moment, it almost works. Then, because I’m a glutton for self-sabotage, I glance at my phone on the table, checking for texts from Cade.
There’s nothing, just the blank home screen and my own reflection in the black glass.
Sara catches it and gives me a look, so knowing that my face heats up immediately.
“You can text him, you know,” she says, “He’s probably pacing a hole in the training yard pretending not to worry about you being out and about.
” When I don’t respond, she leans in, lowering her voice. “Is everything…okay? Between you guys?”
I don’t answer right away. I want to say yes, but the word tastes like a lie. I toy with my fork, using it to make neat furrows in the cake icing. “I don’t really know what we are,” I say, finally. “Things aren’t exactly normal. Not bad, but not normal.”
Sara laughs, but it’s gentle. “Oh, honey. Nothing about our world is normal. And for what it’s worth, I think you’re good for him.” She sits back, studying me. “I mean that. I’ve known Cade since we were kids, and I’ve never seen him like this.”
I want to ask what she means, but I’m afraid of the answer. Instead, I pick at the cake, letting the chocolate and sugar give my brain something else to focus on.
Sara says, “You know, when I met Grey properly, I just knew. One date, and that was it,” she smiles wistfully. “You may not have a wolf, but I think we all know when we find our mate.”
I want to laugh at her, at the crazy implication that I would ever feel that kind of certainty.
But when Sara says it, she’s looking at me like she knows exactly what I’m afraid to admit, and suddenly I’m not hungry for cake or coffee or even the curious comfort of this table.
I’m hungry for the feeling I get when Cade’s eyes are on me, when he’s got me pinned to the wall, or the floor, or the edge of his kitchen counter, and I know, beyond reason, that I’m not going anywhere. Maybe ever.
But can I really stay?
I push the plate away and look out the window, trying to hide my face behind the rim of the cup.
The town is so aggressively wholesome I want to scream, but I also want to hold on to it, just for a minute.
I want to imagine what it would be like to stay.
To stop running. Maybe that’s what’s been building within me since the first time I let Cade touch me: the fear that if I stop running, I won’t get my revenge, but also the secret hope that he’ll be the one to make me stop.
I want him to tell me not to go. I want him to want me.
I’m about to say something to Sara, something that might, for once, be really honest, when a sound outside splits the air. It’s not the usual laughter or the shriek of a kid falling off a bike. It’s a scream, raw and high and so full of panic that everyone in the café goes silent at once.
I turn in my seat and see pure chaos unfolding.
Four giant trucks, matte black and dust-streaked, are barreling down Main and skidding to a stop in the square.
For a second, nobody moves. The engines idle, exhaust clouding the air, and then the doors fly open.
Men in black tactical gear spill out, moving in formation, faces obscured by riot helmets and body armor.
Hunters.
I suddenly can’t breathe. The cup slips out of my hand and crashes to the floor, shattering and splattering foam across my boots.
Sara grabs my wrist across the table, her nails biting into my skin.
The barista ducks behind the counter, and half the café is already on their feet, but none of it feels real until the first shot cracks the window.
Glass explodes, raining down in sparkling sheets.
Someone screams, a much louder scream this time, and people start scrambling backward, knocking chairs and tables to the floor.
Sara is up, dragging me toward the back, but I’m rooted to the spot.
Through the jagged hole in the window, I see townspeople running for cover, ducking into alleys and doorways.
A man I recognize from the bakery is lying face down on the sidewalk, and I’m not sure if he’s alive or not.
He’s a shifter, but it depends on what kind of bullets they’re using.
Sara drags me behind the counter, and we watch out the window as a group of shifters attack the hunters, their wolves massive in comparison, and push them back behind their vehicles, but the hunters aren’t giving up.
I watch, numb, as the hunters fan out, and I spot two of them carrying a large weapon that looks like it could take down a tank, let alone a shifter.
The wolves that had been holding them at bay are suddenly pinned behind a planter and a row of parked cars, forced to ground by a hail of silver-tipped bullets.
At first, I think they’re tranquilizers, but then I see one of the shifters go down, blood pouring from a wound in his flank, and I know it’s worse.
These hunters clearly don’t do warning shots.
There are only four wolves, and I realize in a sickening instant that the rest of the pack must be out on patrol, or else this would be an absolute bloodbath.
For now, the hunters are taking it slow, pushing the wolves back, covering every possible exit from the square.
They’re herding them, and I know exactly what that means: they’re not just here to kill.
They’re here for someone. I can practically taste the intent in the way they move, the methodical, military precision of it.
This isn’t a raid; it’s a surgical strike.
Sara’s hand is still locked around my wrist, but her eyes are on the window, wide and wild.
“We have to get everyone out,” she says, voice barely above a whisper.
“They’re closing in. Oh god.” Her face goes white, and she lets go of me, scrambling around the counter to grab the barista, who’s sobbing softly into her apron.
The women behind the counter are in shock, but I turn to them, grab them both by the shoulders, and shake them until they look at me. “Take the alley, head for the tree line, and don’t look back.”
They stare at me, uncomprehending, until I add, “You’re not safe here. Go. Now.” Something in my voice must register, because the barista grabs one of the other customers and keeps low, heading for the back door, the other women at her heels.
Sara looks at me, panic and determination dueling in her eyes. “You’re coming too,” she says.
But I don’t move. Instead, I scan the glass, watching the hunters coordinate. One breaks off from the group and starts toward the coffee shop, his steps measured, unhurried. They know I’m here. I feel it, the way you feel a storm before it hits.
“They’re after me,” I say, and it sounds crazy even to me, but I know it with a certainty that makes my whole body go cold. “If you run, you might make it. If I run, they’ll just shoot everyone in their way. So I’m staying.”
Sara grabs my shoulders, shaking me so hard my teeth clack. “Don’t you dare. Cade would never forgive me—”
But I cut her off. “Go.” I push her harder than I mean to, and she stumbles back, then catches herself.
“Absolutely not,” Sara says, and I’m about to argue with her again, but as I turn, I see the hunter outside the coffee shop, and then in a blur of black, he’s gone.
Then the street in front of the café erupts.
Not with gunfire this time, but with the sound of something massive hurling itself against what’s left of the coffee shop window, sending more glass flying toward us.
As the black wolf comes into view properly, scanning the inside of the shop, we lock eyes.
I know that wolf. Even before he lands, even before the gold eyes cut through the haze and pin me where I stand, I know. It’s Cade.
Sara yanks me to my feet, half-dragging me toward the kitchen and the back exit.
There’s shouting behind us, more gunfire, more screams. The prep kitchen is empty, the back door propped open with a crate, sunlight streaming in, and we’re halfway across the floor when a shadow suddenly appears in the doorway.
A man in hunter gear, visor up, face bare.
He’s big, with a bloodied nose and a look that says he’s going to enjoy this.
He doesn’t hesitate. He lunges at Sara first, shoving her so hard she goes down, skull cracking against the tile.
Then he grabs me by the collar and lifts me like I weigh nothing.
I claw at his hands, but he’s got me in an iron grip, and the next thing I know, I’m being hauled through the kitchen, past the overturned cake display, and out onto the sidewalk.
The noise here is deafening with growls, gunfire, wolves howling, and the metallic ring of claws on steel.
The man jerks me around, pressing something cold and sharp to my throat, and pulls me up onto the hood of a car.
Suddenly, it all goes quiet.
The black wolf stands in the center of the square, muzzle wet, chest heaving, eyes fixed on me.
There are bodies everywhere; some human, some wolf, and I’ve no idea who is alive or not.
The entire square falls into silence, and the hunters look at each other, then at the shifters, as if waiting for something to happen.
The man holding me shakes me violently, as if almost expecting me to do something. I keep my eyes locked on Cade, feeling tears spring to my eyes as the sharp metal cuts into my neck.
This is it. After everything, the hunters are going to kill me, just like they killed my parents.
Perhaps Cade will avenge me.