Elle Chipp
ALARIC
“You are to stay calm, and you are to keep your head... do you understand?” I speak aloud to my wolf as we pull up to the diner.
“Shut up and find mate,” he grumbles as his sign of agreement.
Rather than reply, I turn off my engine and clock how there’s only one bike pulled up, alongside a couple of cars in the parking lot that probably belong to waitstaff.
My heart drops, as this means that my mate probably won’t be here. But where are the Lost Angels? They’re usually always hanging around, and seeing one bike is stranger than seeing none at all.
Maybe I’m just used to pack mentality, though. Maybe one of the Lost Angels just wanted a snack and stopped by alone; nothing too strange in that.
I walk toward the front door, planning to ask the waitstaff about anyone who stopped by yesterday, anyone new to town. But then a breeze drifts across my face, bringing that delicious smell back to my nose.
She is here! But she’s outside. Why?
“Danger! Follow!” My wolf practically shakes inside me, and I don’t need to be told twice as I make my way around the building, trying to find the source of my mate’s frightened scent.
When I do, it feels as though the very earth below me has shattered and opened up.
My mate stands with her back to me, so all I can see is a long ponytail of beautiful red hair wrapped around a man’s filthy wrist.
I can hear her crying as the creature in front of her unzips his jeans before throwing her to her knees.
The crack of her bones against the hard concrete jolts me from my fury-filled trance, and I pounce on him before he can do any further damage to what is mine.
He tries to struggle. A gun goes off.
I swear that my stomach drops faster than a lead balloon at the deafening bang. I look frantically behind me toward the woman I’ve waited so long to find, hoping not to see her bleeding out.
But instead, I’m shocked to find her standing above me, the gun in her hand, pointing toward the mass of muscle and bone on the ground.
The man isn’t moving. The blood isn’t mine or hers, and the tears on my mate’s face are no longer flowing. She shot the gun. She killed her attacker after I made my move.
Who is this mate of mine?
“Th-thank you,” she stutters, dropping the gun to the floor. I wince; you should never do that with a freshly fired weapon.
“I wasn’t sure which of us it would be,” she continues, in a numb but even voice. “But I’m glad it was him in the end.”
My wolf is still growling inside me, mad that we didn’t get to kill the man who was threatening her, that she had to protect herself. But I can live with that for now, as long as she’s okay.
We have to get out of here, though. When I get a closer look at the freshly-killed man, I vaguely recognize him as one of the Lost Angels. They’re not likely to believe her word or mine over the body of one of their own.
I need to mind-link with my men to get them to come and take care of this, pronto.
“We should call the police.” My mate pulls out her phone, but I quickly take it from her hands before she can do something so damning.
“No, we really shouldn’t, baby.”
I move closer to her again, this time with the intention of wrapping my arms around her for comfort, but I stop myself at the last moment.
She doesn’t know me, and a hug from a stranger would probably do more harm than good when she’s in this state of mind.
So instead, I just move to block her view of the corpse.
“I’m not your—wait, why shouldn’t we call the police? I just killed a guy!” It seems to finally sink in as her eyes widen. “I just killed a guy,” she repeats, horror-stricken.
“I’d have killed him if you hadn’t, baby, so don’t you let that worry you. You gave him the easy way out compared to what I’d have done.”
I growl, wishing that I could bring him back to life, just so that I could make him hurt more for what he tried to do to my mate.
“B-but why can’t we call the police?”
Her brows furrow in confusion, and it’s frustrating how cute she looks. I don’t have time right now to appreciate what the Moon Goddess has sent me.
But wow, what a gift this woman is.
I explain, “Because the sheriff is one of them, or at least paid by them. You wouldn’t stand a chance of staying out of prison.”
I try not to scowl too much at the thought, but at least I know that I’ll be able to protect her once we get out of this alley-turned-crime-scene.
Every last one of the Lost Angels is on my blacklist until I get to the bottom of what happened; fuck the law. My girl was in danger and they’ll pay for it, they all will.
“So what do we do?” she asks. “We can’t just leave a crime scene.”
She looks at the gun on the floor between us, and I carefully use my foot to slide it behind me toward the body. She’s starting to react more normally now, and I don’t want to frighten her again.
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do, baby. Let me take care of it…let me drive you home.” I gesture for her to follow my back toward my bike, and she looks from me to the body one more time before moving.
“What’s going to happen to me?” she asks, but I don’t know if it’s directed more toward me or herself.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing is going to happen to you, that I promise you,” I vow seriously. For the first time, she seems to truly look at me.
She takes in my jacket, tattoos, and face before staring me right in the eyes. Those green irises of hers take my breath away, and I almost don’t hear her when she finally asks, “Are you one of them?”