Unexpected Mate

COLE

Cole let out a roar, then swiped everything off his desk.

Darrel ran into the office. “What’s the matter with you?”

Cole looked up into the ugly bastard’s face. “That was my cousin, the alpha of Silver Nights. They found a girl’s body in the woods just outside of their town. Blonde. Skinny little thing. Ring a bell?”

Enraged, he jumped to his feet. “Stabbed in the side and mauled by a bear!” he shouted, then took a few deep breaths before glaring at his beta. “Any idea how she got stabbed, Darrel?”

“Little bitch tried to bite me! I was trying to tie her to the cross for her whipping, and she started fighting.” He hung his head. “I just reacted, Alpha. I’m sorry.”

“You fucktard!” Cole screamed. “Now she’s dead!” He grabbed the ugly wolf by the throat and started to squeeze.

“Alpha…please!” Darrel choked. “I didn’t mean…to hurt her…just wanted to subdue her…like you asked.” He was turning blue.

One of the warriors came in. “Your car is ready, Alpha. Do you need a driver?” he asked, not reacting to the beta being strangled.

Cole dropped Darrel to the floor and kicked him. “Get up! You’re driving me to Silver Nights pack.”

Cole stormed out the front door of his pack house and got into the passenger seat. Darrel took the driver’s seat, still rubbing at his throat.

“I have to see the body,” Cole muttered darkly. “I have to know it’s her. I don’t want to be left in the dark like my father has all these years over my mother.”

Within the hour, Cole’s car pulled up in front of the Silver Nights pack house. Kai and his beta were waiting on the front steps.

Kai’s mother was on the steps as well. She smiled at him. “Hello, Cole, it’s been a very long time,” she said mildly. “How is your father?”

He looked coldly at her. “He’s moved on, Aunt Ronnie. He recently took a chosen mate and moved to her pack. I’m in charge of the Red Dawn now.”

His aunt pressed her hand against her chest. “I just wish I knew what happened to your mother. I miss her very much. She was my only sister.”

“Yeah, you and me both,” he snapped, then looked at Kai. “Where’s the body?”

“It’s in the morgue. Follow me.” Kai and his beta came down the steps, and Cole and Darrel followed them the few hundred yards to the infirmary.

“I’ll warn you,” Kai said before they entered the building. “There’s not much left of her face. The bear did a real number on the girl. Bite marks everywhere, pieces of her missing.

“Her clothes were pretty shredded, but Doc pieced them together to cover her, so you should be able to pick up her scent. I don’t know the girl, so you’ll have to tell me.”

Cole said nothing. He felt a little sick—and a whole lot pissed.

When they went inside, a doctor was talking to a nurse just inside the door. “Alpha Kai, good morning,” she said.

“Good morning, Doris. Cole, this is Dr. Doris Landcaster, and Doris, this is Alpha Cole of Red Dawn and his beta…sorry, I don’t know your name, Beta.”

“It’s Darrel,” he grumbled.

“Yes, you weren’t very forthcoming the other night when you crashed my bar.”

“Can we dispense with the pleasantries and just get on with the business at hand?” Cole snapped.

“Of course, cousin. This way.” Kai turned and walked beside Dr. Landcaster. “He’s here to see the girl from the woods,” he told her.

“Did you warn him of her condition, Alpha?”

“He did!” Cole rolled his eyes. “I just want to go see so I can get on with my day. I have more important things on my agenda.”

“Really?” Kai looked over at him, his brows raised, then paused before the double swinging doors. “Yesterday you were all but threatening me to find this girl. You even sent men into my pack—without permission—to hunt her down.

“And now you behave as though this means nothing? I thought she was your ‘intended’ mate, cousin. Sounds more like it was your intention to mate her, gifted or not.”

Cole huffed. “You know nothing about it!”

“You’re right, I don’t,” Kai said sternly. “But something caused that girl to bolt from your pack. And someone stabbed her with a silver knife dipped in wolfsbane.

“Care to have that knife hanging on your belt tested for the girl’s DNA, Beta Darrel? ’Cause if I can prove you people are the cause of this girl’s untimely death, I will.”

“You said she was mauled by a bear,” Cole said snidely. “How could my beta orchestrate a bear attack?”

Kai growled. “By causing her to bleed out. The wolfsbane prevented the wound from closing. That’s how.”

“Just show me the body already.” Cole pushed through the double doors but froze when Meadow’s scent slammed him in the face.

A covered body lay on a metal table, blonde hair spilling over the side. Doris went over and pulled the sheet back, but there was nothing to see but a mangled face. The girl was beyond recognition.

Cole just stood there, silently taking in the dirty, bloodstained tank top and ill-fitting sweatpants that actually belonged to him. They were both shredded but had been draped carefully over the lifeless body.

Meadow’s scent, though mixed with the bear’s, was very noticeable.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “That’s her scent. That’s her.”

Doris covered the body again. “Will you send someone for her, or should we make the arrangements?” she asked.

Cole experienced an unexpected flash of sadness. “You keep her. She had no one in my pack. Her father is a lone wolf, and I have no idea where he is.” He turned and went back out the doors, followed by his cousin and beta.

“What about my two men?” Darrel asked Kai when the three of them got outside.

“They stay.” Kai shrugged. “I gave your boys time to leave and do the search properly. They stayed behind and trespassed, so they stay locked up.”

Cole smirked. “Getting tough these days, huh, Kai?”

“Have to, with the riffraff your pack has in it,” he shot back, and Cole scowled.

His cousin walked them back to their car but paused when they got close. “My eyes and ears are open, Cole. Keep your pack under control, or it might just get taken away from you.”

Cole stopped and stared hard at Kai. “By who? You?” He laughed dryly.

“No, but I bet there’s a wolf out there holding a big enough grudge to go against you. And if the wolf council hears about it, they’ll abolish your pack and the whole lot of you will be deemed rogues.

“Then the hunt is on.” Kai smiled coldly.

Cole stalked to the car and slammed himself in, then stuck his head out the window as Darrel sped off.

“Thanks for taking out the trash, cousin!” he yelled to Kai, then sat back in his seat and fumed quietly for a few minutes.

Suddenly, he slammed his fist into the dashboard, cracking the plastic.

“She’s dead!” he screamed. “I want this fucking pack to pay! I want them to feel the loss ~I’m~ feeling. She was ~mine~! MINE!”

He turned to his beta and narrowed his eyes. “You did this,” he snarled, “so ~you’ll~ make it up to me. Bring me girls from this pack!”