"A human?" Garrett mated a human? It's unheard of for an alpha wolf to take a human mate. I hope this doesn't mean he'll lose his position as alpha. His pack is as loyal as they come, but you never know. Some wolf may challenge him for it. The most likely contender would be Tank, his beta, except that Tank is from our father's pack originally and his loyalty there would prevent it.
"My wolf picked her." Garrett shrugs but his goofy grin says he's hopelessly in love.
Is that what happened with me and Carlos? Our wolves picked even though our human selves never would have?
What about all that stuff Carlos said just before we were drugged? About not being sorry he'd mated me? Was that the truth? Or just the effect of the full moon and a happy inner wolf?
"You sure you don't want me to go back there and kill the entire Montelobo pack? Because I won't hesitate if you give the word."
"No." I twist and grab Garrett's shoulders before I realize what I'm doing. "You can't do that."
Garrett falls silent, searching my face. My grip tightens. "You can't. Promise me." What if Carlos were hurt? Or someone he cared about, like his mother or Juanito?
"You sure, kiddo?" His voice is mild, but for a second I glimpse the cold-hearted predator lurking behind the human facade. The wolf would kill first and ask questions never, leaving a trail of bodies behind.
"I'm sure. Don't let dad go back, either. Promise me."
"All right, sis. Calm down. I promise." I can tell he wants to ask me more, so I turn in his arms, tucking myself into his side. I hold him tight until my racing heart slows down.
Our van rolls through a sprawling city, which Garrett tells me is the country's capital, Mexico City. We stop at a skyrise hotel and Garrett shifts in his seat, his eyes fixed on a high story window. His mate must be inside.
Ugh. I rub my nose. What would it be like to be happily mated instead of leaving the most fucked up of matings possible? "So where's Amber, now?" I try for enthusiasm. I'm going to have a sister for the first time. With Garrett so much older, I'm more like an only child. "When can I meet her?"
"She's in our suite. Come on. You can meet her now."
Garrett leads me into the hotel and up an elevator, but when he enters his room, I know something's wrong. There's no scent of a female present-human or otherwise.
Garrett picks up a note and reads it, then roars, smashing his fist into a wall.
Well, crap.
I guess I'm not the only one whose mating is a mess.
Carlos
I walk along the outside perimeter of our citadel. The buzzing in my ears makes my head pound, but I keep pushing on. I'm going to walk the entirety of our pack territory every day until I know who lives in which hut, the names of their family members, what they do for us. Even as I vow it, though, the landscape goes by without my seeing a thing.
All I see is Sedona, chained naked to that bed. My terrible, wonderful prize.
Watching her leave was like allowing someone to steal away with a vital organ from my body. I stood there, numb, not understanding how I still lived, still breathed without her here. It took all my willpower not to shift and chase after her pack's vans like a common dog. Not to howl.
But somehow I managed to stay on the terrace and watch, keeping my pack out of danger.
The council couldn't believe I let her go. When they saw her standing out there, her white filmy wrap threading around her legs in the breeze, their pompous airs dropped.
"Why is your female out of her room?" Santiago demanded.
"I set her free," I said calmly.
"Are you mad?" Mateo asked. "She's your mate."
Yes, mine, my wolf howled.
But it doesn't matter. I wasn't going to show my teeth to her pack, to her family. It was wrong to keep her this way. Wrong to have bought her in the first place. Everything we'd done to her had been wrong.
"Go and fight for your female. Or are you too much of a coward?" Don Santiago challenged.
I punched him in the face. I would never do something like that to an elderly human, but an old shifter can take it. The pack surged around me-I didn't know whether they meant to stop me if I continued, but no one touched me.
"Crazy, like his mother," Don Jose proclaimed.
"I'm not keeping a female against her will," I snarled. "Not even one I've marked. And if any of you here believe such a thing is acceptable, you are the reason this pack is falling to ruin." I turned in a circle, meeting every male's eyes, forcing their gaze to drop in the face of my dominance. A small victory, but it satisfied my wolf.
Don Santiago rubbed his jaw and climbed to his feet. "So, what? You're not going to fight to win her love? Her affection? I daresay you already had it."
My heart squeezed painfully, then, and it's still squeezing. I want to believe that much is true. But it could've been simple biology. The council knew exactly what they were doing putting a fertile she-wolf naked in a cell with a virile male over the full moon. And the adversity brought us together. Holding her to anything based on what we shared in there wouldn't be fair. She had no choice but to accept me. It doesn't mean she wants me as her mate. If she did, she wouldn't have been so quick to jump in that van and disappear.