Chapter 5: A dead end

TYLER

Aurelia.

That was all she gave me.

And though it’s been a week, I’ve found absolutely nothing on that name. No pack, no clan, no family.

What surprises me more is the reason she came to kill me. Is she an assassin? No. Assassins work in groups.

Then did she come for a personal grudge?

My door slams open, nearly ripping out of its hinges, and I facepalm myself.

“The fuck is wrong with you, Xander?” I bark at my little brother, who comes to sit across from me, putting his damn legs over my study desk.

“Hi, big brother.”

“Get your fucking legs off my desk.”

“Aren’t you worried about why I’m acting out of character?”

I roll my eyes. “Denying who you are again because of some shitty heartbreak?” I hissed, slapping some files over his feet just so he’d move them.

“This isn’t just some shitty heartbreak.”

“Right, this one’s more serious, just like the one with Shayla.”

“Yeah, just like the one with….” he bites his lips, standing up abruptly. “You know what? I can’t discuss heartbreak issues with you. You found your mate and scared the poor thing away, how can you possibly tell me how to pamper a woman and make her come back?”

That hits like a punch to the gut.

That night, when Aurelia left me with a poisonous dagger stuck in my chest, my warriors rushed in immediately. Rather than telling them my mate had stabbed me ruthlessly, I lied, and just said I got attacked.

But it stunned them because I’d never been that injured by an assassin.

“You’re giving up on this poor brother of yours,” I say distastefully, and Xander just clicks his tongue.

“I’ve given up on you a long time ago.” He shakes his head. “Should we talk about Marie? You frightened her on your first date.”

“It wasn’t intentional.”

“And what about Sarah?”

“Is it my fault my cock’s too large for her to handle?”

“It’s no surprise your true mate prefers to hide away so you’ll never find her.” He smirks, and storms out of my office.

Asshole. If he knows she’s the same assassin that left me in a critical state for days, he wouldn’t be so eager to meet her. I’d told her poisons didn’t work on me. A lie. I felt the burn the minute that dagger pierced through me.

“Alpha Tyler,” my beta, Dave, mindlinks me. “I’m on my way to your study. I think I’ve got a lead on her.”

“Who?”

“Your mate.”

Kyle, my wolf, gets all excited. ‘We’re finally going to see her again!’

Not so soon. I need to be sure Dave has an actual lead this time. There’s a sharp knock on my door. Knowing it’s Dave, I ask him to come in immediately.

He lowers his head, and that’s when I notice the brown file he’s holding. “I gathered pictures and information on every Aurelia I could find,” he says, and Kyle wants to crawl out to punch him.

“So, you don’t have an actual lead.”

He becomes flustered. “I do. I mean, there’s one I found quite interesting, and a little suspicious.”

I stretch my hand for the file, and Dave places it on my palm. “Aurelia Rivers,” he says slowly. “She’s on the third page. Her entire family, clan, and pack, got wiped off in a single day by unknown people.”

I frown. “What do you mean unknown people? An entire pack was cleared, and no one knows who committed such a crime?”

“It’s been fourteen years, but no one knows who they are.”

Opening the file, I stop at the third page, and when I realize there’s no picture, anger boils through my veins. My eyes trail lower, lingering on the last phrase.

Aurelia Rivers died with her family in the fire, fourteen years ago.

“She’s fucking dead.”

“Isn’t,” Dave brings out a folded picture from his pocket and hands it to me. “She looks exactly like the description you gave. She was just eight here, but she has midnight black hair, fierce hazel eyes, and high cheekbones.” He steps closer, “and take a look at her neck. The same scar you talked about is sitting right there.”

I suck in a deep breath.

My mate is Aurelia Rivers.

But why did her record stop fourteen years ago?

What is she hiding?

Why was her entire family wiped out?

“Where did you find all these?” I ask Dave, putting a finger over her face to act as a mask. I remember her features. I remember everything like it was yesterday. “How did you manage to get all this information about her?”

Dave swallows. “She’s Alpha blood. Her father was the Alpha of the fallen pack.”

I frown.

My mate is mysterious.

She’s definitely hiding something up her sleeves, and the fact that she came to kill me is even more suspicious. Her true name is literally useless when it even comes to finding her.

She died fourteen years ago.

I have no more fucking lead.

Kyle thrashes in my mind. He’s pissed. He wants to break something or smash anything for losing all leads on his mate. Getting off my chair, I storm off.

“Alpha Tyler, where are you headed?”

“A run. I’m going for a run.”

I jog down the stairs, taking deep breaths to keep Kyle from breaking out this minute, and that’s when I smell something familiar. Her. Aurelia’s intoxicating scent.

Nicklaus, my other brother, walks into the pack house with someone on his back. Her black hair is covered in dirt, her white dress soaked in her own blood. “I saw her at our border already bitten by a rogue. Her wound is healing really fast, she doesn’t need a pack doc—”

Using my insane speed, I carry her off his back and place her on a couch. My heart slams hard against my ribcage as I move the hair off her face, and when I see her features, I freeze.

Mate.

She’s my mate.

“Alpha Tyler, I saved this one. At least let me take care of her,” Nicklaus glares at me. “Finders keepers.”

“This one’s mine,” a low growl rumbles from my chest. “She’s my fucking mate.”