Chapter 5

We did our best business in years that day, thanks to the news feature. But I couldn’t bring myself to appreciate it.

Even though Gavin immediately called the local news to take down my picture and details, eager customers kept arriving from miles around. My heart hadn’t pounded with such intense fear since the night I lost my old life. Now part of me feared that it was already too late to save my new one.

Clearly, the report had already spread far. Though my name was different and my appearance had changed over the past five years – my sharp features and musculature were more prominent without my suppressants – I feared that wasn’t enough.

I was distracted throughout the workday. Thankfully, my three employees assumed I was just overwhelmed by the shop’s sudden popularity. Though I tried to act like a gracious host, every new customer opening my door made me jump.

Finally, I escaped to the back room near closing time to fill out some order forms. My employees began to clean up the shop, chatting excitedly about the busy day.

Then the bell rang as the shop door opened one last time. From the back room, hunched over my computer, I suddenly caught a smell I hadn’t sensed in years.

Werewolves.

A glimpse through the doorframe showed a group of burly men towering over my human employees. If it weren’t for the heavy fragrances filling my shop, they might have already scented me.

“Where’s your manager?” one of them growled.

I didn’t waste another second. I quietly slipped out the back door into the alley and began to run.

At least I could be sure that my human employees were in no danger. Werewolves followed the long-established edict of never wilfully harming a human. It was a point of pride that separated us from the Lycans, who hated human beings.

I was the only one the werewolves would chase. They thought of me – and would think the same of my little boy, if they discovered him – as their traitorous, monstrous enemy. They’d hunt me down, like they tried to do five years ago.

All my worst fears from that day were closing in around me.

With cold fingers, I pulled out my phone and dialled. My voice shook as I made a phone call I’d dreaded for years.

“Gavin, I don’t have time to explain. You need to go pick up Gabriel right now. It’s an emergency. I…I might not be back for awhile.”

“Mica? What’s–”

“I promise I’ll contact you again as soon as I can. I’ll let you know where we can all meet up safely – but it might have to be another city.”

I heard him gasp over the phone.

Gavin had never pushed me to share the troubles of my past, or explain how I’d come to be found alone, pregnant, and half-dead in the woods. But he was a smart man who’d dedicated his life to helping desperate people; he certainly guessed that I was running from something.

With a tight calm, he said, “It’s because of the report, isn’t it? You’re in danger. Mica, this is my fault – I’m so sorry. Tell me if I can call the police.”

“No! This isn’t something the police can solve.”

I barrelled down alleyways, leaping over dumpsters and rounding blind corners. It felt like every shadow held one of the nightmares that had haunted me for five years.

Gabriel. My little boy. He’d be waiting in the schoolyard with the pictures he’d drawn for me clutched to his chest, eager to cuddle and chatter about his day.

He’d be so scared when I didn’t come home.

What if I never saw him again?

I had to keep him alive. Nothing else mattered. I would do anything to protect my son.

Over the phone, I gasped out to Gavin, “Just keep Gabriel safe. Tell him I love him.”

“Mica–”

But I could smell the werewolves approaching behind me. They must have caught my trail. There was no time.

I hung up the phone and ran for my life.

I might have lost my pack years ago, but I’d never stopped training. I still had someone important to protect.

The city was beginning to fill with people leaving work for the evening. I darted into the busy crowds that hustled along the city streets. The mixed scents of hundreds of human bodies settled over my trail.

By an alleyway, I noticed one bar with a rowdy throng spilling out onto the sidewalk, all stinking of alcohol and sweat. Quickly, I slid inside the crush of bodies and beer scent.

The werewolves tracking me would pass by any second now. Even if they didn’t catch my scent, they knew my face. I couldn’t let them see me.

Quickly, I grabbed the nearest drunk and curled my hands behind his neck as flirtatiously as I could manage, steering his body in front of mine to block me from street view.

He leaned in, his breath rotten with beer. “Well, shit, sweetheart!” he slurred. “You looking for me, baby?”

“Mmhm,” I said, faking a smile and ignoring him completely. The wolves were passing the bar.

Over his shoulder, I saw my hunters pause, their nostrils flaring as they scented the crowd. They exchanged frustrated glances – they’d lost my trail.

One werewolf scanned the bar crowd I hid within, frowning the unfamiliar faces. I ducked just a little bit lower behind my random drunk.

Then the werewolf shook his head, and the group rushed further down the street.

It did nothing to release my panicked tension. I stayed on high alert even after they’d gone, letting the drunk man talk at me.

Long minutes passed with no sign of my pursuers doubling back. My heart hammered like a drum in my ears. I began to edge into the dim alleyway beside the bar, pulling the drunk man along to maintain him as a shield.

My muscles tensed as I prepared to continue running for my life.

That was when I heard it.

The deep, primal sense of my wolf within me, my other form that I’d locked away, hadn’t spoken to me in five years. I didn’t want to touch that part of myself anymore. Not now that I knew what kind of a monster I truly was.

But even after years spent stubbornly in human form, my primal being was still there inside. Still part of me.

And in the wordless way that was more like scenting than speaking, it told me, Mate-scent. Fated mate. Your mate. Here.

I froze where I stood.

My fated mate?

Was it possible? After all this time – and here, now, in the midst of this nightmare – I’d finally crossed paths with my own fated mate?

Old memories flooded through me. The pain of loving my best friend from afar all my life, even though I truly wanted Andreas and Bria to be happy together. Clumsily trying to help the two fated mates resolve their silly relationship problems as teenagers. Standing by Andreas’s side when he was brokenhearted with grief after Bria’s murder, never knowing what to say, just wanting to comfort him however I could.

Our last night together – our only night together – the night Gabriel had been conceived. The temporary mark Andreas had given me.

How Andreas had held my hand, calling me Mica like nobody else did then, and asked if I was willing to be his mate.

I’d never had a chance to answer him. To tell him my heart had been his all our lives.

And now my wolf was telling me that my true fated mate, a person I’d long since given up on discovering, was here. Just down that alley.

Your mate, my wolf sighed. Here.

The time and place couldn’t have been worse, but a jolt of excitement shot through me, until–

Suddenly the odours of the crowd, the alcohol, and the alleyway all gave way as a warm, spicy scent I used to know better than any other filled my nose.

My heart stopped as our eyes met.

From the shadows, The man my wolf recognised as my fated mate stepped forward and called out, “Michaela Lee!”

For the first time in five years, I was reunited with Andreas.