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"The suspicion came first—everyone thought the others were planning to steal the treasure for themselves. Then the violence came when theydidtry to steal it," Mark continued. "Ariya was one of the shifters who tried to steal the treasure. I tried to knock some sense into the rest of the pack, and I argued with her. Nothing worked, so I left them to deal with the treasureon their own. I didn't want to be a pack leader to a bunch of rabid dogs."

Jake sighed. "I'm sorry, man. That's rough." He gestured to the vault of treasure. "But if you left, how did you end up with the whole haul for yourself?"

"After I was gone for a few days, my senses started to return to me. I realized what the treasure had done to us. I went back to my pack, trying to come up with a plan to cure them. But when I got there, it was too late." Mark closed the vault, and after a string of clicks, it locked beneath his touch, sealing the treasure away for who knew how many more years. Just as his story had once been locked away. "Some had ripped each other apart ... but it was the goblins that killed the rest. It was a slaughter, Jake. We never stood a chance."

They went back up to the main floor in silence. On one hand, it felt good to say what happened to him and get it off his chest, but on the other, acknowledging the horrors of that day brought all that guilt back to the surface. He felt enough of it every day, but now it felt like a tree had collapsed on top of him and he couldn't lift it off, with or without his strength as a wolf shifter.

At the top of the stairs, Jake leaned against the wall instead of continuing back to the living area. "I'll take your word for it and pray I never encounter a treasure goblin in my life."

"I hope you're so lucky." Mark joined him against the wall. "But I still have part of their hoard, Jake. When they killed my pack, I wasn't enough to fight them all off ... but there was so much treasure we had to hide it all over the place. The stuff I have in my vault? The goblins never found it, but they know it's out there. They knowIhave it. And they're coming."

Jake appraised him. "You're using it as bait."

Mark chuckled. "Now you're getting the picture."

"Shit, so when I had danger-vibes when I first started working here, I wasn't far off the mark."

"Right. But the goblins aren't after you, they're after me. You and Zoe are safe, don't worry. Like I said, they won't go south for some reason. I don't think they like cities."

"If you say so," Jake said.

"I failed my pack as their Alpha, but I can still destroy the creatures that murdered them. I can still avenge Ariya."

Jake was quiet for a while, and Mark's gaze traveled down the hall, to the window. It was dark out now, but that darkness was symbolic of the time where the goblins were the most active. The time where it was most dangerous to go out hunting, but also the time where Mark was most likely to find his prey ...

"You'll get your revenge, Mark, I have no doubt about that," Jake said. "But that doesn't mean you should put your whole life on pause. You've already punished yourself with ten years of isolation."

"My life paused the second Ariya died. You have no idea what it's like to lose a mate," Mark growled. "I can't move on until her murderers are dead."

"But there's one major flaw in your story, Mark. I understand your guilt and you desire for revenge ... and I'll do everything in my power to help you see that through. This isn't something you should be working through alone.But." Jake held up a finger. "One big but. How do you know for sure that Ariya was your mate?"

The question took Mark aback. "What are you talking about? I loved her—I'd never felt such an intimate connection to someone before."

"Sure, but you can love people who aren't your mate, especially before you've met the right person."

A low growl rumbled in Mark's throat as he tried to summon his wolf's anger at such a statement. But his wolf wouldn't lend him its strength; instead, it pushed back at Mark with all possible resistance, almost as if itagreedwith what Jake was saying. What in the world was happening?

"Why wouldn't Ariya be my mate? I don't understand what you're implying," Mark said.

"I don't mean to suggest you didn't love her, or that you're wrong to mourn her ... but you said you fought a lot, right?" Jake sighed, a bit exasperated. "Let me put it this way. When I met Zoe, I tried my damndest to resist her, working against biology and my own twisted logic to find a way to justify how to keep her out of my life. But it didn't work, no matter how hard I tried. Mytigerknew even if I didn't at first. And once my tiger knew, it never let me do anything that would make it impossible to stay with her.

"What I'm saying is, if Ariya was really your mate, I don't think you would have been able to argue with her to the point of breaking up multiple times or continuously hurting her feelings. Doing so would only hurt you more, and your wolf sure would have given you shit."

Mark reflected back on his relationship with Ariya. Yeah, it was bumpy, but the passion was there from the beginning, even when emotions ran high. But how had his wolf responded to her? Whenever he thought about Ariya, he was filled with so much love and regret, but since she died, he never paid much attention to how his wolf felt about her. Now, delving deeper into himself, he saw how his wolf held a fondness of her gained by familiarity, but its pain wasn't nearly as severe as Mark's.

While he felt like he'd been stabbed in the heart multiple times, left to gush blood whenever he thought about love, his wolf had been scratched ... and healed over many, many years ago.

What if Jake was right and Ariya hadn't been his mate? Did that change anything?

The goblins and their cursed treasure still killed her and the rest of his pack. Even if Ariyawasn'this mate, his drive for revenge wasn't just for her sake. It was for his, and his pack's. They'd been thirty strong when they found that treasure ... now it was just Mark.

"That doesn't change anything," he said. "Even if she wasn't my mate, I'll never know the difference until those goblins pay. For what they did, I'll make sure they're torn apart in turn."

"It does make a difference, though," Jake said. "Because if your mate isn't dead, that means she's still out there somewhere."

Mark's heart stuttered. Jake was right. If Ariya truly wasn't his mate, then the woman of his dreams was still waiting out there for him ... and he'd wasted a decade away from her in isolation, hunting the elusive monsters that killed his pack. No, but it wasn't a waste. Those monsters had to die because of what they did—before they could hurt anyone else.

He'd been alone for so long ... without love, or anyone.