Page 219 of Alpha Mates

I didn’t need to think after that. Alone, I crossed the borders and ran after my mate.

On all fours, I pushed faster than I ever had. I followed his waning scent far past any lands I knew or recognised. Recalling it now produced a blur that ended at the edge of a lone gas station, where all the traces of his scent stopped.

I searched the area. Once. Twice. Again. Nothing. No car. No tracks. No blood either, no signs of a struggle or proof of someone trying to erase one. Still, I searched because if I didn’t—if I allowed myself to stop for even a moment, then that awful dread gathering in the pit of my stomach would grow, and I couldn’t let that happen.

Aiden was gone. My Aiden, gone … because of me. And I didn’t know when or if he’d come back.

Dread swelled, morphed into misery and then fear. A kind of fear that slithers into you when you realise your mate is gone and there’s no way to find them. Only I had to, because all I had was Aiden. There’s no me without him anymore, and I can’t survive a reality that tries to tell me otherwise.

I shifted and trudged forward, intent on questioning everyone present for some sign of my mate, but sense in the form of Beckett stopped me before I could risk exposing us all. I hadn’t even realised he was following me until he was standing in my path, demanding I wait at least until another wolf I hadn’t noticed found clothes for us. Whether or not I would’ve torn through Beckett if the clothing hadn’t arrived when it did was something I would never know.

“Yeah, a guy like that passed through here early this morning. He was in pretty-bad shape,”was what one of the station’s attendants said after hearing my description.

Pretty-bad shape. The phrase, paired with the headline on the television above about a “maniac’s bar attack,” had made Alex howl in anguish.

Aiden had demons I’d never glimpsed, but they’d come out that day in the bar.

I’d been too surprised to see his fear, too angry to notice that shaken look in his eyes, but when I thought back to it now, I could recall how startled he’d been when I tore him off the human and he realised what had happened.

Aiden had been terrified, and not of the situation, but ofhimself.

Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed. Maybe I should’ve waited like he’d asked, but waiting was all I’d been doing for weeks, and his request—another request asserted with no explanation—pushed me past the brink of my patience. Before I knew it, I was saying things I didn’t mean. Things I was supposed to pretend didn’t exist. And it was too late to take them back.

The man said Aiden headed north, so that’s where I went. Never mind what was out there, I needed to find my mate. That was all that mattered. But no matter how far I searched, how many sleepless nights I spent on my paws, how many paths I scoured, there was no Aiden at the end of any of them.

Aiden was gone. Just … gone.

I kept nudging our link, hoping that if I was near, I could reach him, but either he blocked me out entirely, or was too far away to feel me. The state of our bond didn’t help. It felt blighted, like a physical infection spreading to the most vulnerable parts. Doused with pain from both sides, it frayed, tore, and hung tattered between us.

Days bled together. By the time my steps slowed and my strength waned, somehow a week had already passed.

I’d heard that if you were ever unfortunate enough to be separated from your mate, the first days without them were the worst, but in hindsight those were the easiest. There was hope to cling to back then, and the reality of the situation wasn’t something I’d fully yet comprehended: my mate had left me.

Aiden left me.

That’s when I began to splinter. Without that hope to keep me upright, I was no match for Beckett when he’d decided it was time to drag me back to the pack.

Two weeks have passed since then, since Aiden left me and the pack, and he still hasn’t come back home.

Plodding through fallen leaves, I keep my eyes up rather than let them drag on the ground like my feet. I’ve searched these woods three times over, enough that my scent lingers even without these being our marked lands.

Aiden isn’t out here. But I still need to look—need to do something, or I really will go mad.

Returning to the pack was the sensible choice, but being back where he left me just poured salt on the wound.

But I’m still an alpha, and my pack needs at least one of us. I need to be strong, to look it, even if I don’t feel it, but I don’t know how to show up without Aiden. I’m barely showing up for myself as it is.

I pick up my pace, filtering out the sound of the scouts Beckett sent to follow me. They’re supposed to make sure I don’t go too far. Orders that would be useless if I were strong enough to stop them, but he knows I’m not. I barely sleep these days, and eat even less. I can’t without him. Can’t domuch of anything without him, so I look for him instead. Day and night, I fucking look for him, because somehow that’s all I can do.

An hour passes before my ears prick, catching the distant sound of some rustling, something too distinct to be the wind. It doesn’t come again, but it’s enough for me to dart forward.

Legs lifting high with each step, I race ahead, outrunning the wolves behind me with the wild hope that maybe this is it. Maybe he finally came back for me.

Only, when I break past the unnaturally thick shrubbery and stumble into an open pasture, it’s not Aiden standing on the other side—it’s a girl. A woman, really, even if just barely. She stills mid-step, leaving one pointed foot on the ground while her shrewd eyes rove over me. She’s my height, maybe a little shorter, dressed in strange black and red leathers that contrast with the beads and tokens in her hair. It’s those very trinkets that alert me to what she is before my senses confirm it.

A witch.

Not good.