Page 97 of An Enigma for the Lycan Crown Prince

“You are the one who is torturingme,” she claims. “You are just too hot to resist. We will have the biggest party ever when I turn eighteen. I can’t wait!” She pauses. “I wonder if all mates plan their mating like that.”

“I am not sure,” I admit. “I lack any comparison, and Jace and Vince haven’t met their mates yet, so no juicy stories to share. Other than them, I don’t really want to talk to anyone about that kind of stuff.”

“Same. I can talk about almost everything with Grandma, but there are certain things I don’t want to mention,” she chuckles, before letting go of me and dropping back into the water.

We spend the whole afternoon here before we both have to return. Flora needs to handle the last couple of organizational things to wrap up school, and I am set to meet with Vincent for some training. For dinner, I decide to try something new and,with Flora’s support, I actually have dinner with Emilia. Just the three of us. I can see how surprised Emilia is and, although she tries to hide it, she looks happy.

The next day, at the exact same time, Calvin reaches out to me, just like he promised he would. “Please tell me you were successful,” I say.

“Of course I was,” he says. “There is a very small pack in the south called Black Forest Pack. Have you heard about them?”

“Just through my research,” I tell him. “I have studied all packs in the US.”

“I wasn’t aware,” Calvin says, sounding surprised.

“I think it’s important for me as the future alpha to know about the other packs on this continent. I do lack some information for packs abroad, though. Europe isn’t the problem, but Africa and Asia are.”

“I can help with that,” Calvin tells me. “I have memorized all the packs.”

“Seriously! All of them?” I ask, shocked.

“Yes. I was bored a while ago and just learned about them,” he says.

“Alright, I will take you up on that offer, but for now-“

“Right, your father’s mate. So, obviously, I can’t say for sure if she is truly there, but it’s the pack he has visited for many years, even before you were born. There has to be a connection for him there. I have tried to research the pack members, which was difficult due to this being a small pack, but there is one woman who is said to never have found her mate or taken a chosen mate.”

“No way,” I mutter.

“Way too suspicious to be a coincidence, right?” Calvin asks. “She is an omega she-wolf. I don’t know her name, but I think it will be easy to find her.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I will need her name to find her,” I agree. “Anything else you know about her?”

“She hardly leaves the pack,” Calvin says. “But she sometimes helps out in the shelter of the nearby town.”

“Shelter?” I ask, surprised.

“Yeah, not sure why. Maybe she knows someone there.”

“Maybe,” I mutter. But as wolves we like to keep to ourselves. Seeing how this she-wolf mingles with the humans is an indication for me that she feels lost, and that she might be looking for a place to belong. Maybe none of this has anything to do with my father, but I have the sinking feeling it has everything to do with him.

thirty-one

The True Mate

*ELDEN*

It’s never been so silent during a car ride with my friends. This time, Janice didn’t join us because she went on a short trip with her grandma, but Vince and Jace joined me and Flora. To my surprise, Tobias was able to help us connect with the small pack we are about to visit. In his active years as gamma, he was well liked all around the country and often accompanied my mother to functions.

“I don’t know what to say,” Vincent finally disrupts the silence, after we have driven for two hours.

“Me neither,” Jace mutters.

“There is not much to say,” I say bitterly. “My father is an asshole who has never considered anyone else’s feelings but his own.”

“I can’t believe he is hiding his mate somewhere,” Jace says.

“I bet that’s not the only thing he is doing,” I say. “I guess he is actually preventing her from moving on. He always did. He had my mother and his supposed fated mate. Then, he found Emilia, a woman he believed was good enough for him, and yet, kept her as a side piece.”