Page 15 of Chasing the Wolf (Dark Wing #7)

Chapter 15

Mackenzie

M y shift was over half an hour ago. The afternoon crew's been giving me side-eye for the last twenty minutes. But wearing my Java Lava apron and making coffee gives me the freedom to not think about him. About Xavier.

I shouldn't have texted the group chat telling them what he said to me as a teenager. But I did. I know my friends will keep me strong. If that's strong, why do I feel so gross? So weak?

My phone buzzes in my pocket. It's been going off all morning since I told them.

Hope: He was here.

Rama: In the lobby? Doing what?

Hope: Looking for a character reference?

Fiona: A what?

Daisy: He's trying to use her friends to get to her.

Fiona and Daisy may not be on the ship, but that doesn't mean we've left them out of things.

Fiona: What does he look like?

Colette: What does it matter? Mackenzie doesn't need that type of gross negativity in her life. Mate or no mate, he could be the tallest, most handsome male on the planet. She doesn't need him. But he's tall, rich, and has a square jaw.

Rama: But all the things he said to her makes him an ass.

Colette: [rolling eye emoji] Not wrong.

Fiona: I was going to say the same thing. It's weird to say, but fate may be wrong this time.

Ina: Stay strong. But I saw him looking all mopey walking around the walking deck.

Colette: I'm happy the three of you have found amazing, perfect love.

Ina: Right! Colette, Daisy, Mackenzie, and I are going to retire and live in the goat shed behind Fiona's brewery.

Daisy: I'm in. Just say the word. I miss you guys.

Fiona: I'll find space, just say when!

Naomi: Miss you... and Mackenzie, say the word and we'll all go to the captain and get him taken off the ship.

Me: No, it's fine.

I push my phone back into my pocket because the rest of it is going to go round and round with everyone saying how much they miss Daisy and Fiona too. I can't stop focusing on what Ina said. That she saw Xavier moping around on the walking deck. But it's not fine. It's not fine at all.

I could go back to my cabin, but I don't want to be alone. Not right now. Colette's long gone. She has to get ready for her shift in the dining room tonight. My insides are miserable, but my body is ready to run that 10k race I thought I was on yesterday, racing up the stairs away from a girl who just wanted to give me my phone back.

"Hey, why don't you take off?" the noon shift leader asks. It's the lull before the lunch rush.

"I can stay."

"I know you can, but you don't need to." We don't have a night crew vs morning crew here, but we don't not have a night crew vs morning crew here either.

"Right, okay. I'll get out of here." I should zip down the crew stairwell to my quarters, but instead I make Rama her favorite coffee, hang up my apron, and head over to the tiki bar. It's a sea day, and the pool deck's in full swing. Which isn't too bad, as most guests must still be sleeping.

"Hey you! You're deep in thought!" Clara says. "Did those girls ever find you? Or did you get your phone back from your brother?" She's wearing normal crew slacks and a crew polo.

"Oh, you're working the pool deck now?"

"Yeah! What I've discovered is that there's nothing I don't like doing. Unless I do it for too many days in a row." Clara clasps her empty tray under her arm.

"I guess I can understand that. Variety is exciting for some people."

"But not for you?" Clara smiles.

"No, not for me. I guess I hadn't thought about it before. I like the counter at Java Lava. Standing behind it is comforting." It took a lot of effort to leave my pack. And now I can feel it. It's a pull. Not the mating pull to Xavier, but the pull. Back to my old way of living. My old life. And I hate it. The wind picks up and blows my hair around. I need to get down to my cabin and take a shower. "Clara, really weird question. Can you scent me?"

"Huh?" She picks up an empty glass from the pool deck and puts it on her tray.

"Like, do I have any scent?"

"Do you smell bad?"

"No, like, does your cat pick up my animal at all?"

Clara leans in. "No, I don't think so." She leans in for a second time. "I mean, maybe?"

"Okay, thanks." I wave and head over to Rama. There are only a few people sitting at her bar. One of them is Kimberly from the Mixology class.

"Hey, girl, hey," Rama calls to me as she's wiping the bar top down. "How are you feeling?" She wiggles her eyebrows.

"Mentally or physically?"

"Both, I guess." She drops her rag in the laundry bucket.

"Physically, surprisingly, good." I shrug. "I sleep well normally, but last night? Last night's sleep was better than most." I'm not sure why I'm telling her this. But it's true.

"And mentally? Those things you texted us, the stuff Xavier said to you growing up. Whoa. That's rough. My cat wanted to rip through my skin and go track him down." Rama pushes a glass of water across the bar to me, and I push the coffee to her.

"Please, don't." I laugh.

She takes a long draw on the straw of the iced coffee I made her. "Heaven, thank you."

"You're welcome. Thank you for filling Colette in about what happened last night."

"I only had part of it. But when you were missing, we all kind of figured where you were, and then..."

"And then what?"

"I pulled strings."

"Rama, what strings did you pull?"

"Luca watched the cameras, so we knew you were in 1414. Just didn't know Xavier isn’t deserving of you."

My stomach twists. Telling my friends some of the things Xavier said to me as a cub was meant to have them help me not lose my strength, to keep me away from him. But there's a high level of ick going on with it too. "He's done a lot of good things for our... for my old hometown. They've come a long way thanks to him. But yeah, the things he said to me weren't good."

Rama nods and takes another sip of her coffee. "I would never have gotten that from how the two of you were in the class, then up here at the bar. You were having so much fun. You looked more relaxed than I've ever seen you."

"I'm not relaxed?" I cock my head at her, because out of our friend group, I'm definitely not the one who's wound the tightest.

"You're not Colette chill, but you're not Hope, either."

"I can accept that, I suppose."

"He'll be gone soon enough. It's just a five-day cruise," Rama says, her eyes searching my face.

"True, true, but I just feel like... I don't know. I didn't exaggerate the truth. He said exactly what I told you. His words shook me to the core. They made me feel less than. They made me cower into myself. They made me weak and meek. They made me wanna hide from the world, from everything. But I feel like I've betrayed him, I suppose."

"I can't tell you how to feel, Mackenzie—no one can. That's the thing with life: it's up to you to decide who you want to be and who you want to be with. And if he's not the one for you, even if he is here or your fated mate, if he makes you feel small or not good enough, you don't need him."

I cross my arms over my chest. "That's the problem, Rama. I'm not sure what I feel anymore. I suppose I'm lucky that Violet helped me. And I'm not feeling the pull to him and all the muck from my childhood at the same time."

"The muck always comes back to bite us in the ass." She pours some frozen fruit and other things into the blender, blends them, and pours the concoction into a daiquiri glass, pushing it across the bar to me. "In a way, you're lucky you have the opportunity to decide on your own without filling the pool of the fates. Opportunities like this don't come along very often."

I stare warily at the glass.

"Virgin," she says.

"I'm not a virgin."

Rama laughs. "Not you, the drink."

I laugh and take a sip. Rama had the same opportunity, in a way, with her alpha sensitivity issues. She didn't have a strong, fated mate pull to Luca. This is the same, yet different altogether.

"I know I'm lucky. But I don't feel that lucky at the same time. That doesn't make sense, I know."

"It does. Everything about love and mates and especially fated mates is hard. People think just because fate gives us a little push, a little lust, and a blast of pheromones, that we have it easy. But that's not the case, not the case at all. Love is hard. But worth it. And fated? It's even more confusing because you have to untangle your own emotions from the ones thrust upon you by an external force. I don't know what you should do, Mackenzie, but I know you should trust yourself. And all those things he said to you were horrible and have absolutely no justification. No one should ever say those things to anyone, but if you don't talk to him about it... How do you know he still feels the same way?"

"That's just it. How do I know he's changed? You know the saying: a leopard can't change its spots. Well, you should meet his father, my old Alpha. He certainly hasn't changed. And everyone says that Xavier is just like him, that he's so strong and will rule the pack with a strong and forceful control. It's one of the reasons why I left. Colton, my brother, said that everything would be different when Xavier and his brother, Fletcher, were in charge of the pack, but I don't think so. Water flows along the path of least resistance. What's gonna make him change? Nothing."

"Both you and love are strong things," Rama says.

"I don't know that I'm strong enough."

"Maybe you're not. But maybe you are."

A passenger on the other side of the bar waves Rama over. "I'll be right back," she says.

I set my glass down. Am I strong enough to help Xavier change things back home? Do I even care to help him change things? Does he want to change things? Yes, he said he does. Nothing is easy. I know I sound like a whiny little girl, but I made the choice to leave, and it was so simple and so hard, and now I have to make the same choice all over again. It's not something I wanna do.

I finish the rest of my drink. “I'll see you later.” I wave to Rama.

I take the first crew stairwell I find and spiral downward, trying not to get dizzy. In my cabin, I strip off my clothes, lifting them to my nose. There's no smell of coffee or anything. I hold the little glass spritzer in my hand.

Do I know what I want? I put the bottle back on the shelf, hidden behind some books. Then I head to the shower, scrubbing myself clean. I don’t know why, but potions don’t feel like something that’ll just wash off.

When I step out, I pick up my clothes from the floor and toss them in the hamper. As I do, a soft wave of coffee grinds—familiar and comforting—hits the back of my nostrils. I pause, turning back toward the bathroom, staring at the shower as if it might hold some kind of magical answer, as if I could just wash the potion away. I pull out the potion, spray myself and put it back again.

I sigh, shaking my head at myself, and get dressed again. I sit on the edge of my bed, staring at my phone. I haven't looked at it yet, but I know I should. I need to find out where Colton is—at least so I can avoid him for now. When I finally pick it up, I see at least half a dozen messages, most from the group chat, but a few from coworkers asking about shift swaps. I want to ignore it all, but... I can’t this week. Or can I? I toss the phone under my pillow, unwilling to deal with it right now.

I lie back and smack my head on the wall. The door opens, and Colette walks in.

"I thought you'd be getting ready for your shift in the Hoard dining room?" I say.

"I'm ready. Just came looking for you."

“Yeah, here I am. I'll try not to go missing again anytime soon. Thank you for this morning.”

“You already thanked me enough, and that's what friends do, so no worries. No, I wanted to ask if you're doing okay. And I wanted to see you with my own eyes. Because it just isn't right with me.”

“What isn't right with you?” I ask.

“What he said to you was horrible, Mackenzie. Not okay at all.”

“I know.”

"I don't mean to... I hate bullies," Colette says, her voice soft but firm. "What I'm trying to say is, everything he said to you was horrific. I can't imagine what it would have been like to be a young girl and have that happen to you. It's right up there with that whole 'boys will be boys' mentality, which I absolutely abhor."

She pauses for a moment, her expression shifting as if considering something. "But... is there even the slightest possibility that he was trying to protect you? That maybe, by saying all those awful things to you, he was trying to make you hate him? Could he have been trying to keep you away from his father? Keeping you out of the reach of his father's claws?"

“The thought has crossed my mind several times. Why did need to be so hurtful, what was he protecting me from?"

“The question is, do you want to find out?”

“I don’t know.”