Page 21 of Fated to the Wolf Cowboy (Cowboys of Collier #1)

Brady

I had so many questions, but I just stood there staring as she ran away.

“Don’t be a moron. Go after her,” Tim said.

“She’s a witch?” Kenneth asked. “Cool! I’ve never met a witch in real life.”

“Yes, you have,” he assured him.

“I have? Who?”

“Kelsey Westin for one, Lily’s sister-in-law. Remember?”

“She is?” he asked.

“Brady, go. You need to talk to her. She looked terrified,” Tim pointed out.

My feet felt like they were bolted to the ground as her words slowly sank in.

A witch?

My mate was a witch?

She really was the reason I thought I was going insane?

She’d done that to me? Made me a fool in front of my entire Pack? That was all her?

Tim walked over to me and pulled me into a hug.

“She’s your true mate. Go to her and work through this right now.”

I nodded.

As he gave me a shoved, my feet finally moved as I turned and ran after her.

When had my younger brother become so smart? In truth he’d always been the genius in the family. But that was book smart. This was different.

Once outside, I quickly caught her scent. She was moving fast, but I knew I was faster.

It didn’t take long for me to catch up to her.

“Tricia, stop!”

She stumbled and I lunged forward to catch her just in time before she hit the ground using my own body as a shield as we slid across the dirt.

When she looked at me, her face was streaked with tears.

“I’m not mad,” I told her. “Maybe a little irritated, but I’m not mad. I’m glad I wasn’t entirely going crazy.”

“I’m a witch,” she blurted out, sobbing.

I wrapped my arms around her and just laid there on the ground holding her as she cried.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” she insisted.

“Talk to me, Tricia.”

“Can we just go home first? It’s too open and makes me feel exposed here.”

“Sure we can.”

Home. She wanted to go home with me. In her current state of mind, I wasn’t sure she even realized what she was saying.

I didn’t hesitate to jump up and pull her up with me as we walked back to my bike. Tim and Kenneth were waiting there.

“Are you okay, Tricia?” Kenneth asked.

She nodded, clearly embarrassed.

“Where are you heading?” Tim asked.

“Home.”

“Do you want me to call Ollie and have him ready with the dampener for some privacy?”

“I shook my head. Not there. Our home.” When he looked confused, I shook my head. “Don’t you even talk to your mate?”

“Huh? I mean she’s called a few times, but I’ve been too busy to answer.”

I chuckled. “Maybe you should have.”

He was already on the phone before I fired up the engine.

Tricia buried her face in my back. I wasn’t sure how it was possible, but I could feel her nerves. She was terrified and holding on for dear life.

I was proud to be her rock in the moment, but I hated knowing how scared she was. I didn’t understand it and just hoped she didn’t shut me out when I started trying to press her for answers. Or worse, run again.

The drive seemed to help soothe her some, so I extended it and drove around town for a bit before turning towards the new house.

She called it our house.

A part of my brain told me I should be freaking out about that, but I wasn’t. It made me happier than I understood.

But when we pulled into the driveway, I realized the front door was wide open.

I growled and kept a protective arm around my mate as we walked up to the house.

“Wait here,” I whispered, channeling my wolf senses as I quietly crept inside.

“You shouldn’t have beat them here. You said they left first. Are you sure they said they were coming back here?” Jessie asked.

I started to relax.

“What are you guys doing here?” I yelled out.

In the living room there were two camp chairs setup and what should be the dining room had a small card table and two chairs now where it had all been empty before.

I walked down the hall towards voices.

“We’re back here,” I heard Sydney yell out.

Great, just wanted I needed, a house full of people when I was trying to have some private time to talk with my mate.

Understanding there was no danger, Tricia came inside. She clung to my arm as we found them all in the owner’s bedroom: Luke, Sydney, Tim, and Jessie. And in the middle of the room was a kind sized blow up mattress already made up with fresh sheets and pillows.

“You didn’t have to do this,” I assured them.

“Tim called and told us what happened. We wanted to help. You two need a safe space to talk, or whatever, and work this out.”

Tricia looked confused.

“Did they really not hear anything?” she whispered to me.

“Baby, no one here cares that you’re a witch.”

“I think it’s pretty awesome,” Jessie said. “I hope you’ll tell me about your powers sometime soon. My best friend, Marie, is a witch, too. She’s pretty badass.”

“We don’t have a lot of witches in Collier Pack, but that doesn’t mean we have anything against them,” Luke told her. “You’re more than welcome here.”

“Tricia, this is Luke, Thomas’s Beta and my former Alpha. And this is his mate, Sydney.”

“We’ve met,” Syd told me.

Tricia relaxed just a little. “She has an adorable boutique in town. Lily took me there on my tour.”

“Welcome to the neighborhood, Tricia. Luke and I live two doors down and Tim and Jessie are just next door. I know it’s not much, but we figured it would get you through the night at least. If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call,” Sydney said.

“And I’ll drop off some dinner in about an hour. You don’t need to worry about that either,” Jessie said.

“Thank you. All of you,” I said.

Luckily, they got the hint and left.

“This was really sweet of them,” Tricia said.

I shrugged. “It’s just the kind of people we are around here. No big deal.”

I tried not to let myself think too much of it because for me it was actually a very big deal no matter how much I played it down.

“No one back home would do something like this for me. No one.”

“Not even your Alpha?”

She scoffed. “He’s become kind of worthless. Bad influences have corrupted him or at least he turns a blind eye to it all.”

“Is that why you left New York?”

All I had were pieces of the puzzle of her life. I needed answers.

“Not exactly.”

“Can we talk about it?”

She looked around the room uncomfortably and I realized it was probably because there was only one bed.

“We can go back out to the living room and sit,” I added.

“Can we just lay in here?” she surprised me by asking.

“Uh, sure.”

I wasn’t sure a bed was the best place for us to have this conversation. It was too important for the possible distractions. But if that’s what she wanted, I’d do my best to behave.

I waited for her to lay down first and then I joined her as she bounced a bit from my weight on the mattress.

“I guess an air mattress is better than nothing.”

“It’s perfect.”

Once upon a time I would have agreed with her.

Having grown up with only the one twin mattress for the four of us, Oliver and I had always slept on the floor.

When we’d moved into Peyton’s at first, I thought an air mattress was the greatest thing in the world.

But then she had bought me my first bed.

Hell, she’d bought us all a bed of our very own.

To this day, I still cherish that bed. It means the world to me.

I laid on the far side, not daring myself to reach out and touch her, not even to comfort her. We still needed to talk.

“Talk,” I whispered to myself. “Just talk.”

“This isn’t easy for me to talk about,” she confessed.

That certainly put a damper on any inappropriate thoughts that might have been stirring.

“Take your time. It’s your story.”

“I wish it weren’t. I guess I should start at the beginning. Hi, I’m Tricia and I’m a witch.”

“Hi, Tricia, I’m Brady and apparently I’m very attracted to a certain witch.” I winked at her and she lightly smacked me.

“I’m not going to get through this if you’re just going to flirt with me the whole time.”

“I’ll try to behave,” I told her. “But no promises.”

My teasing flirtations were relaxing her. I no longer felt like she was about to bolt.

“Have you heard of the Raglan?” she asked, sobering me quickly.

“Yeah. They kidnapped Lily from what I’ve heard.”

“What? Lily’s an experiment?”

“I don’t think they actually did anything to her.

Thomas found her quickly with the help of her brother.

He had eyes and ears on the inside that helped them retrieve her before anything bad could happen.

Or at least that’s what I’ve been told. I wasn’t part of Collier Pack back then.

Though if I’m remembering right, I think they were still mating when that happened.

Poor guy. I definitely have a newfound perspective for that story now. ”

“That’s so scary that she was with them.

Around the city they were snatching up shifters all the time.

People would disappear for a few weeks, sometimes months even and then just show back up.

I remember this one group of girls that had only been gone for a like two or three weeks and they all returned pregnant and about to pop. It was crazy and terrified everyone.”

I didn’t understand why she was telling me all of this until it hit me—Tricia had been a victim of the Raglan, an experiment.

She must have seen the look on my face because she gasped. “No. No, no, no. I wasn’t an experiment. I never spent any time with the Raglan. I’m just an average witch.’

“There’s nothing average about you,” I argued.

She took some time to explain her powers to me.

“So you see, I did sort of screw you over and all that nonsense. I just didn’t mean to do it. How was I supposed to know she’d find you?”

I sighed. “I know you’re right. But dammit, a little warning next time, please. One mate is more than enough for me. Besides, next time I could very well run off into the sunset with a skunk or something.”

She burst out laughing and I knew we were going to be okay.

“So none of that explains why you left New York with so little and why you’re so scared now, because I can feel it, Tricia. Maybe I shouldn’t be yet, but I can.”

“I asked if you knew about the Raglan. Our kind in New York are terrified of their experiments. They’ve been hunting and killing them, Brady.

And then a few months ago, rumors started up about witches, too.

It didn’t take long before witches started going missing.

My friend thought I was being overly paranoid, and then she wound up dead in a dumpster.

The day I left the city, trackers were chasing me.

I didn’t realize it right away, but I’d called on the tunnel rats to help me in the subway.

The same thing that happened with you and Clementine.

My scent was on the rats and distracted the trackers who went after them instead of me.

This allowed me time to get away. But, Brady, once a tracker gets your scent, they struggle to let it go.

They could still be tracking me even all the way out here. ”