Page 16 of Found (Mate Rejected #8)

16

MACK

I didn’t intend to fall asleep.

Nevertheless, I peel my eyes open, well-rested from sleep. As the sun spills across the room, I watch my beautiful mate sleeping in my arms.

I love that I’m with her again, that she’s safe and fell asleep with a smile on her face after I helped her to the bathroom.

After she fell asleep, I wiped the blood from her face and crawled into bed beside her, meaning only to hold her for a few minutes.

But I fell asleep.

Now this day has started, so has the countdown.

I glance at the far side of the bed when a scent I’ve been trying my best to ignore creeps up on me again.

Shane’s scent.

I’m furious again.

Not at Aerin, but at Shane, who seemed content to take advantage of Aerin.

And at Franklin.

He was waiting for me when I made the drive from our rental and down a wide, open pathway, stopping in front of a farmhouse that looked brand new.

Someone had been near the trees at the front of the property, watching. And it had cemented in my mind that they knew I would come—knew we would probably try to attack—and were waiting for us.

There was going to be no other way to get Aerin back than this.

That she’s alive is the best news I could have hoped for. That the omegas are also alive and well, including Clary’s mate, Leah, is also great news.

It’s what comes next that’s going to be difficult.

It won’t have taken my pack long to realize that I wasn’t just out getting some air before bed. Clary would have noticed I didn’t go back into the house, given he’s sleeping on the couch.

I thought about it over and over. How could I save Aerin, find out how many Raleighs we’re dealing with, and discover where the omegas are without putting anyone at risk? This was the only way.

I didn’t recognize Franklin when I’d slid out of my car and he’d approached. But there had been something about him that had felt familiar. Maybe my wolf recognized him as former kin before I did. He’d smiled and asked me to hand over my cell phone.

So he doesn’t completely trust me.

That’s okay. I don’t need him to trust me. I just need him to let Aerin go and then I can work at freeing the omegas myself.

Aerin stirs in my arms, and I look down at the woman I love.

Her eyelashes are long, thick, and dark shadows on her cheeks.

She smiles. “Hey.”

I soak up that pleasure I feel at that smile, and draw her closer, kissing her softly. “Morning, love. How’d you sleep?”

“Amazing. Thumper didn’t kick me in the kidney once.”

I grin at her. “Good times.”

But her smile slowly fades and I dread her next question. “Mack, what are you doing here and what’s going to happen now?”

“We’re going to spend the day together.”

She shakes her head, leaning back when I move to kiss her. “That isn’t what I meant. You’re here and they…” She darts a rapid glance at the closed bedroom door. “They killed Shane.”

“They won’t kill me,” I tell her.

That isn’t what they want from me. Though, when I help the kidnapped omegas escape, I doubt they’ll feel as kindly toward me as they once did.

“And that man…” Her voice trails off again.

I struggle to hide my anger from her. “No one will be creeping into your room again.”

She looks poised to ask another question, but before she can, I kiss her and get to my feet. “Are you hungry? I should?—”

She grabs my hands and holds on, her nails digging into my wrists.

“You can’t go out there,” she whispers.

I give her a gentle smile. “They know I’m here, Aerin.”

Her grip tightens. “That’s all the more reason to stay in here until we find a way to escape.”

“We don’t need to escape,” I assure her.

“Why not?”

I kiss the tip of her nose and gently pull my hands free. “Because I’ve worked out everything. Wait here. I’ll grab us breakfast. And stop worrying, everything will be okay.”

I feel her gaze boring a hole into my back as I walk over to the door. After giving her one last smile, I open the door and step out, pulling the door closed behind me.

The moment it snicks shut, my smile slides off my face, because standing in the hallway, a few doors away, is Franklin. He’s leaning against the wall, both hands stuffed in his pockets and his head angled my way. As if he was waiting for me to emerge.

He opens his mouth.

I hold up my hand to silence him and walk toward him, away from Aerin, so she won’t hear our conversation, because there are things she doesn’t need to know yet.

“As you saw, she’s fine. None of us have put a hand on her,” Franklin says.

I stop in the middle of the hallway and look at him.

“Now that isn’t altogether true now, is it?” I grind out. “Someone was creeping into her room.”

“Naturally, the men are curious about her.”

It’s a near thing keeping myself from wrapping my hands around his throat. I’m not usually this violent, but ever since I stepped foot in this house, the feeling has been growing. “And if I hadn’t come when I had, then what?”

He shrugs. “I’ll speak to the men.”

This place hasn’t felt like home since before the day I walked away from here. Still, it’s difficult to shrug off all the things I knew and all the things I wish I could forget.

I remember playing with my pack in the forests, spending time in our family’s room with my mom, and of barely seeing my dad because, like Douglas Boone, he always put the pack first, second, and last.

Months ago, Aerin healed the pain I’d suffered when I lost all the family I had. Her healing didn’t wash away the memory of those painful memories. They no longer hurt, but I still remember them.

And she apologized for it.

I will never stop being amazed that she is mine.

“She had blood on her face,” I speak quietly, but my wolf is snarling in my head, wanting to punish someone for it.

Franklin shrugs again. “It wasn’t hers. Be grateful it was me that caught up with her and not the others.”

He says it like I should thank him for mentally scarring Aerin by killing her former mate right in front of her.

“ Grateful ?”

He straightens. “Look, he would have caused us problems before long. Better he was dead than alive.”

I stare at him.

Our pack wasn’t just the fiercest in the country. It was home and it was family. We cared about each other.

This talk of using and disposing people isn’t something I recognize.

Franklin shakes his head as if it no longer matters. “You wanted to see she’s okay, and she is. Do we have an agreement?”

This is what it comes down to. The reason I walked myself down to the front door.

There was only one way to get Aerin out without putting her in the firing line.

Only one.

“I want today with her. No interruption. You and everyone else stay away.”

Smiling, he holds a hand out. “Then it sounds like we have ourselves a deal.”

My wolf would rather ravage that hand than shake it. He’s responsible for Aerin being here and the reason she had blood on her face. That she is afraid.

But I know why I’m here and that reason is not to put Aerin at more risk.

I shake his hand, hoping I’m not making a mistake too big to get myself out of, but knowing I have precious few choices right now.