Page 5 of Found (Mate Rejected #8)

5

AERIN

A man with short black hair and steel-gray eyes opens my car door with a smile.

He’s handsome, and would be more so without the fine network of scars crisscrossing his face. It’s rare for a shifter to be as scarred as this man is. Whatever injury he sustained must have nearly killed him. “Aerin? A pleasure.”

It isn’t in my nature to run, but there’s a coldness in his gaze that makes me want to.

I don’t return his smile. “Why did you kidnap me?”

Because Shane can’t have been working alone. Things were happening in Winter Lake even before Shane turned up. It was no coincidence that someone lured Mack, Bennett, and the others to the Winter Lake Hotel and Shane was there to grab me.

They are in this together.

He grasps my arm and helps me out of the car, slamming my door shut. I have a feeling if I told him I wanted to stay right where I am, he wouldn’t care.

Keeping a tight grip on my arm, he walks me toward the farmhouse with a covered front porch that he emerged from moments before. “My name is Franklin Raleigh.”

The impact of that name is like lightning piercing me from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, freezing me in place. “ Raleigh ?”

Franklin continues to propel me along with a manacle like grip.

His smile widens as he flicks a rapid glance at Shane. “I see he left a few things a surprise.”

“The Raleighs are dead,” I tell him.

The house we step into is new. It doesn’t have a new smell to it, but the wood shines, and the fact other similar, but smaller buildings just like this farmhouse are going up, makes me think this building was also built within the last few months.

Whoever these people are have chosen to rebuild where the Raleighs once called home. And this man says he is a Raleigh?

I want to discount it as lies, but Mack survived, so did his dad, and so did Colton. If they lived, then what’s to say they weren’t more Raleighs around than any of us ever realized?

He lifts his arms to encompass the entryway. “And you can see we are here, and you are standing in the Raleigh home.”

I glance over at the men outside.

They’ve stopped their work to look at me. Their stares aren’t the least bit threatening, but they’re not the least bit friendly either.

I refocus on Franklin. “So you’re a Raleigh and you offered something to Shane for him to have joined your cause, whatever that is.”

He nods, smiling faintly down at me. “Smart. I should have known the daughter of Douglas Boone wouldn’t be a fool. And the answer is yes. We did offer him something in return for his help on a couple of matters.”

He looks at me and I don’t know why I even bothered to ask what that something was.

From the longing stares that Shane has been aiming my way since I woke to him kissing me in the cabin, it’s clear what thing he wants out of this partnership.

“Me.”

Omegas were being hunted. Ivy and Connall confirmed it. So did Clary, the shifter from New Mexico, looking for his missing mate. But we never knew why or who would do it.

Now I’m face to face with a man who says he is a Raleigh, and if I can believe him, which, I think I do, it must mean the Raleighs are back with a new home they rebuilt on the ruins of the old.

The old Raleighs didn’t seem to want much. They were feared and they were respected. They had nothing to prove.

But this new Raleigh Pack. What do they want?

“You’ve been kidnapping omegas,” I say, watching his expression closely as he leads the way down the empty hallway. “Why?”

“They are helping us with something,” he says.

“Which is?”

“Making our presence—and our strength—known,” Franklin says. “We’ll return them once they’ve served their purpose.”

I don’t believe him for a second. Why go to all the trouble of kidnapping so many omegas just to let them all go again?

I look at Shane, wanting to gauge his response to Franklin’s words, but he’s a silent presence on my right. He either knew all this before or he doesn’t care.

We pass more closed doors than empty, and occasionally, I hear voices from inside. Most are male, and a couple are female.

Somewhere in this house are the missing omegas. Or, they are in another building, maybe one they’re in the middle of constructing.

“And my purpose?” I ask.

Franklin beams at me. “Has been fulfilled. You and Shane can have a home here if you wish it.”

“And if I don’t wish it?”

He continues down the hallway, stopping at a closed door about halfway down. He throws it open and indicates I should enter.

Inside is a bed, a heavy-looking dark brown dresser, a crib for a baby, and a balcony that leads out to the backyard. Through the window, building work continues.

Three more buildings are going up. Too big to be a cabin, but not the two-story farmhouse that this one is.

Just how many people are living here that they need so many buildings?

“Then you and Shane can make a home for yourself elsewhere,” Franklin says.

I pull my arm from him.

He releases me without hesitation, and I wander over to the balcony.

There’s just enough space to take one step outside, but that’s it. There’s no room for anything else. It’s more of a large window than a balcony with a wooden railing that reaches my belly. But I guess you wouldn’t need a balcony on the ground floor with the large expanse of grass on the other side of the railing.

Looking up, the rooms on the second floor have actual balconies that you could maybe fit a small chair onto. It’s a nice home. Definitely not something that has been thrown up in a hurry, so the Raleighs have been back for a while, maybe upwards of a year, to have built this home.

Which means they have had time to plan whatever it is they have set in motion. Maybe it’s just snatching omegas. Maybe it’s something more.

“And if I don’t want to make a home with Shane?” I turn to face Franklin, who is standing in front of the open door with his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets.

Shane is watching me, his eyes so watchful that when I run, it has to be when he’s not around. Franklin might not care, but Shane will definitely try to stop me.

“I’m sure you can work things out with Shane.” Franklin turns to leave.

“Mack is my mate,” I call after him. “Why would you bring me here if you intend to let me go away with Shane? Why not keep me with the other omegas?”

Franklin twists back to face me. “Mack is the true next Raleigh Alpha. We were never stronger than when a Raleigh led us, and we will be again. We’re merely getting things ready for him.”

I frown. “But I don’t understand. Why bring me?”

“Because he will come after you . And when he does, he will stay.”

“He has a pack already. He won’t want to lead you.”

Franklin steps outside and grips the door handle, preparing to close it. “He will when he sees everything we could be. The Raleighs are back, Aerin. He will join us.”

Franklin closes the door, leaving me alone with Shane.

I feel him watching me.

I spin around so I don’t have to look at him or the only bed in the room. The thought of having to share a bed with him is making me feel sick.

“We can be happy, Aerin.”

“No, we won’t. What happened to Bree?”

When he doesn’t respond, I look at him.

He crosses over to the crib, and I retreat when it puts him closer to me than I’m comfortable with. Especially after that kiss, and especially in a room clearly meant for a mated couple. There is only one king size bed in here, and I have no intention of sharing a bed with my former mate in this lifetime or the next.

“She died,” he says, looking at the crib as he rocks it.

The last time I saw them, Bree was shoving me off a cliff near Mack’s home, wanting me dead because Shane’s wolf still viewed me as his mate and had tried to attack Bree. She worried that Shane would eventually change his mind about wanting her and he would come back to me instead.

With Shane’s sudden determination to play happy families, it looks like Bree might have been right. He wants me now. Not Bree.

“Your wolf killed her?” Bree killed Shane’s dad, Iain, after Iain stopped Shane’s wolf from attacking Bree. With Iain dead, maybe there wasn’t anyone around to stop Shane from killing Bree.

Shane rocks the crib again.

It looks expensive, but it’s nothing compared to the crib Mack built for our baby. We did it together. I sat next to him, reading the instructions and handing him things as he did the bulk of the building.

And we laughed so much as we puzzled out the instructions. It’s a memory I will hold in my heart forever and I can’t wait to tell my child about it when they’re old enough to understand.

“Not me,” he says.

I wish I didn’t care about his answers. I wish I didn’t have a reason to talk to him at all, but I can’t help but be curious. What happened to the Dacre Pack? And what happened to Bree?

Shane loved his pack. I didn’t know him too much because he kept so much of his thoughts and feelings from me, preferring to open up to Bree. I couldn’t help but see how much he loved his pack, his father, and how much they loved him.

So why is Shane no longer Alpha and who killed Bree if he says it wasn’t him?

He smiles at me then. “Rest. I’ll get us some food and come right back.”

As he walks over to the door, I try not to look at the balcony and my potential escape route.

But Shane must have eyes on the back of his head or be a mind reader to stop. He twists to face me at the door. “I wouldn’t try to run if I were you. The only reason you’re alive is because I want you to be. Franklin views you as bait. Nothing more. If anyone else finds you wandering around out there, they will kill first and ask questions later. This is the safest place you can be.”

He walks out, closing the door after him.

I wait two minutes, then I rush over to the door, so out of breath that’s its hilarious for the few steps I took. But that’s nothing new.

Pressing my ear to the door, I listen through the wood, wanting to be sure this isn’t a trick, and he has actually left.

When I can no longer hear him, I walk over to the balcony. The door slides smoothly open under my touch, and it’s clear that whoever built this home knows what they’re doing.

But the moment I take one step out onto the balcony, I count at least four shifters’ eyes swing my way.

Even after I’ve retreated back inside and closed the door shut, I still feel their eyes on me.