Page 7 of Hunted Mate (Stalked Mates #1)

C alista

Days pass, and my research only starts to yield even better results.

The cursed-children-of-the-wild angle is bearing fruit.

It’s not a term I’d heard before. I’m always surprised as to how there’s always something new to learn even after years of looking.

This is how people devote their lifetimes to things.

This is how doctorates and then… there should probably be something called a super doctorate.

Is there? I don’t know. If there was, I would have a super doctorate in werewolves.

Except for the fact I really don’t think I know much about them at all.

I have everything pinned up on the boards in my office. I’ve even drawn a little logo type thing to signify cursed children of the wild. If my stalker wants to come back and fuck me again, he’s welcome to.

Developing a taste for rough sex is far from the worst thing that could happen to me.

It’s actually to my advantage, and in my interests.

I’ve discovered that getting laid means I have a lot more mental energy for focus.

I used to have this perpetual tension that would keep sidetracking me.

I never knew why it was there, but it’s gone now.

I actually enjoy working on my materials even more.

It feels like I’m defying a true force of nature now, a man who dares think that exploiting my sexuality and punishing me is going to stop me.

He’s going to learn different. He can watch me uncover all the secrets of the wolves, and then he can watch me show the world that it is far more magic and far darker than any of us like to imagine.

I leave the office at three in the morning, when I’m too tired to stay a moment longer, and I go home to sleep.

I’ve thought a lot about sleeping in the basement with my work, but I know people would find that odd.

I’ve been sensitized to worry about people thinking I’m odd.

Events as a teenager taught me that you can do almost anything when you have enough money, except get too weird.

People tolerate murder, lying, trafficking, whatever you care to name—but they don’t tolerate strange.

So I go home to the house I’m supposed to have and I sleep in the bed I’m supposed to sleep in.

In the morning, I have cereal. I don’t like cereal, but I know that if I ever get asked what I had for breakfast, which happens more often than it should, I can say cereal.

And then people will think I’m down to earth and stable.

Anyway. I have the cereal and I go to the building that has my name on it.

It’s on fire.

I can’t see smoke, but I know it is on fire because there are firemen everywhere. Hoses are snaking into the building. There’s water splashed around from hydrants, and from the truck.

Everyone is assembled outside, milling around. Some are vaping. Some people have sandwiches. How can they have sandwiches at a time like this? I feel in my gut that this is bad, for me, specifically.

“What happened?” I ask Roger, the office manager. He’s tall and balding and he looks bored and faintly annoyed. I think Roger would be bored and faintly annoyed no matter what.

“There was a fire in the basement,” he says.

My blood goes cold. No. Not the basement. Some part of me already knew it. Some part of me always knows when something bad is happening. But I didn’t want to hear it.

I run inside, dodging hoses through the lobby. I get to the basement door, where a firefighter catches me before I throw myself down the stairs, stopping me from breaking my neck, because the stairs are gone.

“All my research was down there,” I say, trying not to cry, and not knowing if I am succeeding or not.

“There was a lot of paper down there. It went up like, well, paper,” he says, clearly not given to metaphor. “Rest of the building was protected because the base is concrete and the fire door did its job, but everything down here was destroyed. I’m sorry.”

He’s an older man, squarely in silver fox territory. He has a thick salt and pepper mustache, more salt than pepper, and a kind face lined from a youth spent in the sun not giving a damn that the sun would make him wrinkled in his older age. He’s a real man, a nice man. I can tell immediately.

I swallow my fury and my rage and I thank him for his work.

“I’m sorry you had to deal with this,” I say.

“Dealing with fires is what we do, ma’am,” he says, seeming faintly amused by my politeness.

“Still. I’m sure you had better things to do.”

“No. If it wasn’t this fire, it would be another one. We sit around waiting for something to catch on fire.”

“Oh. In that case, I’m glad someone set my life’s work on fire.

Sorry. That sounds bitter. I just think everyone should get to do what they want to do.

You know? I think people who want to fight fires should be able to fight fires, and I think people who want to research were…

various phenomena should be able to do that too. ”

The fireman puts his hand on my shoulder. “There’s a real loss after a fire. You know there’s counseling available at various agencies…”

“Thank you,” I say, not adding the fact that I would rather set fire to my own research all over again than risk talking to some kind of mental health professional about the fact that I am sure wolves who are also people exist. I discovered for myself a long time ago that it’s best to keep my inner thoughts on the inside.

I smile tightly and I leave the building. There’s nothing for me there anymore. He’s seen to that.

I know who did this. The man in the mask. The man I have let fuck me twice for god knows what fucking reason. I must be insane. That’s the problem. I didn’t even call the police when he came the first time. Or the second. I let him do this.

I won’t let him do anything else ever again.

My fury is so complete it feels as though it animates every cell in my body.

How dare he do this? How dare he destroy something so precious to me?

Something I worked so hard on? Something that has become the core of my sanity for the past few years?

Tears are blurring my eyes, but I sniff them away, and then wipe them.

This is not fair. This is not okay. I feel betrayed, but I can’t really say why because there’s no sense to it. He didn’t owe me anything, but it feels like he did. Fuck. I am so mad at myself—but I am even madder at him.

As my brain starts to work following the tidal wave of emotion, I formulate a plan.

He’s not the only person given to creepy surveillance. Anybody walking around with a fucking mask and exposed tattoos is going to be remembered by people. It is especially going to be remembered by the security cameras networked around the city.

I have contacts. I don’t often reach out to them, but that does not mean they are not willing to help me.

“Commissioner Brown, how are you?”

“Calista! I have not heard from you in years, how are you?”

“I’m afraid someone committed arson in the old newspaper archive,” I say, getting to the point immediately.

“I was wondering if I might be permitted to review some of the nearby footage to attempt to get some leads. I know it’s usually something the police would get a warrant for, but they’re so busy. ”

“Of course, Calista,” he says. “Just let me know the time and the area, and I’ll have the footage sent to you this afternoon.”

It’s really that easy when you’re well connected. I do favors all the time. Well, my estate does.

I go back home, set up my laptop, and wait. I sit in my armchair and I just look at my email, tapping refresh every now and then while thinking about all I have lost.

The footage comes in an hour or so later.

There are three cameras facing the office.

Every single entrance and exit is covered by our own security, which seems to have stopped working at the time the arsonist entered.

That tells me he has someone on the inside.

But I am more in the social interior than he will ever be, which means I have traffic, bank, store cameras.

If I really wanted to, I could access cellphone footage.

That would be a bigger ask, but I would ask for the moon if I thought it would bring him to justice.

He took it upon himself to stop me, to interfere in my research and my life as if he had the right to either.

I am furious in a way I have not been in a very long time.

This work is not some little dalliance to entertain myself, the way the people at the paper think it is.

I am not some eccentric heiress who needs to busy herself with senseless engagements.

This mattered to me.

I scan the faces of everybody who filters in and out of the building. It’s not going to be as easy as I thought. For starters, some people are wearing baseball caps, or other headwear that protects them from the gaze of cameras.

I order Chinese food, and I keep scanning. I know he’s right in front of me in some of this footage.

I email back and request a little more footage, from further down the street.

Having identified a few possible subjects, I keep requesting, keep following until one of the men makes a mistake.

He takes off his jacket and removes his hat.

His hat doesn’t reveal anything, because I don’t know the face of the man who accosted me in the basement.

But when he takes off his jacket, he’s in his shirt sleeves—and I know that tattoo.

That tattoo was in front of my eyes as I was pinned down on the desk. Fangs. Fur. Geometric savagery.

“Got you,” I say, tapping in closer, enhancing. I go back. I see the frame where his face is revealed.

He’s chiseled. Hard jaw. Long nose. Wide eyes. Thick brow. Very, very heavy brow. There’s animal in that face. And those eyes, blue eyes and black hair. He’s magnetic.

And I know him.

“ No. Fucking. Way .” I breathe the words in a long, slow exhale.

“You’re fucked,” I tell him. “I’m going to fucking ruin you.”