Page 8 of Hunted Mate (Stalked Mates #1)

G ray

I smirk at my screen.

I thought this would be a more satisfying moment in person, but this is good too. She’ll be coming for me through legal channels, and she’ll realize that there’s really nobody to come for.

Of course, this is never really supposed to happen. She’s not supposed to be able to find me. She’s not supposed to see my true face, or know my real name. It is Gray, but that’s all the truth she’ll be able to drill down into.

I’ve been watching her intensely from the moment she discovered the fire, hoping she would give the matter up immediately.

Everything has been taken from her. She did not digitize and back up her documents.

She was too paranoid about security for that.

There are a few bits and pieces on her laptop, but the vast majority of her research is gone.

I thought her reaction would be to melt down completely at discovering that her hyper-fixation had been so thoroughly thwarted.

I thought she might be inconsolable, tearful, perhaps even fall into a depression of sorts.

I did not take any pleasure in setting that fire.

I knew it would hurt her, and I am doing everything in my power not to have to hurt her, but sometimes, a ‘no’ has to be enforced, cruelly, if necessary.

Her actual response was far more entertaining than I could ever have imagined. She immediately began her search for me in earnest. She did not spend even a few hours in misery. She did not allow emotion to get in the way. She was calculated and she was careful in her actions.

And now she’s found me.

I like her little threats too, quite adorable.

She will look for me. She won’t find me, though. She’ll find the information I intend anybody looking for me to find. She’ll find a man who never existed, and cannot be found. She will be confronted with another mystery, a ghost she thought she knew.

I almost feel sorry for her, but I know I’ve done what is right. She’s safe from the potential consequences of her actions. She won’t face what happens to people who find out about our kind. We shifters protect ourselves with lethal force. The penalty for knowing about our curse is death.

The man she thinks she knows has an address in an apartment on the west side. He has an office in her family’s building. He has a job with her company. A social security number. None of those things are truly real.

Calista

I knock on Gray’s door. I got his file from HR, and I am at his place.

It’s a neat little two-bed midway up a semi-nice building.

Not really the sort of place I would have thought an editor would live in, but maybe we don’t pay our editors all that well.

Wouldn’t surprise me. Nobody really earns enough anymore.

I tap on his door, fingers curled, breath coming short.

I am flanked by two burly police officers, one of whom already has a pair of plastic handcuffs out.

Gray is going to be arrested when he opens this door.

He is going to be taken to a cell and he is going to be charged to the fullest extent of the law, maybe more.

Maybe I’ll petition for him to be sent to one of the least comfortable prisons, the places they put people who really piss them off.

Burning my research was more than a prank. It was the cruelest thing anybody has done to me, as far as I can recall. Completely unconscionable. And the fact that he has been playing dress-up and taking advantage of me physically as well? I’ll take even more pleasure in knowing he’s behind bars.

There’s no answer.

“He’s not home, maybe,” I say. “Should we lie in wait for him?”

The cops don’t have much interest in lying in wait. I guess there’s not the funding for stakeouts. I know I could make them if I really wanted to. I could demand more resources. I could ensure every stone in this city was turned over, and I will if I have to.

The police step forward and rap on the door.

“Open up, police!”

There’s no answer.

“ Police .”

I’m not sure that getting louder will help the situation, but I also don’t know that it won’t, so I step back and let them do what they want. After a few more seconds, one puts his shoulder to the door and pops it open like it was only a formality.

“Empty,” he says.

“You mean nobody’s home?”

“I mean the whole place is empty, Miss Hart,” he says, standing aside. He’s right. The whole place is devoid of furniture. A light coating of dust over all the surfaces suggests it hasn’t had any in it for a long time.

Gray has a fake address, a place he clearly rented, but never moved into. The hair on the back of my neck is standing erect. He’s not who I thought he was. He’s not some mild-mannered but attractive editor. He’s a stalker, and he has an elaborate plan centered around me.

“Sorry, Miss Hart,” the officer says. “We’ll keep following up on leads and let you know when he is apprehended.”

They have a lot of pressure being put on them by the commissioner. I’ve seen to that.

But I do not intend to leave this all to them.

I try not to cry from frustration. I’ve been set up by this man. I’ve been stalked by someone I employed, someone who smiled in my face then snuck down to the basement and fucked me over my desk. I don’t know how the fuck he did that. Fire escape, maybe, window exit.

I’m going to find him, I tell myself. I don’t have to freak out and cry because he is going to be found. Giving into emotion now will be a waste of time. I have to get a grip.

I have people looking. I have information coming, but not everything is immediate, and I am in a state of… well, a state.

So I go to a bar near the old office and have a drink.

Then another one. At some point, some people from the paper come and give me their commiserations.

They don’t really care. How could they. They don’t understand what I have lost. They’re glad that the building wasn’t more greatly affected, and that they’re not going to be laid off.

At the end of the day, all anybody really cares about is themselves.

I have a few more drinks. I buy a few rounds of drinks for them. They get happy about that, and I smile because why not make them happy when it’s that easy to do it. It’s almost like I’m celebrating my losses at this point.

This is why I don’t have any real friends. I’m too rich to not be used by practically everyone I meet. People don’t see me as a person. They see me as a vending machine.

I stumble out of the bar at closing, choosing not to take a cab or rideshare home. I’m going to walk. Or, I would, if it wasn’t for the fact that the ground keeps lurching around in a very uncooperative manner.

The side of a building catches me, which is nice, but a little rough.

“I like it rough, but I don’t like it so abrasive it takes my skin off,” I say, patting the wall.

I’m not entirely sure where I am. I’ve gotten turned around somehow.

Doesn’t matter. I probably own this building.

Whatever it is. Or maybe have a share in it.

Or maybe one of my associates does. Regardless, the city is my home.

All of it. If I fall asleep on the street, that’s basically the same as being asleep on the rug in front of the fire.

I keep walking. The world keeps turning. A little faster than it usually does, and I don’t like how the sky is on the side now?

Oh, wait, I’m lying down. How did that happen? Why is the concrete soft? Oh. It’s not soft. It’s rotting. Oh. It’s… never mind. I push against gravity, because that is reliable. Can’t trust the sky to stay where it is, but gravity always pushes down.

“Hey, lady,” someone says.

There’s a man nearby. I can smell him.

“Go away,” I say.

He must not have understood me, because he grabs me, which is the exact opposite of what I told him to do.

“Get off me!”

The road gets narrower. It’s more of an alley now. The man pulls me into the darkness and starts grabbing at me, trying to get my clothes off me. He’s clumsy and rough and stupid. How dare he? How absolutely fucking… doesn’t he know who I am?

I shove my elbow up into his jaw. He stumbles backward, and the warm spatter on my cheek tells me I got blood out of him. Maybe knocked a tooth or two loose.

He calls me a very rude name and tries to hit me.

He succeeds.

I collapse to the ground from the blow, which lands on the back of my neck.

He reaches for me, but he doesn’t grab me. I don’t know why. Maybe the sky and the ground betrayed him too. I feel a hot spray of something across my cheek, something that tastes like copper when I lick my lips.

I hear the sound of flesh tearing. I wish I didn’t know that sound, but I do. All too intimately. Someone is being ripped apart nearby. They’re screaming and complaining about it, and I’m not being attacked anymore, so I’m hoping it’s the same person I hit, and who hit me.

Then there’s quiet. It doesn’t take long for someone to stop screaming. Killing happens faster than anybody realizes. Life feels like it’s going to go on forever, and then it just sort of stops and that’s it, and the sky is on the side.

A bigger, but softer hand reaches for me, tries to guide me up from the ground.

“Come here, Callie.”

I recognize the voice.

“Gray!”

Something is tickling in my head. I wanted to talk to Gray about something, but I cannot for the fucking life of me remember what, or why. Was it something about work? Maybe. Would have to be.

“I’m taking you home,” he says.

“There was a man,” I say.

“Don’t worry. There’s not one anymore.”

I find that satisfying.

My mind is so hazy. Ridiculously so. Gray works for my company. But he’s also a bad person, I think? No. Yes? Wait. No. Yes? And also the cops are looking for him. But also he just saved me from someone who was trying to do terrible things to me.

Being drunk makes thinking difficult, so I stop bothering.

“I hate you,” I say. “But I think you saved my life, so I guess…”

“Come on,” he says. “I’m taking you home.”