Chapter 3
YARA
I furrowed my brows. “Sorry?” The first thing he had said to me was ‘You’re not a werewolf’ so why was he asking me what pack I was from?
“Your pack,” he repeated before tipping his head to the side. “Are you not part of one?”
“Why would I be part of a pack?” I asked and he shot me a confused look before glancing down at my arms, making me realize that he knew I was latent.
Unlike normal werewolves, I didn’t have accelerated healing. My healing process was incredibly slow – a cut could take between ten and thirty minutes to heal and bigger wounds could take hours or days.
Hendrix must have noticed the scrapes and cuts on my arms slowly healing.
“My pack was wiped out,” I said and his eyes widened slightly. I had never been part of a pack but my father’s pack had actually been wiped out when I was five so technically, I wasn’t lying.
“Oh,” he muttered, giving me an empathetic look. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. I–”
“Aiden.” The other man showed up in the hallway again. “The healer’s here.”
Healer?
“We’ll be right there.”
We? It was my turn to look confused.
“I’m going home.”
Hendrix gave me a small frown. “You’re bleeding,” he replied and I glanced down to see he was right. The bandages wrapped around my lower left leg were now stained red.
I swallowed.
“I’ve been through worse,” I muttered, looking up at him, and his frown deepened. He opened his mouth to speak but I resumed talking before he could. “I’m fine, okay. I’m just tired. I need to go home. My aunt would be worried if I don’t get home soon–” I paused as I realized that I looked quite battered.
If I went home looking like this, my aunt would be pissed pissed and she’d ramp-up monitoring me. She’d even want me to move in with her and her family and that was the last thing I wanted because I’d just bring danger to their doorstep.
If I didn’t want her to react that way, I had to go home after my injuries had been treated properly – either by medicine or magic – but I couldn’t afford to go to the hospital and I didn’t know how to heal myself with my powers.
“I can’t let you leave like this, Yara,” Hendrix stated, staring hard at me. “It’s my fault you’re in this state in the first place.”
I frowned. How was what happened his fault? Does he know the werewolf that attacked me?
“I just want you to be okay,” he added, taking my hand in his, and a shiver ran down my spine while he moved closer to me. “You can leave after seeing the healer but you have to be okay.”
How was I supposed to say no when he was staring at me like that?
“Okay… But I need to make a call first.”
AIDEN
Does she not know I’m her mate?
That was the question that had been ringing in my mind ever since Yara stepped out of the room and now, as I watched her talk to her friend on my phone, I was starting to believe that she didn’t.
Fuck. I let out a harsh breath, gritting my teeth, just as Julian sidled up to me and nudged me.
“Are you sure she’s your mate?” he asked and I glanced at him, giving him a blank look.
Julian was my beta and my best friend and he had been with me when I had traveled to different packs to search for her. I had started searching for her when I was nineteen – three years after I had lost my parents and all but one of my siblings – and when it seemed like I was never going to find her, the pack’s council had proposed that if I didn’t find her before I turned twenty-four, I’d have to marry one of the council member’s daughter, Estelle.
I didn’t want to marry Estelle but I had almost given up on finding my mate because I would be turning twenty-four next week, so imagine my surprise when I felt the mate pull after seeing her in that passageway beside my hotel. I honestly couldn’t believe it at first but after bringing her to my suite and bandaging her wounds, I became absolutely sure that she was my mate.
“It doesn’t seem like she knows she is. I mean, is it possible for latents to not feel the mate pull?” Julian added and I returned my attention to Yara just before her dark brown eyes met mine. I instantly stood straighter but she immediately looked away and my shoulders sagged.
I was incredibly glad that I had finally found her but I was also frustrated.
“I have no idea.”
Julian hmmed while I watched her fiddle with the hem of her shirt before he nudged me again. “So what are we going to do? They won’t believe you if she doesn’t know she’s your mate,” he said and I paused, knowing the they he was referring to were some of the people on the pack’s council. “And you’re turning twenty-four next week. They’ll think it’s rather convenient that you found her now.”