CHAPTER1
Chael
“I need you to watch over Reese for me,” I told my cousin, Micah Townsend, as I sat across from him in his private investigation office.
Micah lifted an eyebrow and looked at me sideways. “Ace told me what happened at the hospital.” Micah was a distant relative that lived in Central Texas. Hours from where most of my pack dwelled, in the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Neither Micah nor the rest of his family were shifters like I was or the rest of my pack. Micah’s mother’s great-grandmother had been an Apache and part shifter. Her grandmother raised her among our pack during her formative years. As a result, Micah and his brothers knew our secret. I trusted them even though they were full-blooded humans.
I nodded at Micah’s comment. Ace was Micah’s younger brother, and six weeks earlier, I visited Ace and his wife, Savannah, in the hospital after she’d given birth to their daughter. That was the day I finally scented my mate. The memory of that day washed over me.
Six weeks earlier…
Some instinct I hadn’t quite identified pushed me to visit my cousin Ace and his wife Savannah on that day. I received a text message from Micah, telling me that Savannah went into labor the night before. The original plan was to see the couple a few weeks after their new baby was born with the gifts a few of my packmates made for them.
However, my gut instinct pushed me to make the drive early that morning from New Mexico to Central Texas. I’d texted my younger brother Chance a few hours into the drive to let him know I was on my way to Texas. He was already in the state, handling some pack business. He planned to meet me at the hospital soon.
As I strolled down the hospital’s corridor toward Ace and Savannah’s room, a tingling started at the base of my spine. A whiff of something caught my nose, making my wolf stand up. I stopped a few feet from hospital room 302, where my cousin, his wife, and new baby girl were.
I sniffed at the air, not believing what my mind and heart told me. With a vigorous rub of my face, I knocked on the opened door. Savannah spotted me first, and her smile broadened. I hadn’t seen Savannah in years, but she looked the same. There was an evident glow of love that shined in her brown eyes.
“Chael,” Ace said as he rose from Savannah’s bedside, greeting me. He widened his arms, hugging me as I entered the room.
“Congratulations,” I told them both, looking over at the bundle in Savannah’s arms.
Savannah held on to her baby girl, Parker, like the precious gift she was. I stared down at the tiny infant whose eyes were closed and nodded.
I patted Ace on the back and leaned down to tell him, “I knew you would end up here, cousin.”
“You were right,” Ace replied.
I held up the gift box full of fresh pack-grown coffee beans, homemade lotions, and soaps made especially for infants. The closer I moved to the bouquet of sunflowers on the windowsill, the more intense that tingling in my spine became. I paused by the flowers and leaned in, inhaling deeply. The feeling shot up my spine, overtaking my entire body.
Not only did my wolf stand up, but he howled inside of my head.
“Mate!”
My mind went blank as what felt like a rush of water passed over me, catching my breath. “Mate!” my wolf screamed again.
After ninety years of waiting, fifty years after becoming alpha of my pack, and more than seventy years after most shifters found their mate, I finally found her. I glanced at the card stuck in the flower arrangement and saw the name of who they were from.
Reese.
I sniffed again and knew I had to go.
Without a second thought, I turned to my cousins. “I must go. You both have done well.”
I shot out of the room, not bothering to ask them any more information about the woman who’d brought them the flowers. I would let my nose lead me to her. She was still close. I could feel it. Instead of waiting for the elevator, I took the stairs, two at a time, down to the hospital’s ground level. When I burst through the door, I ran out to the parking lot, scenting the air. Her smell was weaker out there, but I could catch it.
‘Beep!’ A car honked at me as I stepped right into its direct path in the middle of the parking lot.
The driver’s eyes widened in fear when I glared at him and bared my sharpened incisors. My wolf was on edge, anxious to lay eyes on our mate. Anything standing between me and her, was in danger of losing their life. Slowly, I moved forward, searching left and right for
her.
When I spotted her, I knew right away, even though her back was to me. As if an invisible string was pulling me in her direction, I followed. She wore a pair of salmon scrubs, stood about five feet six inches, and though the clothing she wore was slightly baggy, it showed off the ample curves of her thighs and backside. I caught a glimpse of her face when she stopped to look in one direction for oncoming traffic.
I watched as something caught her attention and she waved. An elderly woman in a wheelchair being rolled by a younger woman in scrubs, approached her. Reese turned, taking the older woman’s hand. She smiled and that was the moment my heart leaped into my throat.
