She blinked, surprise crossing her face. “That’s way too much.”
The man took the money. “It’s great. Thank you.”
My wolf wanted to bite his hand off at the wrist.
“Damien, that’s not-” Riley started, but Thessa was already tugging me toward the door, her grip insistent.
“Okay! Great meeting you! We’ll definitely come back! Bye!”
My feet dragged against the floor. Every instinct screamed at me to stay, to protect, to never let Riley out of my sight. My mate was in the same room as the man who hurt her, and I was supposed to walk away?
But Thessa was stronger than she looked, and determined. She managed to get me to the door, but right before it closed behind me, I looked back and found Riley’s eyes.
“See you soon,” I said. It came out as a promise, a vow. The most inevitable thing in the world.
The door closed, and I immediately started missing her.
I stood on the sidewalk, chest heaving, hands shaking with the effort of not going back inside.
“What the fuck,” Thessa breathed, staring at me with huge eyes. “What the fuck was that?”
“I found her.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. It was rough and wrecked. “I found my mate.”
Thessa’s mouth dropped open. For a long moment, she just stared at me, processing. Then her face transformed into the biggest, most delighted grin I’d ever seen.
“Oh my god.” She was bouncing on her feet now, practically vibrating with excitement. “Oh my god. You found your mate in a human bookstore.” She grabbed my arm, shaking it. “She writes wolf books, Ky. Your mate writes mating stories about wolves. The goddess has such a sense of humor.”
I wasn’t laughing. I was too busy staring at the bookstore door, calculating how long I had to wait before going back inside.
“That man,” I said quietly. “Damien.”
Thessa’s grin faded. “What about him?”
“He hurt her.” The words came out flat, cold. The kind of quiet that came before violence. “He’s the one who marked her face.”
Thessa went still. She’d seen me in battle, so she knew what I was capable of.
“Ky,” she said carefully. “We can’t just kill him.”
“I know.” I didn’t look away from the door. “Not yet.”
“But you’re going to...”
“I’m going to find out everything about him. Where he lives, who he knows, what he cares about.” I finally turned to look at my sister. My eyes were still amber, my wolf still too close to the surface. “And then I’m going to destroy him.”
Thessa studied me for a moment.
Then she nodded once. “Okay. I’m in.”
“You don’t have to-”
“He hurt your mate, Ky. That makes it personal.” She linked her arm through mine and started pulling me down the street. “But first, we need a plan. You can’t just lurk outside her bookstore like a creep.”
“I wasn’t going to lurk.”
“You were absolutely about to lurk. I could see the lurking forming in your brain.”
“Shut up.”
