Did she know him?
Jax stepped forward, all business. “He’s her mate. Did he open a tab?”
‘Don’t go public with that mate shit, Jax. Jesus.’
The other wolves were already staring, now they whispered to each other.
Ben, who was sweeping, now stopped what he was doing and looked pissed. He was my first kiss but not my mate. That was kind of the cool part of being a werewolf. You knew when you met your mate; they had completely opposite markings and you both sort of vision-flashed each other’s past when you first shifted together, so anything else was just a fleeting passion. Sorry, Ben. He was a good kisser though.
“Whoa, your mate? Okay, let me check behind the bar. A bunch of people ran off yesterday and left credit cards. I was going to start calling today,” Mandy informed us.
My heartbeat picked up embarrassingly fast and I knew everyone else could hear it. She hopped over the bar, giving me a peek of a butterfly tramp stamp tattoo on her lower back. The nineties was an interesting time to be a teenager. Mandy pulled out a stack of cards and started flipping through. My leg was bopping up and down when Jax put a firm hand out to stop it.
‘Chill, we’ll find him,’Jax told me.
Mandy froze on a blue credit card. “Gavin Hillsdale?”
Gavin Hillsdale. I had a name. “That has to be him. Thanks, Mandy!” I took off out of the bar, Jax at my back.
“Whoa there, sis.” Jax grabbed my arm and I spun to face him. He recoiled and I knew it was because my eyes were yellow.
“He needs help,” I growled. My wolf was flashing snippets of my dream, of Gavin, trying to remind me of the urgency.
Jax looked hurt. “I know that. I’m on your side, so quit running off.”
I sighed, pushing my wolf down. “I’m sorry. It’s weird. You will understand when you meet your mate. I’m fighting my wolf, Jax. Fighting her.” My wolf and I had always been one. When we smelled someone we didn’t like, she would growl and I agreed. But this … this was like she was splitting from me to go after this guy and my human self was pumping the brakes. I was twenty years old, way too young to be mated forever. Right?
Jax put an arm around me and we walked slowly to our car. “It will be okay.”
Once we got in the car, Jax started tapping away on his phone and after a few minutes he looked at me. “On a scale of one to stalker, how badly do you want to see this guy today?” My brother’s blue eyes bore into me and I was grateful for his humor. My wolf was shaking my skin like a cage, wanting to take over and break free.Mate. Mate. Mate,she chanted. I had always envisioned meeting my mate and taking it slow but as my skin began to heat up, I knew something was wrong with Gavin. This guy was in trouble and I needed to help him.
“Full on stalker mode, bro,” I told him as the fever hit me again and sweat broke out on my upper lip. What the hell? I felt menopausal.
Jax nodded and threw the car in reverse, peeling out.
After a short ten minute drive, Jax pulled up to a small blue craftsman-style house in northeast Portland.
“His grandparents live here. He stays here on school breaks and does his laundry here every weekend.”
“Jesus, Jax!” My brother had gotten in trouble over a dozen times for hacking; he was a computer science genius. Could do coding in his sleep. The FBI even paid us a visit when Jax was twelve. He was a total tech guy and I had no doubt that in the five minutes spent on his phone, he had Gavin’s social security number, favorite foods, and God knows what else.
My hand rested on the car door handle. “This is crazy, right? I’m going crazy?” I turned to look at my twin.
Jax’s blue eyes twinkled. “We need to find out why you keep heating up and sweating like a pig, sis. It’s getting gross.”
I chuckled. “You’re such a jackass.”
Jax winked and opened his door, but I put out a hand to stop him.
“What are we going to say?” I pictured a sweet old couple answering the door and me fumbling to explain what exactly? That I was a werewolf and their human grandson might be my mate and might be in trouble? Geez, when I thought about it like that, it made me want to go home.
Jax looked beyond me into the garden. “You might not have to say much to convince them.”
Following his gaze, I saw an elderly gentlemen half dragging Gavin out the front door. Gavin was flushed and dripping sweat. He had one arm around his grandfather and his head was drooping.
My wolf rose up inside of me as I opened the door and bolted across the lawn toward them. Just as I reached Gavin, a nice older woman came out of the front door, her purse clutched in her hands.
Frowning, the grandfather met my eyes and then glanced at the tattoo on my neck. He didn’t look afraid like most of the old timers and I took that as a good sign. People his age had lived through the great vampire war and remembered that we were once a fighting people, but hopefully he remembered that we fought on their side. Even though peace now reigned between all the species, the younger generation seemed to either be fascinated with my kind or disgusted.
