Brooklyn looked up from her phone and snorted when she saw me standing there, my eyes locked on Alarick. He’d watched me approach, but I couldn’t read his expression. Which frustrated the hell out of me after he’d softened toward me the year before. I wasn’t going to think about how much it hurt, too.
“About what?” Alarick asked.
“I thought you were with them now,” Adolf said, cutting his eyes at the vampires but only lowering his voice a bit. We weren’t supposed to talk about supernatural things around humans, but no human sat at their table today, not even one of Adolf’s fangirls.
“She doesn’t smell like one of them,” Donovan said, studying me in that intense, disarming way of his.
“She doesn’t smell like us, either,” Vance said, crossing his arms over his massive chest.
“She still smells human,” Jose mused. “Interesting.”
“I’m right here,” I said, glaring at them.
“The question is, why?” Brooklyn asked. “You dumped our boy. He’s got nothing to say to you.”
“I didn’t—” I broke off and shook my head, refusing to get into an argument with the hostile female in their pack.
“I think we said all we needed to say,” Alarick said. “You made your choice pretty clear.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I chose you, Alarick. Remember? But you didn’t want me in your special wolves club.”
“Because you’re one of them,” he growled, sounding frustrated.
“I’m also one of you,” I shot back.
“Could have fooled me,” Brooklyn said.
“Do you drink blood?” Adolf asked, a challenge in his voice.
I gritted my teeth. As my irritation grew, so did the urge to bite them. Any strong emotion seemed to bring them out. I needed to get them the information and go get a drink before my teeth showed themselves.
“It’s about… Your mate.” I swallowed hard, a knot forming in my stomach as I said the words to my ex, the wolf who’d been my companion in my dreams since I was a kid. What if Lindy was his mate, the wolf he’d been looking for? I’d known all along that he was just biding his time with me, but knowing that and seeing him madly in love with a mate that fate had chosen for him? I didn’t know how well I’d handle that.
Still, I had to try. I had to help them. They might not want to admit it, but I was still a wolf. I wouldn’t let their species disappear from the world just because I didn’t want to see Alarick with another girl.
“What about our mate?” Vance asked, leaning forward, suddenly all ears now that I could do something for them.
“I think… I think I found her,” I admitted, swallowing past the trembling fear in my heart that she was Alarick’s mate. I already knew Mr. Wolf wanted them to share any mate who could reproduce with them to create genetic diversity, but there was a difference between being able to reproduce and being someone’s true mate. What I didn’t know was which one Lindy was. I only knew that she could give them pups.
“How?” Jose asked, his eyes narrowing.
“In a dream,” I said, feeling suddenly stupid.
Brooklyn reinforced the feeling by snorting and rolling her eyes. Vance slumped back in his chair, shaking his head and picking up his phone again.
Alarick and Donovan kept watching me, though. Waiting for me to go on.
“How do you know she’s our mate?” Alarick asked.
“I just do,” I said, realizing as I spoke that I was sounding more and more unbelievable. I suddenly had a flashback to middle school, trying to convince my friends that I wasn’t crazy. “She went to my old school. Her name is Lindy. I saw her in a dream, and she was pregnant, and I know it was… One of yours. Mr. Ravenwood was taking her away, probably because he didn’t want you to make more wolves.”
They were all staring at me now. Even Vance had looked up from his phone. But they didn’t look awed or excited the way I’d pictured it during the past week. They were looking at me like I’d lost my mind. I realized that the wolves had no idea that I was more than a wolf and a vampire. Mr. Ravenwood had told me I was some kind of seer, but they didn’t know that. Alarick had told me my dreams might mean something, but he didn’t know that I’d confirmed that, or that Delilah was alive.
“Okay,” Alarick said when I shut my mouth at last.
“Okay?” I repeated. “Is that all you have to say?”
“Thank you?” he said, the words sounding more like a question than a true sentiment. Like he was just trying to appease me, to say what I wanted so I’d go away and he could start spreading rumors about how the new vampire was a total whack-job.
Well, fine by me. I’d done my part. I’d told them I knew where their mate was, and they hadn’t believed me. That was on them.
If they wanted to tell everyone I was a nutcase and laugh at me…
Go for it, I thought as I walked away. When I saw the flawless vampires at their tables, waving me over and smiling, my knees nearly buckled with relief and gratitude. This time, I had friends to return to, friends who believed me. This time, my friends weren’t turning on me. My enemies could try to discredit me and bring me down, but my friends would never believe them. I was stronger now. No matter what they did, I wouldn’t let anyone destroy me.
*
The next weeks passed quickly as I settled into my classes and adjusted to having a roommate. I barely saw the Wolf boys, and I stayed out of their way at school, just as they wanted from the beginning. I
