The Unlikely Mate

Chapter 15

The text messages from William were exactly what Jennifer had hoped they wouldn't be. There were three. The first had come when she was at the restaurant, right after she had laid eyes on her human mate. When she read it, she felt the same sinking feeling she had felt then, and thought she might throw up again, even though she hadn't had anything to eat all day.

Hey beautiful! Thanks for a great night, can't wait to take you out again soon.

The next message was from when she had decided to throw her phone across the room a few hours after that.

I can't stop thinking about you.

And the last message had come sometime after that, while she had been asleep.

I hope everything's ok? Haven't heard from you, I know you had to work today and you're probably just busy. I miss you.

Jennifer felt sick and had no idea what to do. She knew she wanted to find her mate. Her wolf had been urging her to go find him ever since she had woken up. But she also felt she couldn't face him until she had dealt with William, who seemed to be even more interested in her than he was before. She knew she needed to break things off with him, so she could go find her mate. But she had no idea how to go about it.

Jennifer decided to go for a run. She wanted to flex her wolf and let her out, and knew she would feel better after shifting for a while. She left her apartment, walked to the edge of the forest and found a place she could leave her clothes and she quickly shifted and ran into the woods.

Jennifer had been running for about 40 minutes when she recognized the scent of wolf, but knew it wasn't anyone she had met before. She slowed her pace and began to stealthily creep through the woods, her soft padded paws not making a sound. She quietly came to the edge of a clearing where she could see several people talking. They were in human form, but she could tell that they were werewolves, and she leaned her ears toward them to hear what they were saying.

"Why can't we just kill him?" she heard the shorter of the men say.

"Don't be stupid, we can't go around killing humans, even if they are hunting us" a female snapped back. "Especially not in our own town."

"Ellen is right" the tallest of the men said, and he spoke with authority. "We can't kill him here, but if we're able to lure him off somewhere else, a few towns over maybe, we could make it work. We can make it look like an animal attack. But if we're not careful, we're going to have a ton of forest rangers and thrill-seekers out here trying to connect the dots. There's already been too much attention."

"Well you better come up with a plan, because I'm not going to let him get away with killing Gary" the shorter man protested.

"You'll do as you're told" the tall man said, and Jennifer felt the Alpha tone he used toward the other man.

"Yes, Sir" the little one responded grudgingly.

"We'll keep up patrols and continue watching him" the Alpha continued, back in a normal tone of voice. "It doesn't seem like anyone will miss him once he's gone, which is good. He doesn't appear to have many connections here in town. But we have to be careful. He does have other Hunter connections, and once we kill him, if we don't do it right, they'll be after us."

At that, Jennifer had decided she'd heard enough and begin to quickly retreat. She definitely didn't want them to find her listening to them, and it wouldn't be long before they caught her scent if she stayed. She had heard of hunters before, but they had always seemed like such a far and distant concern, she had never really given them much thought. But now she was realizing that there were hunters out there that killed her kind, and that there were apparently plenty of her kind out there that were willing to kill the hunters as well. For the first time since she had left her pack and began this adventure, Jennifer was doubting herself and every one of her choices. She wondered if she had made a mistake in leaving, and part of her wanted nothing more than to return home and pretend like the last few months had never happened.

As she headed back to her side of the woods, she thought through how much more complicated things had just become. Why did she have to listen to those wolves? Now she felt like she needed to inform William about them, because she knew that wolves killing humans wasn't a good idea, even if it was a hunter they were going after. But the last thing she wanted was a reason to maintain contact with William, now that she wanted to cut ties with him and go after her mate.

It was almost daylight by the time she got back to her clothes and Jennifer quickly dressed and began quickly walking back to her apartment. She was almost home when the scent hit her. Her mate wasn't too far away. She hastily stepped into a shadow and looked around, quickly catching sight of him. He was coming out of a convenience store on the corner. She told herself she shouldn't, but no amount of internal arguing could stop her from following him. As he proceeded down the street, and around a few corners, finally came to a stop in front of an office of some sort, pulled out his keys and went inside. Above the door there was a sign that read Carver Investigations. It appeared to be the office of a private investigator.

Jennifer quietly walked up to the building and went around the back, to see if she could see anything inside. She knew she had to be careful, because the sun had fully risen by this time, and she was creeping around in broad daylight. She tried to act casual, but had anyone been watching, they would have immediately been suspicious of her behavior as she tried to peer through the back windows of the office building.

The window blinds were all closed, and there really wasn't any way she could see inside, but there was a back door that had a window. She couldn't be certain that it led into the office she had just seen her mate enter from the front, but she thought it was pretty likely. As she crept up closely, she could hear voices inside, so she leaned up against the door to try to hear what was being said, all the while scolding herself for becoming so nosy and eavesdropping on everyone lately, and also for following her mate even though she still needed to deal with ending whatever she had going on with William while also letting him know about the potential werewolf attack on some human.

She pressed her ear up against the door straining to hear, but then without warning the door suddenly opened, and she fell to the floor, half inside the office building, staring up directly into the eyes of her mate staring back at her.