Josephine's Secret

19. Jane

19. Jane: Archer's Pov

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"No." I shake my head, seeing my mate curled up against Derrick in the backseat of the car. I open the door with a little more force than needed and slam it behind me as I sit down on the other side of my mate. "Mine." I growl at Derrick, pulling my mate towards me.

"You act like she's a piece of meat or something." Derrick rolls his eyes, leaning back in his seat when he sees me glaring at him. "She's not, by the way."

"You don't think I fucking know that?" I snap. Josephine being the amazing person she is, helped ease my stress with the massage she gave me last night. What I found funny when I woke up after the massage she was trying to pull me to where the pillows were before giving up and curling up by side. We ended up sleeping horizontally on the bed.

Although I didn't plan on leaving until noon, we ended up having to leave around 4am. I got everything ready so that Josephine could get a little more sleep, but I know that the lack of rest is taking a toll on her. She managed to pack her bag in record time, probably having done so many times before, and hopped into the car with Derrick. "Mm.." she mumbles, starting to wake up as the car starts moving. "Are we... are we there yet?"

"We're just leaving. Go back to sleep, darling." I tell her, watching as she sleepily nods and cuddles up against my side again.

I sigh as I look at the dark circles under her eyes, the marks reminding of before she moved in with me. I'm angry at myself for not being able to sense that my mate was right here in my pack this entire time. We live in the same city and still, I wasn't able to detect her. I know that if I met her sooner, then maybe she would've have had to endure the struggles that she had to face. Maybe she would've have gotten targeted by Keaton.

The thought of him makes me pull my mate a little closer to me in the car. I've been spending a lot of my time updating security because of him. Ever since the window incident I've been sending out new border patrol routes weekly so no one can try to pick up on a pattern. The wolves who decided to betray the pack and become rogues were all killed. A lot of Josephine and I's private time now is spent discussing the Keaton problem.

Our plan right now is to ambush his bases once we get back from the meeting. According to Josephine, the more locations we sweep out in a short amount of time, the faster we'll get to Keaton. She hasn't been going out into the woods since the last time we went out together and encountered the newly turned rogues. They're no longer a threat to us since I had my patrol wolves take care of them, but Josephine hasn't made any moves to go into the forest again. I offer to go on a run with her whenever I catch her staring out the window and at the woods, but she always shakes her head and tells me that she doesn't want to go out there.

"You know that you and Sophie are going to be the talk of the meeting, right?" Derrick asks, keeping his voice a little lowered as to not wake Josephine.

"I'm aware." I stiffly nod, not liking that people at the meeting are going to be interested in Josephine and I. There a couple Alphas that I'm close with, but a majority of the other Alphas aren't big fans of me. Showing up with Josephine by my side makes me worry about her. My wolf and I already agreed that if someone even looks at her the wrong way, we're going to take matters into our own hands. "I want you to keep anyone who isn't in our circle away from her." I say, referring to the few people I trust going to the meeting. "Roland's going to be by her side for most of the trip too."