Page 22 of Meeting Her Mate

Remorse was a strange emotion. It is birthed after you make a mistake, not before. As much as I felt justified in rejecting Alexis—as much as I tried to justify, that was—I couldn’t help but regret in my heart of hearts that I had been so absurdly angry with her. I should have been kinder. I had driven her off, and I don’t know where.

But would I be able to control my rage if she were in my presence? Would I be able to stop myself from verbally abusing her, from inflicting emotional damage on her? I had no way of knowing that.

It was too late. I had severed our bond. I had turned away fate’s gift, and now fate was taunting me, leaving me stranded in time, purposeless. What good was I as a leader to these people, these people who weren’t invested in their own prosperity? Where were my kin and kith of old, my friends from days gone by? Only Fred remained, but he mostly rested in his cottage, and most of our talks were very formal.

I had been given a second chance, and I had thwarted it before it could blossom into a real possibility.

Moreover, the consciousness that I possessed was a consciousness beyond my control. I could reason, communicate, and perform my daily tasks and duties, but whenever I thought of Ariana’s passing, of my bonding with Alexis, the knots of bitterness tugged into my chest and made me uncontrollably enraged.

The pack had been cordial enough to prepare my old home for me—the place where I used to live before I was kidnapped. Fred told me that after I had disappeared and a couple of decades had passed, the pack decided to close off the home in my memory. As much as I respected the notion, I would have much better liked it if someone in need had started living there. Adjusting to this new world has been a challenge for me. The only semblance of sanity that prevailed in my life was when I was inside my old home, where it felt like time had stopped in the 1940s and everything was just the way it should have been.

But I never got to enter my home now.

Just as soon as I had touched the doorknob to the main door, the same electricity that I had felt when I had bonded with Alexis took hold of me, jolting me where I stood, filling my body with a sense of frenzy.

What was happening? Was this the bond at work? Had I not severed it? Had I not rejected her outright? Why, then, was I feeling this magnetic force pulling me? What was it trying to say?

And in return, the answer that came wordlessly was this: Danger. Grave danger. Not for me, but for Alexis. Wherever she was, she was not safe. I could not understand how I was able to intuitively know this. All I knew was that Alexis was facing a terrible peril.

The electricity seeped into my body and paralyzed me with its strength, forcing a vision on me. My eyes closed under the strain of the force, and at once, I could see her lying on her back, her hands held over her face defensively, her nose dripping blood.

In place of wrath, I felt…protectiveness.I had to save her, regardless of how I had behaved with her in the past. She needed help.

Would I be able to save her? And if I did, would I be able to confront her regarding the way I had been with her?

There was no time to ponder the abstract answers to these pointless questions. Instead of heading into the house, I raced out of the commune, allowing that mystical electricity to guide me to where she was.

I would not be able to forgive myself if something happened to her, and I never got to make amends. It had already happened once with Ariana. I was not going to let it happen to Alexis, rejected mate or not.

Chapter 9: Alexis

Islipped out from under the bushes and fell on my back as Maurice stepped further. He was prodding into the bushes where I had been just a few seconds ago. I looked behind me and saw a slope descending into Beckett Pharma’s underground parking. Without thinking much about it, I rolled on my back and fell down the slope.

My head spun with the blunt force trauma that I received when I crashed one floor below.

“Hey!” the guard at the check-in screamed and came running to where I had fallen. This much noise would attract Maurice too. Disregarding the pain pulsing in numerous parts of my body, completely ignoring the fact that my thrift store formal dress was all muddied up, I huddled to my feet and made a run for the underground parking, hoping to lose both the guard and Maurice in there.

I did not turn around to see who was following me. With my eyes ahead, I darted through aisles of parked cars and rolled behind one of them, tucking my entire body behind a blue Tesla.

The guard was shining his flashlight between the aisles of cars, trying to figure out where I’d gone. There was no sign of Maurice, thankfully.

Before the guard could come and snoop where I was hiding, I spotted the elevators heading up the building and made a run for them.

“You come back here!” The guard yelled and ran after me.

I slammed my hand on the elevator’s call button, hoping against hope that the doors would open before the guard caught up to me. My legs felt like they were infused with molten iron. My heart beat like a jackhammer in my chest. I could not catch my breath, even as I stood motionless in front of the opening elevator doors.

I dove inside and pressed the close button just in time to prevent the guard from stopping me. The doors slammed shut before he could jam them with his hand.

“Goddammit! Not again,” he yelled from the other side.

I pressed the button for the lobby. The elevator whirred to life and began ascending upwards. I checked the elevator clock and saw that it was eleven fifty-nine. I couldn’t afford to be late for my job interview. I needed this.

I saw my reflection in the elevator’s mirror wall and began wiping dirt off my dress. I’d done an admirable job getting most of the mud off before the elevator doors opened into the busy lobby. Thankfully, the density of the crowd was thick enough to hide me from that guard. Before he could emerge from the entrance or the elevator, I dashed to the receptionist and stood against the counter, looking like I belonged.

What an absolutely close call.

“Hey, Alexis Richards here for my twelve o’clock interview,” I said to the receptionist. She looked up from her computer screen, analyzed me with her cold glare, then shook her head.