Page 54 of Meeting Her Mate

“You’re adjusting okay?”

“Actually, I have one last run to make to my old place. Gotta get all my stuff back. Half of it is still there. It wouldn’t fit in my truck,” I said, averting his gaze.

“Are you feeling better after last night?” Will asked.

I hadn’t stopped thinking about the events of last night. “I feel less vulnerable. I feel as if I’ve got things in my control now. Does that make sense?”

“It does. When we take an action, we are not passive anymore. It allows us to feel in control.”

“Well, I felt in control enough to decide to come back. I just feel closer to my parents. They would have wanted me to live with the commune. In our old home,” I said.

“I’ll see you later. I’ve gotta train the troops,” Will said, ducking out.

You could cut the awkwardness in the air with a knife. When would it go back to normal between us? I couldn’t help but feel that, by kissing and having sex with each other, we had somehow turned a bitter rejection into a complicated calculus equation.

“I’m gonna go get my stuff.” What I wanted to ask him was,Hey, what does this mean for us? Are we something? What’s our dynamic?I was too afraid to ask this question and get an answer I didn’t want to hear. What if he were to tap into his rage and snap at me and repeat this cycle all over again? I couldn’t afford to get humiliated again.

***

After I’d filled my truck with the leftover stuff, including my new mattress, I decided to take a break and stop for a coffee and donuts. It was a Sunday. I had earned a fancy cappuccino and a couple of blueberry glazed donuts.

There was only one Starbucks in Fiddler’s Green. In downtown. I decided to make a detour and stop for a gluttonous breakfast.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t feel as good as I thought I would after killing the two vampires who had murdered my parents. Perhaps they had knowingly gaslit me so I wouldn’t get the satisfaction of killing them.

But if what they had said was true, whom did they mean? Maurice was barely in his twenties when my parents were killed. He could not have been plotting with the vampires. True, he became a very young alpha of the pack after my dad’s death, and soon after, he decided to run as mayor, but that would be giving him too much credit. Hadn’t the vampires said something about them being involved in Will’s kidnapping all that time ago?

It baffled me as to who it was. I’d have thought it was Fred, but Fred was practically Will’s own brother. Not to mention how glad Fred had been when Will had reappeared. After my parents’ death, Fred was one of the few people around the commune who had been kind to me. He had a fatherly way about him. It couldn’t have been anyone else from the original pack as well. My grandmother and grandfather, they’d been dead for quite some time.

On the other hand, they were meth-heads.

“My, my, you’re so deep in thought. You look like a baroque Rembrandt portrait.”

It was a voice that petrified me. A chill ran down my spine as Blair Beckett casually came and sat across from me in Starbucks, holding his coffee.

“Their pumpkin spice latte, mmm, so good,” Blair said, kissing his fingers. “Ooh, those donuts look delicious. Mind if I have one?” He took one of my donuts and put it in his mouth.

Every instinct in my body told me to run for the door and keep running until I’d reached Grimm Abode. But I stayed put. I was not going to let this man see that I was afraid.

“What are you doing here, Blair? Didn’t you catch enough of a beating last time? Want some more?” My face was stone, my voice monotonous. It was a good thing I was wearing sunglasses. I didn’t want to reveal any emotions to him whatsoever.

“Ooh, so feisty. You know, I almost regret that day. Almost. Other than the whole me kidnapping you to lure your boyfriend out thing, the interview went super well. I would have hired you were you not related to him. Hell, I’m still thinking about it. What do you say?” Blair had that disconcerting quality where he could laugh without so much as moving his lips. Back in community college, Maliha and I used to call these the yuppie laughs because all the wall-street jerks used to laugh like this.

“I should take you out back and kill you for what you did,” I said, my voice low, my tone calculated. I had to remind myself that under no circumstance was I to let him know that I’d spied on the call between him and Maurice and that I knew he was making something called the Wolf’s Bane.

“Look, I’m a businessman above everything. That thing with your boyfriend—”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“That thing with Will, it’s somewhat like a business transaction. He took away my family. I’m seeking restitution. It’s just good old-fashioned revenge. I’m sure you can understand. As far as we’re concerned, I don’t see a reason why there should be bad blood between us. Seriously, do come over sometime. For old time’s sake,” Blair said and then took my second donut from my plate. He stuffed it in his mouth, got up, and said, “All right, lovely seeing ya as always. I’ve got a ten o’clock appointment with some guys in Tokyo, and I don’t wanna miss it. Think about it.”

“I’ll get back to you. One of these days, I’m gonna get back at you,” I said.

“That’s the spirit,” Blair smirked. “While I have you, I wanted to tell you to enjoy your boyfriend-not-boyfriend while he’s still alive.”

I stood up so fast that my chair collapsed, causing everyone around me to look up and stare at me.

“I swear to God,” I began, but he held his finger to his lips, beckoning me to be quiet.