Page 1 of His Human Mate

Chapter 1

Shelby moved through the thick trees, regaining the trail she lost thirty minutes ago. The branches were broken far too high to be done by a regular animal. She knew it was done by a shifter, they were the only ones that might have reached that high in these woods. Whoever this one was certainly didn’t know how to cover their tracks. The only reason she lost the trail to begin was because they left the woods without her realizing it for at least a bit.

Not that whoever it was really mattered, nor how awful they were at getting by undetected. They weren’t who she was looking for, simply the easiest way to locate the nearest group of shifters to the last location the others recalled seeing Ashton. She’d followed Ashton and Dan’s trail for a bit thanks to the wet earth, but they were far better than whoever she was currently tracking, and she hadn’t been able to confirm if she was going in the right direction or not.

She hoped she was though, if not, no one else was likely looking for him yet. When she left, the pack’s alpha was still trying to decide what to do to locate their beta’s son. She wasn’t going to wait, let more time pass, losing any hint of his trail, and snuck out rather than continue to argue with the pack’s gamma who was certain he’d been grabbed up by enemies or rogues looking for a fight.

They’d already been arguing over what to do for a week at that point, and by then, Ashton and Dan were already missing for three days. They were wasting time and she was over it. She couldn’t sit around and do nothing any longer. She owed it to Ashton after all.

If it wasn’t for him, she didn’t know where she’d be today.

He was her best friend. Her brother, albeit not by blood.

They met in kindergarten and became fast friends. She didn’t know back then what he was. Didn’t know shifters even existed. Hadn’t until she was nine and her parents died in a car accident out near their pack’s grounds.

She had no idea that her parents left a will giving Ashton’s parents guardianship of her. At least not until they were fifteen and they needed her paperwork to get her a driving permit.

Apparently, sometime after meeting Emily and Morgan, seeing how close she and Ashton were, they’d done it. That let her go to them without any fuss from the state, and thankfully, the pack’s alpha, Jerimiah, let her stay despite her being human.

It was after going home with them that she learnt exactly what her best friend was. Why he was so good at sports, hearing her whisper, knowing when she was there.

Since then, she’d learnt more than just the normal human teachings. Being part of the beta’s family meant participating in pack meetings, trainings, delegations with other packs. No one ever said a word about her being human in front of her ‘parents’ or their alpha. The rest of the pack treated her as one of them. The only concession to her being human at all was their deference to not shifting while sparring. Thanks to them, she knew how to defend herself, how to protect herself against a rogue attack, and most importantly, how to track.

That was certainly coming handy now, letting her follow the shifters moving through the unoccupied area. She couldn’t track by a scent like the rest of her family, but she could track like a hunter, which granted she was. Of their pack, she was the best marksman, able to hit targets the others couldn’t begin to manage—and not because the targets sensed the danger emitting from their wolf counterparts. Even Jerimiah had said he’d never seen anyone with her skills. No matter if it was a bow and arrow or a gun, she always nailed the target.

Now that she’d relocated the trail, she could get back to finding Ashton, bringing him home to their parents. That was how they treated her as. A new set of parents rather than merely being her guardians. They loved her as much as they loved Ashton and that was also why she was doing this. She wouldn’t let them lose their son.

It was nearly dark when she caught up to the shifter she was trailing. Just before she moved out to confront him, a small group caught him up, dragging him through the woods. She kept following, staying back to not be seen, or caught, as the shifter was. Making sure to stay downwind from them, not about to let them catch her scent. There was no telling what shifters would do learning a human had stumbled upon them. Hell, she knew the old ways, of what shifters did to humans that learnt of their existence, especially ones that refused to become a mate. There were still some packs that followed the old laws, and she wasn’t about to risk it with a group that already was showing their deviant ways.

They moved through the woods reaching a clearing and her heart raced wildly spotting a huge cage ahead of them. She grabbed up the binoculars from her bag, her stomach twisting spying Ashton’s nearly black wolf prowling the cage’s edge. She couldn’t understand why he and the others in the cage were all in wolf form.

Shifters weren’t known for their clearest thinking in animal form. Especially not when they weren’t from the same pack which she knew these all weren’t. There were at least twelve wolves in that cage and the only ones missing from their pack was Ashton and Dan. His wolf wasn’t too far from Ashton, likely protecting him still, as was his job.

Two men drug the shifter she tracked here to the cage’s edge. One reached up, lifting a mechanism that opened the door as the other kept tight hold of the mostly dazed shifter. They pushed him inside before slamming the iron gate shut against his back. The two men moved away from the cage and the shifter stepped forward making room for him to turn around and face the gate. As he turned though, he let out a huge shout, shifting into wolf form and Shelby knew it wasn’t done by choice. A wolf shifting by choice wouldn’t scream in pain. They might shout out in anger, growl perhaps, but not in pain like that that.

No, these wolves weren’t in wolf form by choice any more than they were in that cage by choice.

She had no chance of getting Ashton out of there by herself though. Not when she’d seen at least six shifters roaming about, although she knew for certain that she was the only one that was going to be able to do it.

The only one from their pack that would be able to do it.

She was the only human in their pack after all, and now part of her understood why she was still there. Why she hadn’t left when she turned eighteen, graduated high school, as some of the other girls near her age suggested, seeing as she hadn’t been anyone’s mate. Most of them were simply jealous of her relationship with Ashton, not truly seeing theirs was only friendship. They wouldn’t dare make the suggestion in front of his parents or their alpha, but alone in the school bathroom had been a different story.

Once or twice she’d honestly debated it, knowing that even if she did leave, Emily and Morgan would always welcome her back with open arms. As would Jerimiah. But rather than leave, she’d stayed with them, getting even better at tracking and hunting, and now she finally understood why.

She was here for this.

Opening that cage required hands. Hands from the inside unless you risked being caught instantly that was. She could do it if she could just get inside.

That was the question now. How to get into that cage? She didn’t know for fact everyone inside that cage was male, but she didn’t see the weasels that dragged the shifter being that friendly with a female shifter. Hell, they likely would have taken a female shifter somewhere else for some really nefarious shit she didn’t want to think about right now.

She was far too close for comfort, especially being alone. She needed to get home and come back with reinforcements. Lots of reinforcements.

As Shelby slid almost silently back through the woods, the beginning of a plan came to mind. It was dangerous but worth it if it meant getting Aston out of there safely. She was willing to risk it, but she knew Emily was likely to argue.

It took her nearly two days to get home at top speed, only cat napping twice when she couldn’t move another step. She was half a day out when she ran into a group sent to scout the area she already had, and she made them return, needing them all to make her plan work.

“Shelby!” Emily shouted as she moved into the packhouse with the scout group. Her arms wrapped around her instantly, holding her close and she smiled, accepting the almost crushing hug.