Matefinder (22 page)

                ‘I saw Max’s mate die and you
were there. Then I saw him marry Tara, the girl standing next to me. Then they
were fighting on this very night. Do I tell them?’

                Kai’s eyes opened hugely.
‘No,
that isn’t possible. We mate for life. I’ll handle it.’

                ‘Right, we mate for life and his
mate died, so that’s over. Tara isn’t dead and neither is Max.’

                ‘Drop this for now.’

                “Aurora? Are you okay?” Max
helped me straighten myself. He looked nervous. Did he sense it? That I had a
vision about him?

                “I’m okay, Max, thanks for
catching me.”

                Trent let out a long breath of air.
“Okay good, because it’s our turn.”

                The music changed just as Kai
reached me. He gave me a quick kiss and a stern look, then walked away. Max
looked at me accusingly. I looked into Max’s face now, seeing him weep over his
late wife made my throat tighten. I looked ahead.

                “What did you see?” he whispered.

                Just then we were ushered out by
the crowd. A loud upbeat Bollywood song played over the loud speaker. People
shouted and clapped as we spun and danced around Trent. I tried to smile and
follow what Tara and her friend were doing. I couldn’t stop thinking about Max.
Once we had escorted Trent to the stage where Diya was waiting, I sat down.

                The next three hours passed in a
mix of fascination of the beautiful wedding and arguing with Kai in my head. I
felt I needed to at least tell Max what I had seen and let him decide. Kai knew
Max better and said I needed to let it be. In the end, I promised not to tell
Max. For now. The most horrible part was that once dinner started, Max sat next
to Tara and they seemed to be having a nice conversation. They were smiling and
laughing and it was killing me.  The night ended well past 3am. We were beyond
exhausted. I passed out the second my head reached the pillow. My thoughts a
mix of werewolf labor, losing your mate, and what I would wear to my own
wedding.

                We woke up to the blaring of a
phone call. Why are hotel phones so loud?

                “Yes?” Kai answered. “You can
have thirty minutes, Papa.” Then he hung up.

                Why did I feel like something was
about to go down? We dressed quickly and waited for the car to pick us up. Kai’s
father stayed in a small compound in the nicer part of Delhi. We drove through
a guarded gate and into an open gravel parking. His father and mother stood
outside.

                We exited the car. I wasn’t sure
if there would be hugs or small talk. We didn’t have a chance to talk much
since we arrived because of Diya’s wedding.

                “Hello, thank you for coming. I
want you to see something. Follow me.”

                And his father turned and walked
inside. So much for small talk. Kai’s mother approached me and gave me a hug
and a smile, then walked in after us. As we followed his father, his mother
turned into a different room. She wasn’t coming? We followed a winding hallway.
I could hear muffled hissing. Oh no. This was not going to be good. We reached
a dark door. His father put his hand on the handle and turned to us.

                “It’s them or us. Choose a side.”
Then he opened it.

                What I saw stole my breath. A
sickly, skinny-looking vampire was shackled to a medical bed. Thick iron sheet
cuffs bound his legs and hands, another at his neck. His bed was tilted up so
we could look right at his face. A large rag was stuffed in his mouth. He
looked dehydrated, he was laboring for air. This was wrong. Vampires wanted our
kind dead, yes, but this was so, so wrong.

                “You’re torturing him?” I spat
out.

                Raj looked up at me. “It. I am
gaining information from
It
.”

                Kai looked only mildly
uncomfortable. “How can you make it talk?”

                Raj smiled. “One of my brightest
wolves has designed a serum. If consumed in large quantities, it acts on the
neuroreceptors. It’s somewhat of a truth serum.”

                “So you starve him and he drinks
it and gives you information?”

                His father nodded.

                “How long has he been here?” My
eyes glanced to the desk in the corner which held a silver stake.

                “Since the water incident,” his
father said proudly.

                A MONTH!

                “We’re better than this. Our
kind. We’re better.” I walked out. I couldn’t take it. For just a second I had
seen something human in the vampire’s eyes. Some emotion. I shook it off. I
felt Kai follow me out. 

                ‘This is why my father is a
council member, an Alpha of hundreds of wolves. He’s ruthless. But if there is
one thing I know about my father, it’s that he acts with honor. This vampire
must be telling him things that are important to our kind. The second it stops
talking or they don’t need it, my father will cleanly kill it.’

                ‘After a month of torturing him!’

                “Aurora, may we talk in private
for a moment?” Raj had followed us into an open drawing room.

                Kai stared his father in the
eyes. “No.”

                I sighed. “Yes. It’s fine.” I
placed a hand on Kai’s arm. The veins were popping out of his neck. Not a good
sign.

                “Your mother has made your
favorite dish. Why don’t you go meet her in the kitchen and we will be right
there.”

                Kai stared into his father’s eyes
for a good long while. “Don’t scare my mate.”

                His father stared back, not
answering. Kai walked out closing the doors behind him.

                “He is my favorite son. Always
has been. He’s a leader and a lover and a fighter. He is respectful and kind
and takes care of his pack.”

                The admission caught me off
guard. “Why don’t you tell him that?”

                “Because to tell him would make
me feel weak. I’m anything but weak, Aurora.” His face looked stern.

                “What did you want to talk to me
about?”

                His father rubbed the spot
between his thumb and pointer finger and creased his brow. Did werewolves get
headaches?

                “There is no way to put this
lightly.”

                Oh God. I backed up slowly and
found a couch that I half fell into.

                “What is it?”

                “Don’t marry my son. For the sake
of yourself, of our entire race. Don’t you dare go through with the mating
ceremony with my son.”

                My hand immediately went to the
engagement ring around my neck.

                “Why would you say something like
that to me? I thought you wanted this?”

                His father looked pained. “I did.
The council and I have been working on an intel project. We have a double agent
inside of RAIDOS. We also have been questioning the vampires, like you saw
today. All of this has led to some pretty startling intel.”

                A double agent inside RAIDOS?
They KNEW about RAIDOS. Who was it? I hadn’t smelled a werewolf when I met
them. Maybe I hadn’t met that agent yet.

                His father stood over me. “The
vampire, Layla, has not become pregnant, nor will she. As long as you stay
infertile, so does your blood. If you take the mating ceremony with my son and
Spirit blesses you with fertility, then any vampire that drinks your blood will
have the ability to become pregnant.”

                “NO! You can’t know this for
sure.”

                His hand rested on my shoulder. “I
admit it’s a theory but a strong one. The vampires have created a device. A
bloodletting device just for you. It will drain just enough blood to keep you
alive. Then the blood is bottled and SOLD to the highest female vampire bidder.
RAIDOS has the intel about your blood. They took a sample from the fight at the
water treatment plant when you were injured. They tested it and they say you’re
infertile.”

                He walked to a desk in the corner
and retrieved a paper, and handed it to me.

TOP SECRET

Aurora

Class:
Werewolf, Second in Command.

Age:
Unknown (Early twenties)

Pack:
Portland, Mount Hood, Oregon. (United
States)

Mate:
Kai, Alpha (Indian Origin). Mating
ceremony has not taken place yet.

Known Abilities:
Matefinder. Magic
user. Silver Immunity. Extremely Fast Shifter.

Blood tested:
FSH, Prolactin,
Luteinizing, Estradiol, Serum Progesterone.

Results:
Infertile.

                I set the paper down. My
hands were shaking. The only thing they didn’t know about me was my age. I
wanted to be strong. I was sitting in front of the Alpha of one of the biggest
packs in the world. A tear slid down my cheek.

                He cleared his throat
uncomfortably. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

                I nodded slowly. I couldn’t
have a mating ceremony. I couldn’t have children. Oh God. Now that I knew I
might not be able to have children, it was the only thing I wanted. A son or a
daughter, with Kai’s dark eyes and laugh, with my smile and my hands.

                “So if I marry Kai–”

                “The ceremony will activate your
fertility and your blood will change. We suspect that will then be the change
needed to give female vampires fertility.”

                “You suspect. But you don’t
know.”

                He ran his hands through his
hair. “We are ninety-nine percent certain.”

                I stood up and folded the
paper placing it inside my pocket. “I’m keeping this.” I started towards the
door.

                “So what are you going to
do?” He trailed behind me.

                “If there’s one thing I
won’t do, it’s live in fear. I’ve spent too much of my life doing that
already.”

                “Then RAIDOS will kill you.
That’s their backup plan. You get married. They kill you.”

                My hand stilled on the
doorknob. I leaned my head against the cool wood. What the hell was I supposed
to do?

                I could feel his father come
up behind me. His voice was soft, understanding. “When the rogue werewolf burst
into my house and attacked my family, I felt helpless. I watched my wife
wreathe on the floor screaming in pain. Kai fought the werewolf hard, he nearly
died of blood loss. My daughter didn’t make it. I vowed that day to never feel
helpless again. So I put myself in a place of power. I created a life for my
family to ensure we would never be hurt like that again. You are my son’s mate
whether you have a mating ceremony or not. You are my daughter-in-law.”

                I turned to face him, tears
swam in my eyes. I never had a father I respected but I respected him. He was
hard around the edges; he was stubborn and he was controlling, but he was a
good man.

                He placed both hands on my
shoulders. “As a council member I am telling you not to marry my son. You will
bring danger to yourself, your pack, and our kind. As your father-in-law, I
want you and my son to be happy. I want you to have children and experience
every beautiful thing that life has to offer. Whatever you chose, you will have
my blessing.” The kiss he placed on my forehead was so quick I couldn’t be sure
it happened. The door opened behind me and Raj ushered me out.

                I decided to hold off on
telling Kai what happened until we got home. I needed to think. He wasn’t
exactly easy to persuade. Asking for time to think before telling him something
bought me about five minutes before he pestered me again. I finally had to snap
at him.

                “It’s bad, okay! It’s so
goddamn bad I can’t bear to tell you! Just give me time to figure it out. I
will tell you when we get home,” I screamed at him in the hotel while we packed
our things.

                He looked at me with an
unreadable expression. “Are you in immediate danger?”

                I lowered my head. “No.”

                “All right.”

                I zipped my bag up.

                “I’m going to wait in the
lobby for you.” I rolled my bag down the hall and was smashing buttons on the
elevator when Tara spoke behind me.

                “Hey, Aurora?” The elevator
opened. She followed me in with a duffle bag over one shoulder.

                Of all the people to see. “Hey.”
I forced a smile.

                “I wanted to ask you about
your pack mate, Max. He’s cute. What’s his story?” She smiled shyly. I promised
Kai I wouldn’t tell Max I had found his mate. I said nothing about not telling Tara.
I might regret this later.

                I pulled the stop button on
the elevator.

                “I’m going to tell you
something and you cannot act on it. You cannot repeat it. Do you understand
me?”

                She swallowed and backed up
a little.

                “Do you know what my gift
is? That I find mates?”

                She nodded.

                “Max was mated to a woman
who died during childbirth about twenty years ago. They lost the baby, too.”

                Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I mean, I thought he was nice and we had
this intense connection, but I won’t pursue him now, don’t worry.”

                I placed a hand on hers.
“Max is your mate, Tara.” I stared into her eyes.

                I could hear her heart pick
up in speed. “What? You just said he lost his mate.”

                “He did. Werewolves mate for
life, I know. But I’m telling you, I have visions of people’s mates and you are
Max’s mate now.”

                Then I released the stop
button and the elevator dropped one floor and dinged open.

                “I’m sorry,” I told her and
walked to the lobby.

***

                The plane flight home was
long and I was stuck in my thoughts. Trent had stayed behind to help Diya say
goodbye and to tour more of India. They would be flying home in a week. I was
excited and nervous to see Emma. I wasn’t sure I could look at her the same now
that I knew werewolf pregnancy was so dangerous.

                The second the plane landed
on the tarmac in Portland, I powered up my phone. It beeped with a bunch of
missed calls and texts. I scrolled through. Lexi, my mom, Dr. Tavern. I looked
closer. I didn’t even have Dr. Tavern’s number in this phone. This was my
personal phone. She must have plugged it in when I wasn’t looking. I opened the
text.