CHAPTER 5: A SUITABLE MATE

Logan’s POV

I found my father in his study, going over the patrol reports like he did every morning.

He looked up when I walked in, and something flickered across his face. Surprise, maybe. It had been a long time since I came to talk to him about anything that wasn’t pack business.

“Well.” He set the papers down. “You came to me yourself. Something must really be wrong.”

I didn’t sit. “What’s your plan for keeping Aurora safe?”

His eyes narrowed slowly.

“I didn’t realize you cared so much about your sister.”

“She’s not my sister.” It came out sharper than I meant it to. I made myself breathe.

“And that’s not the point. Having a Silver Wolf in our territory is asking for war. An unmated Silver Wolf. And you’re letting her walk into a school full of strangers like it’s nothing. Is that wise?”

My father leaned back in his chair and studied me.

“What would you have me do, Logan? Lock her up like an animal? Hide her in the east wing and pretend she doesn’t exist?”

I didn’t answer.

I looked at the wall, at the window, anywhere but at him, because I didn’t have an answer that wouldn’t give me away.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

“Having her here is good for this pack,” he said. “You know that as well as I do. A Silver Wolf strengthens any bloodline she joins. Every Alpha within five hundred miles knows it too. That’s exactly why we can’t keep her hidden forever.”

“Father…”

He raised a hand, and I stopped.

“We’re going to find her a mate. As soon as possible.” He said it plainly, like he was discussing a trade agreement.

“A mate will protect her. It settles the question before anyone can fight over it. Her mother already agrees. We’ll hold a small gathering, quietly, and choose someone suitable. She’ll be safe here, with us, and with a mate at her side.”

A mate.

The word landed somewhere in my chest and turned to fire. It was going to be over my dead rotting body before I let someone claim what was mine.

“Logan?”

“Fine,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like mine. “Whatever you think is best.”

I left before he could see my face.

I made it halfway down the hall before I had to stop and press my hand flat against the wall.

A mate. Someone chosen for her. Someone who’d stand beside her at gatherings, put a mark on her neck, take her home.

My wolf was clawing at the inside of me, snarling a single word over and over, and I hated how clearly I could hear it.

Ours.

It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. She was the disaster I’d been begging my father to send away since the day she walked through our front door dripping rain on our floor.

She was a Silver Wolf, a war waiting to happen, the worst possible thing that could have come into this house.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Ever since she’d arrived, my whole life had come apart at the seams. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t focus.

My own brother was circling her now, putting his hands all over her in the hallway like she was already his, and the thought of it made me want to put my fist through something. I felt like ripping his head out of his useless body.

It would only get worse. Soon every wolf at that school would feel the pull of her. Soon there’d be a dozen of them sniffing around, and I’d have to watch all of it.

The worst part was that she didn’t even hide.

She walked around like she wanted to be seen. Chin up, eyes flashing, daring the whole world to come at her.

It was like she was setting herself out as bait, and it made me furious, because some sick part of me understood it. Some part of me wanted everyone to look, just so I could be the one to make them stop.

I needed to see her.

I told myself it was to keep an eye on the situation. To make sure my father’s precious investment wasn’t getting herself killed.

I told myself a lot of things.

By the time I got to campus, classes had already started.

I walked the long way around, past the building where I knew her morning lecture was, telling myself I was only passing through. I’d just see her through the glass. That was all. I’d see that she was fine, and I’d leave.

I was almost in her hall when I heard two she-wolves, heads close together, whispering as they passed.

“Bianca and her girls went after the Canadian one. In the east corridor.”

I didn’t need to think before my body moved on its own.

I ran, shoving through a knot of students, following her scent down the hall, and underneath it I caught something else.

Fear. Her fear, sharp and sour, cutting straight through everything else.

I rounded the corner into the bathroom hallway and stopped.

She was backed against the lockers.

Three of them stood around her, and Bianca had something small held up between two fingers, laughing. Aurora’s hands were out, reaching for it, and her voice was cracking down the middle.

“Please,” she was saying. “Please, you don’t understand, just give it back…”

I had never heard her beg for anything.

The sight of it did something to me I didn’t have a name for. My vision went tight at the edges. My wolf surged so hard I had to lock my jaw to keep him down.

Then her eyes found me.

She went still. For half a second, across all those heads, she just looked at me, and I saw everything cross her face at once. The shame of being caught like this.

The fury that I was the one who’d caught her. And a look of pure hatred like I was the cause of everything.

Her face crumpled, and the tears fell down her beautiful face, and she shoved past Bianca and ran.