Matefinder

by Leia Stone

  “We didn’t lose any wolves but we had our own complications.” Kai was leaning into me. I felt safe.

  Nikhil placed a hand on Kai’s knee. “I’ve missed you, brother. The pack isn’t the same without you.”

  Kai placed his hand over his brother’s and gave a deep rumbling laugh. God I loved that laugh. “I’m sure father is glad I’m gone and you made second, so it all worked out.”

  Nikhil stared out the window. “Papa is becoming obsessed with the vampires attacking us. He doesn’t want to sit idle and wait for another attack. I feel it fair to warn you, this trip isn’t just about Diya’s wedding. He will want to talk about the next step.”

  Kai sighed. “I figured. That’s Papa. Can’t sit still for a single moment. Always moving, never sleeping, always planning. In some ways it’s good.”

  “Sounds exhausting,” I commented.

  “It is,” they said in tandem and laughed.

  We only booked a two-day trip to India, with two days eaten up for travel. That was being away from the pack and Emma for four days total. After settling into our hotel, I was quickly wrapped into a sari and taken to Diya’s henna party. It was girls only. I made small talk with some of the other girls, surprised to see a few white girls in the pack. I had assumed they would all be Indian. I was careful not to make eye contact. I felt that my dominating and foreign wolf presence made a few of the more dominant wolves edgy. I stuck to conversing with the submissives. I found Diya who had an artist working on her feet and another on her hands. An intricate elephant design was being drawn onto her palm.

  I sat down next to her holding my hand still, careful not to smudge the small design I had gotten.

  “Tomorrow we become sisters,” she told me. I smiled.

  “I always wanted a sister,” I shared with her.

  “Me too! Instead I got eleven brothers!”

  I laughed. I remembered Diya telling me over our video chat once, that she was a midwife in India. Now that Kai had told me about Max and losing his mate and child, I was interested in werewolf birthing.

  “Hey Diya, is the werewolf birthing process more dangerous than human birthing?”

  Diya’s face became serious. “Yes and No. Human births can have all sorts of defects. Heart defects, lung defects, limb abnormalities. A werewolf pup is immune to these defects. They learn to shift at about 35 weeks gestation. When they shift, they set off the uterus and most mothers go into early labor. Werewolf pups are bigger than normal babies but the mothers aren’t. If they shift during labor the chord can become compressed or the placenta can tear. There are a lot of complications.”

  “Why don’t you just do a cesarean section and cut them all out?” I didn’t know much about birth but I knew that a c-section would be better that placenta tearing or chord compression due to a lengthy labor.

  “We tried it back in the 18th century. The women kept healing too fast. The babies were stuck halfway out of their mothers’ stomach and the women’s abdomens were starting to heal closed. The babies suffocated. Also, pain medication doesn’t work on werewolves. We metabolize it too fast.”

  Jesus Christ. My head was spinning. “Emma.” I breathed.

  “Will be fine,” she told me. “I’m taking over her care when I get home with you guys. I have delivered thirty-six healthy pups and Emma’s baby will be my thirty-seventh.”

  I swallowed. I wanted to ask her how many she had lost but this was a wedding. So I smiled.

  ***

  I was trying to battle my jet lag. I lay in the hotel room bed as Kai entered the bathroom to get ready for the wedding. I heard the shower turn on and my eye lids began to droop. He poked his head out. “I feel like we should be good to the environment and shower together, ya know, to save water.”

  A genuine laugh left my lips and I was suddenly awake. I gave him a smoldering look. “Well, if it’s for the environment.” I jumped off the bed and began undressing. I loved that I felt no pressure to go all the way with him. We hadn’t talked about it but I think we had decided to wait until our mating ceremony night before we did it.

  I wore a bright teal sari and Kai stared me down in the elevator. The hotel lobby was decked out in red and white flowers. A large sign read, ‘Diya weds Trent’ in gold lettering. I whistled.

  “This is fancy,” I told Kai.

  “My father has been waiting his entire life to marry off his only daughter. There will be no expense spared tonight.”

  Wow, I knew from Indian culture that the woman’s family was expected to pay for the wedding. I couldn’t afford a fancy wedding like this.

  “What’s bothering you?” he asked me, reading my mental anxiety.

  “Our wedding won’t be this fancy. I can’t afford much,” I told him tugging at a wrinkle in the sari.

  “I wouldn’t want a wedding this big but we can afford this because my money is your money. We will have whatever wedding you want.”

  “No, I know the culture expects the woman to pay for the wedding and I can assure you from my bank account, we cannot have this fancy of a wedding. I feel bad taking your money.”

  “It’s OUR money, not mine. I will add you to all of the accounts when we get home. Don’t bother arguing this.” He gave me a kiss then and shut me up. We took our seats. How did I feel about him sharing his money with me?

  ‘Don’t analyze this money thing. Pay attention. Our wedding will be similar.’ He patted my thigh and stood. “I need to enter with my family to show support for my sister.”

  I looked up then and saw Trent in the doorway. He looked handsome. He wore a bright orange Indian top that went to his knees. Max stood next to him.

  “Hang on.” I caught Kai’s arm. “Trent has no living family? Who will walk in with him?”

  Kai shrugged. “Max.”

  I shook my head. That wouldn’t do. I walked over to two of the nicer girls from Diya’s henna party. “Hey girls, Trent doesn’t have any family to walk in with him. Would you like to join me and stand with him?”

  One of the girls, a submissive wolf, Tara was her name, had a short black bob and almond-colored eyes. A big teal jeweled bindi stuck between her eyes. Her skin was light brown and she glanced at Max who stood with Trent.

  “Sure.” She stood and followed me with one other girl.

  We approached Trent who looked nervous.

  “Hey, Aurora, I think I’m going to faint. They say the groom is supposed to come in first and with a big song and dance and lots of cheering.”

  I looked at the girls. “I think we can manage that. We’re here for you.” We moved to step behind him, near Max.

  “Thank you,” Trent whispered, as I passed. I smiled. I put my arm on Max’s shoulder to tell him how nice he cleaned up, when my other hand brushed Tara’s finger. My knees buckled and a vision took me.

  It showed Max holding a beautiful woman with long red hair. Her body was limp in his arms and he was sobbing into her chest. Blood soaked the bed sheets he held her over. Kai stood frozen in the doorway. ‘Oh God. Why am I being shown this? This was Max’s wife. Their poor baby.’

  Then the vision changed. Tara was smiling up at Max. She had a crown of flowers on her head. It was in Kai’s backyard on Mount Hood, their wedding day. Then the scene changed and Max was screaming at Tara in the lobby of the hotel we were at today. He was telling her to go! To get out of his life. Then it changed and they were kissing in a hotel room later. Then it changed again and I saw myself waking from the vision and not telling Max anything. I was so confused.

  I felt someone’s arms around me. I opened my eyes. Max held me in his arms and Kai was running across the wedding hall towards me. Oh Great. What the hell do I do?

  ‘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.

  Secret

  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.

&nb
sp; 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.