The Mate That Wasn't Mine novel Chapter 101

Chapter 101

MAXIM POV

Thundering back towards the train tracks, the temptation to just drag my reins to the right and power my way into Ravenbow to raise the alarm is dangerously powerful. I’m having to clench my jaw and lock out my elbows to ensure I stick to the plan.

My mind link is giving me nothing either thanks to only having Alpha Remy still.

All because I’ve gone and made a fucking promise. On my life. To a wailing prostitute and her potentially comatose keeper.

Time sneaks away from me. By the time the small town approaches, the morning is well underway. There is no time for polite chit chat about buns and pots fo jam. I simply storm into the busiest looking store.

“I need supplies and a message to Ravenbow. Urgently.”

A muscular shopkeeper with a beard down to his navel scowls. “You’ve jumped the queue.”

I pull out my bow and arrow and aim at his oversized skull. “I do not give a fuck. I report to Alpha Remy and I am telling you I need to get a message to him. Now.”

Women and children shriek but all my charitable goodwill has been spent upon the two women I’ve left behind. There is none left to dispense on the scowling beard before me.

Not to mention the person I need to get back to more than anyone. Tess. My heart. My mate. Briggs, if he has truly planned something, he will want to hurt her. I know it. Clear as day. Vengeance is a direct, accurate path of pain.

Goddamnit this old boot is just glaring at me. He has no idea how little of a fuck I would give about killing him if he delays me getting back to Tess now.

“I don’t believe you. Get out of my shop.”

“Fine!” I snap, firing the arrow past his head by millimetres. It stabs into the shelving, the shaft slapping his flabby cheek perfectly nastily.

Whilst the other customers back away, I go to the next strongest form of persuasion. Slamming down one of the bags of gold coins. “Will this do it then?”

His cold, bluish eyes light up like a damn bonfire. Flicking back and forth. Despising me but loving cold hard cash more. “What do you need?”

Now the women aren’t shrieking. Now they’re pawing at my elbow, suggesting their husband is the fastest rider, that their brother can sprint the train tracks in twenty minutes. Nonsense.

“You know what. For these coins, I want two horses, one packed up with enough food and medicine to save a damn army.”

“Yes…yes…yes we can do that. EVERYONE OUT! NOW! Nobody touch a thing!” my burly, miserable shopkeeper snaps into life, sweeping out all his customers. “WIFE! WIFE! Drink, Sir?”

“No.” I growl slowly back. “I leave in fifteen minutes. Every extra minute I have to wait, I take one of these,” lifting a gold coin out of its velvet bag, “back with me.”

Daff is practically dancing for joy when she hears me approaching. It doesn’t hide her sunken collarbone or tired, pasty skin. My poor, exhausted chestnut steed has been left with a family, along with some more coins.

Now I have two gray steeds. Magnificent beasts. One loaded with two bulky wicker baskets, one each side. The other, I rode.

“She’s conscious! She started blinking!”

I dismount and start hauling the baskets into the ramshackle home. More time has been wasted but after this, I can shift and sprint my fucking lungs out to get back to Ravenbow. Deliver the message in person.

Chapter 101

“I’ve got to go.”

Daff nods frantically. “Can you help me get her comfortable first?”

I grit my teeth and choke out a terse, “Quickly then.”

So whilst lifting a woman weighing the same as a ready for market sow, I probe for more information. “So scarred forehead and a limp, dark hair?

“Yes.”

“Hates me?”

“Oh Goddess yes!” she exhales, struggling to keep Mrs Braithes chunky legs aloft. I can’t have her fainting too, so I’m forced to take on the majority of the dragging.

It’s a good job she’s barely conscious there isn’t a lot of dignity involved in lumping her into her armchair. Rushing, I haul in the medical basket rext, whilst Daff sets to cleaning and bandaging Mrs Braithes bloodied face, completely ignoring her own ruby–stained forehead.

“What did he mean by fuck up Ravenbow? He must have said something else?”

Her pale green eyes glance up to me, before returning to her nursing. “I tried to think whilst you were gone. I was so worried he would hit us again, or leave us to starve to death. He just talked and talked. Endlessly. He mentioned a whores bitemark a few times. He asked what I thought of them. If I had one. Then he…he tried to check.” her voice fading away.

I grit my teeth, dropping the giant wicker basket of food supplies onto the ground a little too roughly.

“But when he saw I was an exile too, he asked about rebels and how to get in touch with them. I told him I didn’t know any. So he said he would have to do it alone. Said he was sick of being second best. That the only man who ever saw any value in him had been murdered.”

Oh fuck. Donlon. It’s scary how I could have believed something similar once upon a time.

“But the plan, the way he intended to get his revenge?”

“Just that this party, this event today is the way he’s going to do it.”

“What weapons does he have?”

“He’s just got one. This long, hooked silver thing. The one the exilers use, you know when they scrape down the spines.”

I’m sure I’ll recognise it.

“Promise me you will get cleaned up and rested too, not run yourself into the ground for her?”

“Don’t say it like that,” Daff snaps, surprising me with the force of her words. Knelt down, her pale green eyes have hardened with a steel flintiness. “Her. You don’t know how we make this work, the choices we make.”

“Then take this. Do what you please with it.”

Daff says nothing, just silently takes the velvet bag of gold coins. It’s enough to not consider putting herself in danger for years, slid immediately into the pocket of her worn, filthy dress. “Thank you.”

“I’m going to shift, can you maybe keep my stuff to one side. I need the leather jacket back, you see?” I don’t mention the rest of the gold.

If she steals everything, then more fool me. But my priority isn’t returning to Ravenbow with eash to splash. It’s about getting back to Tess. Dropping to my knees and swearing an oath to never risk her again.

I strip off in the yard, leaving my belongings in one of the emptied wicker basket. Stood naked and tall, I inhale and shift into my stiu amber and brown wolf. Together we tear through the undergrowth without hesitation.

Chapter 101

The treeline is devoured underfoot. With daylight and soft earth, I hear the bells ringing for noon and the start of the bede tournamies within the border.

REMY! REMYIZ

/Maxim! You’re back?/

Where are you?/

Returning from the Exile grounds. There was nothing. Just some old campfires, animal bones. I guess he moved on. Everything okay!!

/Remy, listen to me. It’s not safe. Who are you with?/

It’s me, about forty Beta’s and half the Wardens. Just in time for the competition I think-/ I haven’t got time for small talk.

That’s because he is here! Briggs! Now! He’s been holding two women on the border hostage for the last week, waiting for today. BRIGGS IS HERE!

Now the Alpha’s voice lands in my head with the appropriate amount of panic. /Shit. Why? What the hell does he want?/

/He hates me, hates you. He’s out for revenge. Today. Now! And where the hell is Tess!/

I’ve no idea about Tess/ and in my wolf form I let out a deep–seated growl of rage. Fine. I’ll find her. Her sweet orange scent will be mine to claim in

moments.

/Then get asking on your mind link!/

/I will-/

/NOW!/

I’ll try. Cancel the blade tournament Maxim. Announce a curfew. Wait. I think…I see something-/

The mindlink drops dead. /REMY! REMY FOR FUCKS SAKE!/

Something has broken. It’s like shouting at the horizon, weirdly empty.

Bursting through the tree line, Ravenbow is splayed before me in its stone and grassy splendour. Only for a sudden dark, deep rumble underneath my paws. Then behind the packhouse, the cylindrical hole of the Cliff erupts.

Huge plumes of brown and gray dust spurt out of the top of the mountainside, like a dry volcano.

The royal tunnels. The tunnels Remy was currently in with. With his men.

The bells have stopped chiming for noon. The world is deathly quiet. Until the first panicked shouts rise up. From here I see the bleachers empty, white and gray figures sprinting along the gravel paths towards the disaster.

I sprint, crashing into Block E, transforming back into human form halfway up the stairs, limbs flailing and trembling in agony.

Tess’s fresh orange scent hits me when I plough into our bedroom. I allow myself a solitary second before dragging on some clothes and heading straight back outside.

The blade competition abandoned, everyone is now racing towards the cliff. The line of ants in the distance looks to be attacking the boulders Remy had the Exilers stack up only a few weeks ago.