The Mate That Wasn't Mine novel Chapter 11

Chapter 11

MAXIM POV

This lie is hanging by a knife–edge.

+20

“Excuse me please,” I muttered to Hazel, immediately removing her hand from my temple. For a second I worried my fake–mate might rise up, furiously call me out in front of everyone. Slap me perhaps? Rip open my shirt and point to our beloved Princess exactly who I belong to.

But no. Tessa doesn’t have a bow and arrow in her hands so instead she simply melted away. Vanished into the shadows. Her brown eyes fixed on me until the last second, ensuring every single stabbing inch of guilt worked its way into my ribs.

The fact she took the old dry, scraps of chicken with her only made me more curious. Surely she got something decent to eat? She isn’t that shy? Resorting to stealing scraps of food like some vagabond?

That idea left my conscience even more wounded. My wolf was practically foaming with rage. We should have shown her the dining hall. We should have found her sooner.

“Maxim?”

“Sorry, I really must go,” I quickly snap, no longer looking Hazel’s way.

“Why? What’s going on?” Hazel asked, preventing my leaving with her own quick, little side–step just as I moved. “Because of the girl with the chicken?”

She didn’t say it cruelly, her blue eyes wide with simple curiosity, but I know my eyes flashed with my wolf’s frustration at such a description. I might have known Tessa less than a day but I know she’s more than that.

“Yes. I need to find her.”

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“Who is she? I don’t recognise any of the first–years yet. Did she do something?”

20

What the fuck is with all these questions! Royal protocol applies, questions must not be ignored, even when you’ve bent them over a balcony and made them forget their own name the previous semester.

“Actually her name is Tessa Darnell. She’s my mate. Princess Hazel I really do need to leave-”

“You? With a mate! No! With her?” before she chuckled. “Heavens, what has the poor girl done in her life to be bound to a rogue like you?” her lips thinning into a smile, probably casting herself back in time to a period where she once whimpered with need, declaring she’d do anything for

1. me.

She might mean it kindly but the Princess is just flinging verbal daggers tonight and killing me with accuracy. I’m fully aware of my reputation. It’s

deserved.

Even now, I’m lying to a senior pack member’s face, but for a moment, I forget we are even a lie.

So I must find Tessa.

“Princess, I wish I could answer you properly, but for now you must allow me to leave.”

Finally Hazel gets the picture. Her cheeky sidestep turns into a little jump backwards, her hand now pressed to the chest of her white gown instead of my face. “Oh! Of course! Yes, you must go tend to your mate-”

I bolted through the door, far too late to catch her. Bolted is an exaggeration too, seeing as I’d had my ass kicked by Isaac just a few hours earlier. My ribs remain broken, tendons definitely ripped around my hip. But I moved her way.

There was a hint of her orange scent left. Not caring who saw, I hobbled

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down the corridor at my new top–speed and along the gravel–strewn path towards Block A. Giddy first–years were coming and going. Noise and giddy excitement ricocheted from every wall leaving my wolf haywire.

Tessa’s orange scent had mingled annoyingly with some other flowery affront to my nose. The same rosy whiff every woman here has. Checking the listings I went to Tessa’s assigned room only to find nobody there.

Like a lovestruck sap I rapped at the door in futile hope. “Tessa?”

Empty. Unclaimed by its occupant. Fuck.

20

I give the corridors another pace up and down but the dozens of rooms and hustling students mean by the time I finally track down where Tessa is staying it’s late. The lights are off. I rest my head against the door.

At least I cannot hear any crying.

I forced myself to inhale. Calming down my wolf, I took in the facts. A process I rarely complete.

Tessa is with someone else tonight. Which is shit considering we should be in the fucking honeymoon phase and all over each other.

The flowery perfume suggested a woman. So she’s made a friend. She’s safe. Those are good points.

Continuing to limp, I headed back to our room in Block E. The king size bed was divine but it didn’t mean I slept well. Only to wake up with a scrappy paper notice under my door. The Hide is today.

Fucking hell.

I take the message, scrunch it up and flop back onto the bed. If I find Tessa beforehand I’ll be in a world of trouble. My wolf winces to think about how she’ll be going through her first archery drills too.

I think I threw up the first time I did a morning’s sprinting torture.

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She’s got that to endure, only to shift and start raking for miles through the undergrowth looking for egotistical pricks who will do anything to hide their tracks.

20

Rubbing my beard, still yawning, I dress, minus a lonely black leather jacket. In my standard, dark navy blue Beta button–down shirt, I find Kai and Silas loitering outside. They’re grinning away. Why shouldn’t they? It’s a chance to hang out for us veterans, practically a day off.

“Did you find her in the end?” Silas asked quietly as we all began walking away from the packhouse.

“Don’t worry about me and Tessa,” I grin, hopefully giving the impression of a man who has a clue what’s going on. “I had a feeling the Hide was coming so I made sure she stayed with a friend. No accusations of cheating for her this time.”

“That’s…nice of you,” Kai replies, throwing me a sandwich and a bottle of water. Of course he’s prepared. He also sounds annoyingly doubtful.

“Very,” Silas adds quietly. “So…you’re good? Both of you?”

“Couldn’t be better. Mated and tamed as they say.”

Kai raised a dark eyebrow in distrust. “Pffft, it’s been like two days, I doubt your whole personality has shifted.”

“No, I’m practically a saint now. Ready to ditch these dark blue shirts for the black one.”

I want that assassin role. For three years I’ve been put through my paces in Archery, scent tracing, blade work, cherry–picked out of the regular Infantry. I want to grab Warden Marshall by his wide, white lapels and tell him to stop being a fucking tease, I’m ready.

There is no more training to give me. Just make me a fucking official assassin of Alpha Hale. Grant me the fucking mindlink. Instead I’m going to be hiding out in the bushes, playing games like a child.

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“So what is that at your waist,” Silas grins, nodding downwards.

I raise my hip flask, filled with beautifully potent ginger vodka and grin. “Supplies!” twisting to show two further flasks fastened to my belt for my friends.

+20)

There had to be some perks to being dumped in the industrial sector for a few weeks. I went shopping and found a new favourite drink. There was an actual task to complete. We each had a person of interest to investigate as part of the assassin schedule. Kai and Silas just went home to their families, all assassin candidates were given additional notes.

Working our way through the dingy taverns, working mens hostels and brothels we tracked and traced. Asking the right kind of questions but not too many of them. Workers recognised outsiders with ease, especially people like me who have managed to finally scrap the oil and grime from

their skin.

Annoyingly my target had already been murdered for gambling debts, case closed. Casket closed technically. I followed it up, found the murderers, low–rent rebel wannabes. Rumblings of previously exiled villains snaking their way back into society under Alpha Hale’s nose.

Without instruction from above, there was nothing else I could do but write a nice report. Shit, I should probably hand that in.

The whole experience gave me a solitary few weeks before the train home. Making an effort to avoid places from the past.

As much as it was a lie to Tessa, the idea of heading over towards the gentler, greener fields of the farming areas had certainly crossed my mind more than once. Anything to get away from the noise and filth of the huge, choking, coal–fired mills that keep the pack churning.

“Come on let’s get up there,” Silas points. Beyond the woods and acres of open grassland that surround the packhouse in deep, lush rolling valleys you eventually hit the mountainside and various tunnels and caves.

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