The Hunter's Alpha

11 Frustration

I took her back to the house and she hid in her room. I didn't regret her—How could I?—but it would have been so much easier with a female who had been expecting to find me, a female who had not been pressed into hiding herself by her circumstances.

Since I was sixteen, I had looked for my mate in every pack we had contact with over the years, to no avail. If only I had known where she was, I would have saved her sooner. The image of rescuing her from her circumstances—even if I had too been a kid—when she had been abandoned ran through my mind. If only I could have known who she was then.

But the past was beyond my control. She was jumpy, and she was fighting what pulled between us, if she even felt it at all. Maybe she had wanted me to kiss her, but she was more certain she wanted to leave, and I didn't know how to convince her otherwise. Every time I tried to get closer, she shied away, leaving me with a wolf constantly pushing for control in my head. The one time I'd let him slip he'd terrified her, and I didn't want a repeat of that.

Still, she had seemed relaxed enough as I showed her around my territory. It was only once we were alone that she had become resistant again. My frustration ate at me. Nothing I did seemed to be right.

I would just have to keep her around other people until she let down her guard with them and hope that the mate bond would drag her towards me despite the contrary ideas in her mind. Anything other outcome was intolerable.

Since I needed something to do, I headed to my office where I found Oliver under the piles of paperwork that I had dumped on him. He had lost his goofy grin, and I smiled to annoy him as I entered. No matter that he was my beta, once in a while it was just satisfying to mess with my irritating younger brother.

"Have a good time?" he asked.

"Yes," I said shortly.

He switched to the mind link seamlessly as he did whenever he did not want to be overheard. "Did you get anywhere with her?"

"None of your business. Why are you so invested in my mate?"

"She's our future luna."

"That's my problem."

"That's all of our problem. What if she does still decide to leave? You'll—"

"I'll be fine. I've ruled for years without her and I'll manage fine after she's gone if it comes to that."

He frowned at me with concern. "You know it's not the same."

I really did not need to be reminded that everything I wanted could slip through my fingers. I already regretted the first hours after I found her and I feared that she would never be able to trust me, or anyone. Her life had been difficult and I had made it no easier. I blocked out the mind link so my brother would be forced to stop hounding me.

"So what's left to do?"

"Just this pile," he said. "And your advisors want a meeting tomorrow."

I could have groaned at the thought of dealing with their nonsense, but we needed to make a new plan to try to get Silvia and Arthur back, if the hunters hadn't already relocated them after the disaster of the last mission.

Still, I did not regret finding Amber. If I hadn't been there, that piece of shit would have killed her or done who knows what else to her. The thought brought a hot wave of renewed fury rushing through me and I calmed it with the memory of his blood staining the ground.

"I'll finish this up. You go on," I said. Maybe I could focus if I was alone, but then she wandered through my mind again. I was lost.

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