His Miracle Mate

Chapter 16

I ended up borrowing a pen from a nice girl next to me.

During the entire class, however, my mind was churning with all possible explanations of the girl's words.

"..since he can't find his mate that he'd just take a human..."

I shook my head. That was impossible. Ezra had said every werewolf had a mate, and I was his. I didn't think Ezra would lie to me, especially about something as important as this.

Right. No need to overthink this. I would just ask him later.

And that was what I did when I walked out to find him waiting for me outside.

He stood apart from the crowd, his arms crossed over his chest. There were people everywhere, except for a radius of several feet around him. The sight was part amusing, part sad. What did it feel like to be constantly apart from others, treated differently. I wondered if it was the same for him as a child? The thought tugged at my heart.

I jogged towards him and breached that empty bubble. He dropped his arms, and I took his hand and tugged him along. Fortunately, he complied, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to drag him along with my puny human muscles.

"What's wrong?" he asked once we crossed the tree line.

I stopped and turned to him. "A girl told me something and I wanted to ask you about it."

He quirked a brow and nodded.

"She said something about how you can't find your mate, so you just took a human?"

He blinked. Then his lips twitched up, unexpectedly. "You don't believe her."

"Well, I don't know her, so I don't know if she's truthful." I shrugged. "That's why I'm asking you. So, is it true?"

"It's not," he said firmly. "You are my mate."

I smiled up at him and nodded. His eyes flickered to my cheeks before he leaned down and kissed them. Heat crawled up my neck. "But why would she say that?"

"There's a reason," he said, his eyes melting into a pool of sadness and pain. His fingers brushed my cheek, almost absently. He looked like he was recalling something from a faraway past.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," I whispered. He blinked, his eyes focusing on me again.

He shook his head. "No. You need to know."

"Okay." I hated seeing him like this, lost in a pain I knew nothing of, a pain I could do nothing to ease.

"How about we have lunch somewhere else?"

"Where?"

"Somewhere with no people. My wolf is begging out of my skin," he said. I perked up. I really wanted to see the black wolf, properly.

"You'll shift?" I asked, almost bouncing on my toes.

His eyes crinkled. "I'll tell Ashley to pack us some lunch and have Jason deliver it. We'll meet him halfway there."

We trudged through the now-familiar woods. Ezra's eyes was focused inward. I was growing familiar with the way he looked when he was linking.

Dry leaves crunched under my shoes. I almost splotched right into a pool of mud if not for Ezra's sharp gaze. The trees were dense this deep in the woods, and the sunlight couldn't win against their shade.

About ten minutes in, Ezra stopped us and looked at the distance, as if he could see and hear things I couldn't. Which was probably true.

"He's close," he said.