Stronger as One (#1, Completed)

47. Izaver (New)

RAFE

The morning had just been a giant clusterfuck.

To begin with, I found out that Nat had a mate. My baby sister, the purest soul out in the world, had the mating tattoo words written on the inner side of her wrist, but she wouldn't tell me what they said or whether she knew who her mate was.

I suspected that she did know because, rather than look excited at the prospect of finding out who it was, she seemed sad and closed off in the last few days. I hated seeing her like this- Nat was meant to be happy, to smile, and instead, I felt like her heart was breaking despite her attempts to hide what was really going on underneath. If I got my hands on the fucker who caused her this pain, I was going to crush his head with my bare hands.

Then, I got a call from Lucien telling me that Aiden, Riley and I had to go to that damn shifters gala in the US to try to lure Markolf out of hiding. Catching him was not the issue- I would gladly do so, even on my own. What I was not thrilled about was the three of us being stuck together, on top of that, on a mission where none of us could just walk off at any point. It's like the Moon Goddess had set out to make my life difficult. And that was before I even walked in on them.

Foolishly, it hadn't even crossed my mind that Riley could be there. Sure, I knew that Aiden was all in on this whole mate business, but Riley was just as uneasy about the whole thing I was, so I did not expect to find them chilling at his place after plenty of fucking. The two practically stank of sex, sweat, and each other's scents.

Seeing Riley in nothing but Aiden's shirt drove me nuts. Not because it was Aiden's shirt but because I wanted her naked and writhing beneath me, having my ways with her and making her scream with pleasure. The moment that my eyes landed on her face, I was already hard and I had not even had the chance to take her all in. When I finally did- fuck, Aiden or no Aiden there, I was ready to bend her over the kitchen island and spread her legs open to fill her wet, pretty pussy with my dick. Kai was also not doing me any favours by rooting for the idea in my head.

I somehow managed to tap into every drop of strength that I had in my body in order to control myself and maintain a neutral look, but it was so damn hard. Luckily, I was already pissed off about a number of things, so I just focused on my anger to avoid thinking about Riley.

The meeting at the Blackwood packhouse later in the morning got wrapped quickly, fortunately. Lucien made it clear that our mission was to be low profile to avoid information getting into the wrong hands and Markolf getting warned. Only Callum and James had been informed about it, aside from those of us who were at the meeting. We were to fly the following day to the States where Lucien's contact was going to help us out with everything we needed.

First, though, I needed to sort out things with the pack. I was the Alpha now and I couldn't just pick up and go without making the necessary provisions for the pack's management in my absence. I had not yet appointed a Beta, which made the whole thing even more complicated, but I had Tom who I had recently appointed as Gamma, my third-in-command. He was a formidable warrior and I knew I could rely on him to look after the pack for a few days.

Nat was who I was most concerned about, which was why I had asked Aiden to arrange a meeting with his contact in the realm of Izaver. It was home to merfolk and many flying shifters, such as gryphons, who preferred the freedom that the magic realm offered them in comparison to the human world.

As we sat in the Windcrest pack's lounge, I wondered whether my idea made sense, yet we we were going to find out soon enough.

"Remind me again how you know this guy, Aiden?" I took another sip of my whisky while I was trying to get some more info ahead of our guests' arrival.