His Unidentified & Untouchable Mate

Raw Fury

Rowan POV

I’d prepared myself to be furious.

Zahraa had been bullied before – I remember it clear as day. She’d been so small then – but she had that power. The one that had disappeared altogether as she aged, one she seemed to have forgotten.

I’ve been watching her since the first day she arrived at our pack. Everything she did fascinated me, the way she moved, the things she did and said, it was all so interesting. Perhaps, even back then, I was fixated on her. Perhaps, even then, I knew she’d never be mine. Not truly.

The goddess had a sick sense of humor, giving her to Jacob of all my brothers.

She told me about the restaurant, about the stink of toilet water that had left her cold.

She told me about the kitchen, about mess in her hair and all over her uniform.

She told me about the bathroom, about violence brought on so quickly, so intensely that she’d had to limp to this room.

I was ready to tear them limb for limb when she said, “They think he rejected me. I don’t know where they got that idea. They think I attacked him.”

My anger shifted – and this was why Jacob was the worst to receive such a wonder as his mate. How had he failed to protect her? How had he let this happen?

“I’ll take care of everything,” I said – and I meant it. “Thank you for telling me. I’ll ensure these girls get the proper repercussions.” I stood, and she stood with me. She was so much shorter than me – so cute, like a little button. I put my hand on her clothed shoulder, wishing to touch the velvety skin underneath and reminding myself it wasn’t mine to touch. “You go home. You are released from your duties from this day forward.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Are… are you sure?”

“Of course,” I waved dismissively, turning so she couldn’t see the irritation on my face when I added, “Any mate of the alpha family’s can’t be working like a mere omega.”

“Thank you, Rowan,” she sounded so relieved. “But when things get back to normal, I’ll be happy to start working again.”

I met her eyes as she walked past me to the door. “Whatever makes you happy,” I said – and I meant that too. I’d give her the sun and the moon if only she asked.

And then she was gone, leaving me with so much clean up to do. Jacob, I linked, uncaring about how many other incoming transmissions he may or may not have. Come to the Northern Pack house. Now.

I heard him ask Why? before I shut out the link altogether, storming through the hallways to my office.

Outside, I could hear the girls spinning a far different story than what Zahraa had told me. Luckily, my second, Charles, believed them about as well as I would.

“Wait until Alpha Rowan gets here, and see if he cares,” he said, just as I opened the door and breezed past the three of them to sit in the chair at my desk. The girls were taking up the chairs in front, and Charles came to stand behind me, as he usually did.

“Go on, then,” I said, folding my hands neatly on the desk in front of me. “Explain.”

“Alpha, she’s absolutely feral,” Belle explained. To hear Zahraa tell it, she was the primary attacker. “She came after us for no reason at all! We just went to use the bathroom, and she was on and on about how she’d just cleaned it, and when we told her we’d just be a minute, she hit us with the mop!”

There hadn’t even been a mop on the scene of the crime, but I ignored that. “Okay. Where did she hit you?” I asked.

Belle thought for a second, before pointing to a few different spots – her arm, her abdomen, her thigh.

“It must not have been very hard. You’ve got no welts on your arms,” I spoke with a far calmer tone than what I felt. “Yet Zahraa has many marks to show for your assault on her. Care to explain?”

“It was self-defense!” Belle cried, “She hit me – I just wanted to make her stop!”

“You stopped her pretty efficiently, I would say,” I remarked. “Dawn. What do you have to say for yourself?”

She stopped for a long while, as if trying to decide to come clean or continue the ruse. “It’s like Belle said – she hit her first. She must have already healed the welts, alpha.”

I laughed, though it came out more of a rumbling growl in my chest. “Throw these girls in a cell until I decide what to do with them,” I ordered. “Then bring me Patricia Myers, Elaine Holt, Rayleigh Summers, and Veronica Slathe.”

“Yes, alpha,” Charles said.

The protests of the omegas went unheard as Charles took them roughly by their arms and dragged them from the room. When the door opened, a gamma was waiting to help him escort them.

I stood as soon as the door shut behind them, facing a large window that lit my office and overlooked the Northern Pack. We were supposed to be a largely omega-run territory, one that helped those in need. We ran charities, fundraisers, we fed the hungry and homeless of LA and we volunteered at children’s hospitals, for f**k sake, how were there bullies here?

And all because of a perceived slight against the alpha’s fifth-born son.

I could see Jacob pull up in a golf cart – we used those to move around the territories quite a bit, actually – and hop off, moving into the pack house quickly. He must’ve picked up on the fact that it had something to do with Zahraa.

His mate, Zahraa.

His mate, Zahraa.

I swallowed the visceral jealousy and hate that rose like bile in my throat and settled myself into my office chair, trying to make myself look busy. The knock on my door came moments later.

“Come in,” I called, identifying him on the other side of the door by smell alone.

Jacob looked confused and worried. He was smart – I’m sure he’d connected the dots. I never called on him specifically and Zahraa was here in this pack. This must be about her. All the same, he sat cautiously in front of my desk and asked, “What’s this about, Rowan?”

“Your mate,” I replied, and I watched as his breath caught in his throat, as he paled ever so slightly. It was cruel to hold him in suspense like this, but I couldn’t help but be a little petty. “She was attacked.”

His fingers flexed, and the wood of the chair warped under the strength of his grasp. “Where is she?”

“I sent her home,” I said, ending the gambit too quickly. “She’s alright, just a little beaten up.”

“Who?” he asked, voice gravely as he fought a full transformation for her.

Good, I told myself, even if I didn’t feel it, he truly cares for her.

“I’ve already got two of the assailants locked in the cells downstairs, but we’re bringing in four more that are suspected of cornering her,” I shuffled some papers and put them away, trying to sound casual when I added, “Zahraa was strong through bullying the first time, but I believe her mate should be there for her through it now that it’s starting up again.”

The wooden supports of my chair splintered in his hands. His flesh was rippling with an incoming shift, held back by a mere thread of humanity. “What do you mean again?”