His Unidentified & Untouchable Mate

Support Group

Zahraa POV

I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, sobbing, but it felt like mere minutes had passed before I got a knock on the door.

I jerked up, every muscle in my body tensed as I heard a key in the door. I was ready to bolt for my room, to open a Door to Ingrid’s house – and I almost made it there, too, when what I heard stopped me.

“Zahraa?” Ingrid called.

“Is she even here?” Tanis asked, “I mean, if I was in trouble my house would be the last place I’d be.”

Ingrid hummed, “She’s here. I can smell her.”

Tanis rounded the corner first and locked eyes with me. “Damn, girl, you look like s**t!”

Ingrid punched Tanis’s arm, then rushed forward to wrap me in a hug. “What happened? Jacob called me this morning, and I heard you were coming over and you didn’t, and it’s been hours and-”

“I’m sorry,” I sniveled, snuggling into her embrace. “I don’t know why I didn’t come to you first, I just- I just-” I hiccupped devolving into sniffles and sobs again.

“You’re going to cry through Ingrid’s top, honey, here,” she grabbed my box of tissues off the counter and held it out. I grabbed two and started to clean myself up as she rubbed my shoulder. “Ingrid, how about you walk her to the car? I’ll pack you a bag.”

I nodded, and Ingrid started leading me out, as though I had some kind of leg injury and could barely walk. To be fair, the pounding in my head from the endless crying and the blurry vision also from the endless crying didn’t help.

“I’m not supposed to ask what happened until you feel secure,” Ingrid said, “but just know, whatever Jacob did, I’m fully willing to take a limb off for it.”

I laughed – I couldn’t help it.

I should’ve come to Ingrid first. I knew it, I just didn’t want to fuel her hatred of Jacob. I didn’t want to hear I told you so.

“Not supposed to?” I repeated, blotting a few more tears from my eyes.

Ingrid heaved a dramatic sigh. “Alanis told me I shouldn’t until you’re ready to talk about it. She wanted to come too, but someone had to stay behind in my room in case you waltzed on in.”

My shattered heart felt warm at least.

Tanis was only fifteen minutes behind us, and we hopped into Ingrid’s old hand me down Explorer. “We’re just picking Alanis up,” Ingrid mentioned offhand. “We’re staying the night at Tanis’s house. That way he can’t look me up, can’t look Alanis up by her coven. Virtually no one in either community knows where Tanis lives.”

“And that’s how I like it,” Tanis muttered from the back seat.

Ingrid took a moment to scroll on her phone, until she found a When Your Man F*cks Up playlist and turned the volume up.

I was pretty sore that Carrie Underwood’s Next Time He Cheats came on first, the lyrics turning some of my misery to rage.

I mean, maybe I should trash his car.

I had all kinds of vandalism thoughts running through my head when we pulled up to Ingrid’s house. Alanis was waiting at the curb, and she threw my car door open with no hesitation, grabbing me and pulling me into a bone-crushing hug. Directly into my ear, she whispered, “I will scalp him for you if you give me the greenlight.”

I choked out a laugh, squeezing Alanis back, but not as hard. “I’ll consider it as an option.”

Through the blaring sounds of Cee Lo Green’s Forget You, the conversation was kept pretty light. We talked about a long-standing plan we’d had to go to the beach. We talked about new bathing suits and old bathing suits, Ingrid bemoaned the upcoming New Moon ball, saying she was worried her mate would be from afar, and she’d have to leave everyone behind.

We breezed through that topic quickly, brushing it aside more than addressing it. I mean, what could we do if that happened? Nothing is what.

Tanis lived just outside of LA. The pack was close enough to the city limit that hopping on the highway and leaving town didn’t take long at all. Tanis lived alone with her mother in an apartment complex in a small suburb. We usually didn’t come here, because Tanis felt a sense of embarrassment at her family’s financial situation, and how small her apartment was compared to Alanis’s and Tanis’s houses.

We always argued that as part of a supernatural organization, their families had that loose income to afford it. Tanis and her mother had no such support – nagas were pretty rare, after all.

Her apartment was on the fifth floor, and the elevator was always out, so we started walking up a dark stairwell that smelled like m*******a smoke. When we reached the third floor, the culprit was sitting on the stairs scrolling his phone. He looked up for a moment, assessing Tanis, then assessing the rest of us. “‘Sup Tanis. You having a slumber party or something?”

“Oh my Gods Chet, I’m not ten, no one calls them slumber parties anymore.” She nudged his half-empty Gatorade bottle off the edge of the steps, sending it spiraling into the median and landing with an echoing thunk on the ground floor below. When we were all passed him, she turned back and added, “But yes.”

“You owe me a Gatorade,” Chet seemed fairly unbothered, looking back at his phone without making a move to retrieve his beverage.

“Whatever,” Tanis muttered under her breath.

We climbed in silence until we reached her floor. The hall was painted a shabby green, and cigarette smoke clung to the stained carpet beneath our feet. Someone had made an effort by putting potted plants on pretty stands in various places, but the effort had clearly been abandoned, because most were half-dead.

“Right here,” Tanis opened the door to the last apartment on the floor, and when she did, all the signs of a cheap apartment complex vanished.

Tanis’s mother was up at the kitchen table, and she stood up when we came in. “Tanis. Is Zahraa okay?”

“Yes ma’am,” I replied, stepping out from behind Tanis. The little entry hall was packed, but we started spreading into the living room. The tile might’ve been cracked, but Ms. Elara kept it immaculate. The carpet was just as old as it was outside, but she’d poured stain remover and carpet cleaner into it until the smell had disappeared and only the most persistent of stains remained. The furniture was kept clean, and the space was uncluttered. More importantly, the space smelled like cookies.

Ms. Elara made her way to me and threw her arms around me. “You’re welcome here as long as you need to stay, Zahraa; you know that.”

I snuggled into her embrace. Our friend group had entwined enough that all of their parents knew us, loved us, accepted us as family. I knew that, but it was nice to be reminded.

“Thank you, Ms. Elara.”

She pressed a kiss to my forehead, and for a moment, I felt a surge of jealousy. I wish I had a mother as kind as Tanis’s. I wish I could come to a house that smelled like freshly baked cookies.

She put her hands on her hips, motioning to the kitchen with a wide sweep of her arm, “Okay, girls, I know it’s late, but I made cookies, and I have all the stuff out to make hot cocoa if you want.”

“Mom, it’s summer,” Tanis reminded dryly.

Ms. Elara snorted, “That’s what the AC is for, dear. That said, if you don’t want hot cocoa-”

“I didn’t say that,” Tanis grumbled.

Her mother smirked in that knowing way, and patted her back. “Why don’t you all get comfortable? I’ll bring you snacks.”

We herded into Tanis’s room when Ingrid got a notification on her phone – the loud, amber alert type that the pack used for their push notifications. She stared at the screen in disbelief.

“What?” Alanis bumped her shoulder, steadying the phone with her hand so she could read the display. “What?” she repeated, recoiling in shock. “No way…”

“Oh my gods, what is it?” Tanis asked, trying to push her way in so she could see.

Ingrid turned the screen around, presenting it to us. I felt the blood drain from my face as Ingrid said, “Jacob challenged Rowan.”