His Unidentified & Untouchable Mate

The Leopard and the Wolf (1)

Jacob POV

It had been a blur of pure rage and frustration. I left Zahraa’s apartment feeling more like a monster than I ever had, and it wasn’t a feeling I wanted to foster. So I walked.

I thought I was walking out my frustration and energy – until I found myself at the foot of the northern pack house.

That bastard was in there. He’d wanted Zahraa from the start – hadn’t dad said that? It was damn creepy for him to be fixated on my mate, a freshly turned eighteen-year-old girl. He was 22 – there were girls his own age to mingle with. Unmated females.

I was in the building before I realized it, and no one stopped me. I barged into the alpha suite unburdened, and I found Rowan sitting on a couch, a decanter filled with amber liquid on the table in front of him an extra glass sitting out.

“I was wondering when you’d show up,” he said, sipping on what smelled like good whiskey. “Have a seat. I’ll pour you a drink.”

I’d drank at parties, sure, but never hard liquor. And I wasn’t sure I wanted anything this fucker offered anyway. “Zahraa was here,” I positioned myself in front of him, then leaned against a wall, hands in my pockets. I wouldn’t accept any peace offerings until there was peace. “She left upset. What’s that about?”

My brother snorted back a laugh, then met my eye with a straight face. “Zahraa came running to me when you’d upset her. What was that about?”

He waited for an answer that would never come. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how or why I had caved to Amber so quickly. I should’ve known something was wrong – the whole thing reeked of a set-up. I remembered something Rowan had mentioned before; when investigating, always start with the suspect who has the most to gain. In this case, it was him.

Rowan sighed and settled back into the couch more comfortably, resting his glass on the arm of the couch. “She’s going to take some time coming around,” he said, tapping a finger on the rim of his glass.

I realized that he was really – and I mean really – drunk.

“But I’m confident I can win her yet.” He looked at me, and there was a sharpness in his eyes – perhaps buried low beneath the stupor. “You never deserved her, you know.”

“That’s for the goddess to decide,” I snapped.

“You tried to mate with another right in front of her,” Rowan sloshed his drink around, staring at it. “She’s the only girl I’m interested in – outside of Andrea, of course. She should’ve been mine from the start.”

I growled, “No. She shouldn’t have. You’re arguing with fate, Rowan. She’s not for you to take.”

“I don’t care,” Rowan remarked, standing. “I’ve done nothing but give, give, give for this pack; shouldn’t I be able to take what I want from it? And Zahraa… she needs someone strong. A protector. Someone she can rely on.” He jabbed his finger into my chest. “That’s not you.”

I grabbed his wrist and wrenched his hand away. “Careful, brother. You might just start a fight you can’t win.”

Rowan laughed. “Couldn’t I? You’ve never been much more than a coward. A pest. The unwanted son. The runt of the litter.”

I burned with fury, but I knew what he wanted – to incense me to fight here in the privacy of his home, where he could call it an attack. He spin the narrative any which way he wanted, with me as a criminal worthy of punishment – and he the hero that had fought me off.

So I held my tongue.

“You know, Zahraa and I go way back. I’m sure you’ve seen her file by now – at least the part that’s been uploaded in the database – but did you know I was there the day we picked her up?”

Rowan POV

[11 years ago]

“I don’t know why they bothered bringing me along,” I said, sulking in the seat with my arms crossed over my chest. “I’m apprenticing with the northern pack. When has the northern pack ever involved itself in missions like this?”

“The packs aren’t set in stone. Just because you’re apprenticing there, doesn’t mean that’s going to be your pack,” Samuel huffed.

I rolled my eyes, setting my glare on the only blond son my mother had carried. “You’re just saying that because you’d do anything to get out of the southern pack.” And maybe it would be for the best if Samuel apprenticed somewhere else – his foul temper would be a bad match for the territory in charge of our public relations.

“Besides,” Jada was all focused in – but of course she would be. Jada and Jared were apprenticing with the gammas, which meant they had been on several of these missions to date, and were no longer surprised nor excited for these missions. I’d never seen her so serious, actually. “If you’re all going to be alphas, you need to know how to protect your own territories from time to time. And you'll see that, in times like these, the four packs really come together.” Her eyes met mine for only a moment before skipping to the next brothers’. “Burn what you’re going to see today into your memories. This is what happens when we fail in our duties.”

I didn’t know what she meant at that time.

Jared had his legs kicked up on the seat in front of him, bracing himself when the SUV hit a pothole. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he snorted. “It’s a shitty world outside of this pack – people do shitty things. Sure, we’ve taken on a kind of ‘peace protector’ role, but we can’t save everyone before shitty things happen.” He shot me a wink. “We just have to make sure to clean up the mess later.”

Jada growled and looked out the window. For twins, they had such different mind sets.

Everyone was hoping Jada would take over the western pack. We shuddered to think what would happen should it fall to Jared.

The SUV quieted as we came to a stop in front of an abandoned warehouse. “Most of the action is going to be done,” Jada advised, “But the action isn’t what we’re here for today anyway.”

Again, the meaning confused me – until we got out.

There were floodlights pointed everywhere, illuminating the entire lot. There was a van from the northern pack with the back wide open passing out blankets and water bottles. Vans from the west pack were being filled with men and women in handcuffs – all of which smelled human. There were several SUVs from the southern pack holding off reporters and holding the line between the mess and the general public.

There was a crack of gunfire, and somewhere within, the roof collapsed, throwing up a pile of dust. The onlookers screamed in shock and horror, diving below the barricades as if the bullets were aimed at them.

“s**t,” someone yelled, running past us and into the fray. “How many more inside?”

“I don’t know,” another gamma shouted back, “But there are a few more victims in there.”

Jada and Jared were off like bolts of lightning. They both seemed to know exactly what to do and where to be: Jada went straight into the building, and Jared found the gamma in charge. The rest of us stood there stunned, lost in the c*****e.

I took a hesitant step forward, then moved to the SUV of support items. I knew a few of the omega women working it, and they handed me blankets and bottles to bring to the relief workers, who would pass them out to victims.

“It’s horrible,” I heard one of them whispering. “I mean, trafficking supernaturals? A bunch of humans?”

“Something stinks,” another girl replied, her voice harder. “There’s no way humans could subdue everyone here. Someone else has to be involved. Probably the vam-” her eyes met mine, and she clammed up. “Rowan, look at you helping out! Could you take this first aid kit to Anna over there?”

“Sure,” I replied, accepting the kit atop my load of blankets.

More gammas rushed past, and I heard them say, “There’s more coming out – one is dangerous.”

Dangerous?

“Prepare a taser,” one of the heads shouted. Then, in a lower register, “I hate to taze a kid, but hell.”

I handed the blankets off to the omegas that were soothing the released slaves, and the first aid kit to Anna. My legs seemed to move on their own. I was following the rush of gammas to where they stopped, forming a wall with their bodies so no one would escape. The building had been reduced to rubble, its supports destroyed in whatever epic showdown had occurred in here, and all that remained was Orlando, a burly gamma, and a tiny leopard cub, cowering in the rocks.