Saving my abused mate

8. Xander's mate

Rage

Xander's mate was indeed beautiful, the scar running through her face was just a testament of her strength, whatever had caused that much damage had to be pretty bad, she was definitely a survivor, and a warrior.  She was tall, just a couple of inches shorter than Xander, who was almost as tall as me.  Her black hair was short and pulled back, she was doing nothing to hide the scar on her face, that was a show of confidence, something that was extremely attractive.  She had a tan that had to come from training under the sun.  Xander was looking at her like she was the only one in the room, and when she noticed him, it was like the rest of us didn't exist anymore.  It wasn't until s***h's dad cleared his throat that they broke eye contact and looked at the rest of us.

"Rage, allow me to introduce you to my mate, Caroline," Xander said.  "Caro, this is my friend and future Alpha, Rage."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," I said, taking her hand.  She was strong, I guess she had to be after whatever happened to her.

"I'm honored to meet Xander's friend and future Alpha," she said.  Her voice was weird, low, as if she was having trouble talking.  More damage?  No matter the reason, the husky sound was kind of sexy, something I shouldn't be thinking about my best friend's mate. 

"As you know we have some decisions to make," I told her.

"We were just talking about them.  I'm ready to go with you, if your pack will accept me," she said, and it was almost a challenge?  The woman was for sure interesting. 

"Of course we will," I said, glad for Xander and the powerful addition to our forces. “I’m not sure if you know, but I’m planning on taking Xander as my beta once I take over my parents, and I think you will be a perfect fit since your parents are the betas.”

“Well,” I knew I had said something wrong, from the way everyone reacted to my words and the looks exchanged between the Alpha pair and their betas, “my guardians are the betas of the Pack, but my real parents were alphas,” she said. “I came here when I was a baby, and the previous betas took care of me, I actually believed they were my parents, but then… Well, it’s a long story.”

“I’m willing to listen if you want to talk, or not. I really don’t need to know to welcome you into our Pack, and if it’s uncomfortable or painful to discuss your past, then it’s not something we need to talk about.”

“It might be something useful to know,” the beta said, he looked at Caroline and she nodded. “But let’s go to a more comfortable place, we can’t stay here standing all day.”

We all moved to one of the living rooms, they closed the door behind us so no one would interrupt us. I could tell Xander was anxious, and I was worried about what they had to say, because they all looked very serious and a little worried.

“I think it’s better if I tell the story,” the beta said, and everyone nodded their agreement. “My twin brother found his mate in another pack, she was the sister of their beta. They found each other during a Full Moon ceremony, and she came with him and became the beta of this Pack. Her original pack got into a conflict with another pack. Alpha Slayer wanted to take the territories around his own, and managed to get hold of a few. The UberPack was informed of this and they went to offer their help, but all the packs in the area had already suffered a lot of damage. My sister-in-law wanted to go to help with reconstruction, so my brother and his mate went to help.  By the time they arrived, everything seemed to be under control. The UberPack had killed or contained most of the wolves from the attacking pack, only Alpha Slayer had escaped, but not before he lost his True Mate during the battle with the UberPack. While my brother and his mate were there, Slayer returned and attacked the pack they were staying at.  He was almost feral, and killed the Alpha female before anyone could stop him, he tried to kill Caroline, who was just a baby, but her father managed to fight back, only he failed to kill Slayer, who said he wouldn't stop until all his family was wiped out, that he couldn’t protect his daughters forever," Caroline was looking at a wall, and I could tell the story still affected her. 

“Where was the UberPack when this happened?” I asked, getting angry they had failed. The memory of Hunter running around causing problems because they were unable to hold him at first was still fresh on my mind.

“They were helping other packs, that wasn’t the only one affected, and apparently it wasn’t the only one that had been attacked by Slayer, he was mad at everyone he considered responsible for his mate’s death.”

“He was the only one to blame,” Caroline said, “if he hadn’t gotten greedy and started attacking others, then nothing would have happened to her.”

“So what happened then?” I asked.

“Well, Caroline’s father was mortally wounded, he used the last of his strength to drive Slayer away and to ask his beta and his sister to protect his daughters. My brother agreed to take Caroline back with him, while the beta of that pack decided to take Caroline’s sister and go back to his mate’s pack. They agreed to take them as their own and hide them from Slayer.”

“I guess that didn’t work out,” I said, looking at Caroline.

“No, it didn’t,” Caroline said. “I didn’t know any of this until six years ago when Slayer found us. He said I was his last, he had already taken care of everyone else involved. He told me he had killed my sister and that I was his last loose end. He killed my parents when I was a baby, and then my new parents when I was a teenager. They died protecting me, and as you might already guess, I got out of that fight with a few permanent reminders. Slayer was a very strong Alpha, it took both my adoptive parents and me to defeat him.”

“After my brother and his mate died during that fight, we took Caroline and my brother’s other son into our family. We are not bound by blood, but she is our family. And you, young man, have to take good care of her,” the beta warned.

“I will protect her with my life, nothing will happen to her as long as I’m taking care of her,” Xander promised.

“But we are not expecting more problems, are we?” I asked. “Not that it would change anything, I only need to know if I have to keep my guard up.”

“No, as far as we know Slayer was the only threat to Caroline,” the Alpha said. I was glad that she had such a supporting pack, it had to be painful to lose the people you always thought of as your parents, only to discover they weren’t really your parents, and that they had also died at the hands of a crazy person.  "Unfortunately, we didn't have more information about her original pack or the pack where her sister was taken, so we don't have more information about it.  We don't even know if Slayer attacked more people other than Caro and her sister.  But as far as we know, it all ended with Slayer's death, and no one else is looking for her."

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” I said, while Xander hugged her, as if he could protect her from her pain.

“Thanks. It was awful, but is in the past. All I can do is be the best person I can be, to honor my birth parents and my adoptive parents. I will do my very best to be the kind of beta your pack needs,” she told me, and I believed her.

“I know you will. I’m a very lucky person to have you join my pack, and I’m sure Xander feels like the luckiest guy in the world,” I joked, and from Xander’s expression, I wasn’t that far off.

My comment caused a few chuckles and the room felt lighter. We started talking about other more mundane subjects, and finally decided to stay for a week while Caroline prepared all her things to move to my Pack. It became clear how loved she was when we found out that people had already started organizing a goodbye party for her.

All the preparations we needed to do helped to distract me of my failure to find my mate yet again. It was time to get happy about my friend. If I had a mate, I would find her eventually, I had to believe that to keep moving forward.