As if Bash would sound that sad and apologetic. He was the one who left me. And didn’t mention that he was a prince.
A lump formed in my throat, and I shook it off, and just let the girls drag me along toward the campus library.
BASH
In three days, I’d crossed an ocean, come to a foreign country, met the woman destined by fate to be mine, discovered the glory of her body and what we could have together, and lost her. It was an impressive cock up, even in my family. It was like I’d watched the example of my scandal-loving cousins, and then decided to do a more impressive job on a speed run.
Bollocks.
I couldn’t find Stacia, I had no way to contact her.
She wasn’t answering me across the bond that had formed when I’d claimed her, which, of course, I’d never gotten the chance to explain to her at all.
I could still feel her if I closed my eyes and held my breath. Just a flutter of awareness, enough to know that she was still in the area and safe, though upset. And who could bloody blame her for that?
It would have been one thing to have a whirlwind romance with a gorgeous American bird. Sow my oats, as they say, leave her with a smile and some fond memories. But the idea of never seeing Stacia again, it had my wolf threatening to burst out of my skin to track her down the old-fashioned way.
And wouldn’t that just be the cherry on top, ambushing her as an enormous wolf. Because I hadn’t quite done enough screwing things up yet.
I had a choice to make, search for Stacia directly, with very few clues, or perhaps seek out my new friends on the Dire Wolves football team. While they knew me by reputation, a few short days might be too soon to truly call them friends. I wasn’t sure I’d trust them so quickly if the situation were reversed.
Because of course, I also hadn’t made any progress on tracking down the one-bloods. They were making their presence felt around the campus, but they didn’t exactly hang about. I knew I was on the right track, just like I’d told Mother, but actually being able to catch up to them wasn’t working out as well as I’d hoped.
So, all in all, my trip so far was a royal cock up.
No, I wouldn’t say that. If I hadn’t come to Bay State University, I’d have never met Stacia, and I would have gone on being a miserable sod, never knowing what I was missing out on.
It was just hard to keep that in mind when I couldn’t bloody find her. Some tracker I was.
I’d ended up just wandering the campus, trying to catch a whiff of delectable ripe peaches or to stumble across some one-blood plot in the act, and that was going about as well as the rest of my day had, baring a few far too short hours with my gorgeous mate., giving her all the orgasms she wanted, and then more.
“Hey, Bash.”
Few enough people knew that name that I actually dragged myself up out of the impressive bout of brooding I had going on in time to see Stone Silver making his way across the quad toward me.
We’d hit it off rather well in my time at Bay State, however brief it had been. He was a bit of a fish out of water too. Recruited from somewhere out in Colorado to be a Dire Wolfand as an extra set of fangs to handle the one-bloods. Apparently the Silver pack out there grew them big, because Stone was bloody huge.
It had been nice though. The other Dire Wolf players had mostly all known each other for years now. Having another new bloke around, we’d kind of ended up gravitating toward each other, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed having a pack around me until I’d showed up for football practice.
Not all the players were werewolves, but enough of them were. It had helped keep me steady. We tend to form groups by nature, and true lone wolves can go a bit odd if they’re alone for too long. They can get mean without the bonds to help. Of course, a bad bunch can go mean too, depending on who their alpha is. Just look at the one-bloods.
Stone hitched his bag a bit higher up on his shoulder, tree trunk legs eating up the distance between us, and I waited for him to catch up.
He gave me a look, his brow furrowed. “You good?”
And wasn’t that the bloody question? I prodded at the mate bond in my head again, trying to glean some hint of where Stacia might be or with who. But other than the vague echo that she was alright, or at least not in immediate danger, there was nothing.
No. I wasn’t good. Not by a long shot.
“I don’t know how to answer that,” I admitted, and it was probably the most honest thing I’d said since I set foot in this country.
Stone didn’t make a joke or push me to talk. I got the feeling it wasn’t really his way, and that was probably why we’d gotten on so well. He just fell into step beside me, following the aimless path I’d been walking. He’d told me that he was one of five brothers and that someone was always talking, so he’d just kindof fallen into place as the quiet one out of self-defense for his ears.
“Do you believe in fated mates?” I blurted out, and then sincerely thought about kicking myself in the arse.
Stone gave me a look like I was crazy, which I probably deserved.
“Yeah. Of course.”
