Another Half

July 2012

Nightshade Pack

A grave miscalculation, he had called it.

He followed that up with, Your incompetence is your greatest enemy.

Fucking asshole.

Nick was sick of Optimo’s bullshit. It was all a fucking game to him, and Nick had become his favorite piece to yank around.

They were in what Optimo called his Throne Room, which made Nick wonder if he even knew they were living in the twenty-first century. Optimo’s white chair sat alone on a tall dais made from an opaque white stone. The top of the backrest had five giant marquise-cut rubies in a semi-circle over Optimo’s head.

He seemed to style himself after some sort of medieval king, with a white metal crown encrusted with rubies over his brown hair and a long red cape with gold trim over what looked to be a long white silk robe cinched at the waist with a thick belt woven with gold thread and encrusted with rubies. Nick was surprised he didn’t have a couple of scantily clad women fanning him with giant palm leaves and a tiger at his feet.

Optimo himself was eerily young for someone who had a daughter Nick’s age. He looked like he was in his late twenties, but behaved like he was much older. He certainly had more experience than Nick, but the latter couldn’t understand why or how.

“I already told you,” Nick said. “I followed her as soon as I woke up from whatever shit she gave me. I don’t even know how because everything was clean! The wine, the food—we didn’t find traces of anything, anywhere!”

As so often happened when Nick thought or spoke about his Fated Mate, he felt his control on Marcus slipping. He paused to take a couple of breaths.

We should have Marked them! Marcus shouted.

In hindsight, yeah, maybe. But never forget you were on board to get a female of alpha lineage to improve our line.

“I put out a Missing Pup report to all the surrounding packs and two states over. I even claimed the little shit was my pup—do you have any idea how humiliating that was?! And then I personally followed her, but she fucking vanished.”

Optimo sighed and sat back on this chair. “Yes, it seems your little errant mate has gotten the best of you at every turn. We asked for something so simple, Nicolás, and you failed us.”

Nick ground his teeth together. He hated it when people called him by his given name. He had even slapped Blade when she had called him that the first time. She had cried.

“I complied with all of your requests and instructions, Optimo,” Nick said. “You told me to ask for your help if things got out of hand, and you sent me a trio of morons that couldn’t even kill her. Shit, I don’t think they even came close! I told you she was our Training Master–she fucking handed every male in our pack their ass on a platter. She didn’t beat up our Alpha only because the coward said his code forbade him to fight a she-wolf.”

Nick watched as Optimo tapped his long brown fingertips together as he assessed him. He had no idea why he had to go over his story again and again. It was as if Optimo didn’t believe him the first time, or the second or the fifth times.

“As we’ve previously requested, you will abstain from using foul language in our presence. Now go on with your story.”

Nick stared at him as he nodded with mute compliance. He forgot that this guy didn’t like swear words for some fucking reason.

“Anyway, I found her trail of dead bodies weeks after and her trail went cold outside a town on the border with Canada. For all I fucki—-for all I know, she’s been there ever since.”

“She’s not,” Optimo said slowly and sighed. “You lived with her for an entire year, but it seems you never paid attention to her wants and desires. Her ambitions.”

“Like all bitches, more than anything, she wanted me to Mark her. She wanted to be another mated she-wolf. They’re all the same, y’know.”

“Indeed.” Optimo shrugged with disdain. “That is in every she-wolf’s nature. It’s their driving desire to belong to and be with their male, mate with him, and procreate. We suppose we must congratulate you on keeping your Fated Mate at far away from you as possible. It must have taken more than maximum effort on your part.”

“I had help.”

“Yes, and where is Nadine now?”

Nick ground his teeth again.

“With her Fated Mate.”

“She didn’t fulfill her end of your bargain and reject him?”

“Obviously.”

“So now what do you expect?”

Nick looked him in the eye. “I’ve given up everything for what you’ve promised. My alpha told me to find myself a mate in six months or else find another pack. I don’t want to lose my position in my pack, but I can’t find Blade anywhere, and so here I am. You promised me your daughter as my mate in exchange for everything I’ve done to serve you. I’m here to collect my mate so I can go back to my pack with a real alpha female as my mate.”

“Yes, well, before we even introduce you to our beloved and precious Priscilla, you will do one more thing for us.”

Nick didn’t know if he should shout at Optimo for giving him yet another thing to do or wring his neck until he felt the annoying man’s life slip away. So he did nothing but stare at Optimo with resentful expectation.

“As we previously said, you paid no attention to your mate at all. The records of where she was were at your disposal in the university she attended near your pack this entire time.”

Nick felt as if a bucket of freezing water was suddenly poured on his head, and a cold wave of humiliation washed down and soon reached his feet. Of course, it hadn’t occurred to him to check her school.

“Our sources tell us that a copy of her records was transferred to Lazuli University before she even left the East. Imagine that! And now she’s already enrolled in the fall semester.” Optimo took out a folded piece of paper from his white silk pocket and unfolded it. “We have her full schedule right here. And—how impressive! She has already paid all of her dues. Lazuli is a private institution and it is not inexpensive. Where do you suppose she got all that money from?”

Nick balled his hands in a fist. He knew where she got all of her money. It had been her family’s money, the money she was supposed to have transferred to his account but never did.

“The house she purportedly owns close to the university is empty it seems, but we have a very strong suspicion she’s hiding in the nearby pack with that baby mutt she’s probably claiming as her own. That maternal instinct is an annoyance, isn’t it? You were supposed to kill your mate and then brought me that baby. You did neither.”

Nick could do nothing but stay rooted to the smooth floor he stood on. Despite his heavy boots, he could feel the cold of the white stone floor seeping into his feet. Or perhaps it was still his embarrassment washing over him.

Optimo continued to look at Nick, his eyes had lost their interest in him and were now full of disdain.

“Unfortunately, we lost communication with our contact in that pack several days ago, before we could order him to look for her. So now it’s your job to bring her to us. Don’t kill her. We want her alive. Do that, and Pricilla is yours to take back East and give her the blessed life of a Beta’s mate. We will personally bless and celebrate that union with you, Nicolás.”

“And the runt?” Nick swallowed what he felt was a quart of bile in his mouth.

“Leave him. Let that pack raise Andrés as their own. I’ll take care of that pest at a later date.”

End of Book #1

Blade's and Rex's story continues in Missing Half: Book #2...

Dear Reader:

Thank you for joining me on Blade and Rex's journey. If you enjoyed their story, please like and review it. I would love to know what you thought.

The next chapter is an excerpt from Missing Half: Book #2, which is already up. I hope you sign up for that ride, too.

With much appreciation,

Rio