The Alpha's Second Chance

Chapter 7- Deliberate Encounter

Silas POV

The leather of the sedan’s interior usually felt like a sanctuary, a barrier between me and the world outside. It’s been two weeks since I left home to start my search, and I haven’t found my mate, which makes me think that it is the girl who entered my territory.

But today, the air inside the car felt stifling. I signaled for Eli to stop a block away from the village square. I needed to walk. I needed to feel the pavement of the town I technically owned but rarely graced with my presence.

As I moved down the sidewalk, the locals parted like the Red Sea. They didn't look me in the eye; they looked at the ground, their shadows shrinking away from mine. It was a familiar deference, one I had cultivated with years of calculated silence and occasional, necessary cruelty. Most here are wolves and from my pack, wanting to have a more human-style life, while others are humans who do not know about our true identities.

Then, the wind changed.

A scent cut through the smell of exhaust and damp pavement—jasmine and a hint of something citrusy, like crushed orange leaves. It was a scent that didn't belong in a town this gray. I stopped dead in my tracks, my gaze drawn to the large plate-glass window of The Roasted Bean.

There she was.

She was smaller than I remembered, or perhaps it was just the oversized apron she wore that made her look so delicate. She was scrubbing a counter with a frantic sort of dedication, her brow furrowed in concentration. Lyra. I still didn't know her name until yesterday, when Eli finally gave me her name, but that was all he gave me, probably didn't help that I only vaguely remembered what she looked like. All I knew her as was the girl who breached my territory two weeks back.

Why did we not feel anything towards her in our last life? I wonder

I did, Fenrir responds.

What?! I ask.

Thinking back about it, I did feel something towards her when we met her once in the town when checking our business, but our eyes had only met for a second, and then she fled. By the time you had gone to where she stood, her scent had gone, so I didn't link the feeling of the bond with her. Then we had already met Sarah, so I just thought we had simply taken a liking to her. But now I think she may be our true mate.

I watched her for several minutes, invisible behind the glare of the setting sun on the glass. She looked like someone who was trying very hard to disappear into the background noise of life. My thoughts are running a hundred miles in my mind, the main one being why we never bothered to look for her in my past life? Was I really that busy or just that stupid?

I turned on my heel and headed back to the car. Eli was waiting, his hand already on the door.

"The girl in the café," I said, my voice like a blade. "I want full intel on her. Now."

The drive to a local hotel where we had booked the penthouse on the top floor was silent, but my mind was loud with its thoughts.

By the time we all reached the penthouse living room, Jax was already waiting with a tablet in his hand. I sat on the leather sofa.

"Her name is Lyra," Jax began, his voice clinical. "Twenty-two. Adopted at age seven by a local couple, they have two biological children — one older and one younger than Lyra. She was kicked out when she turned sixteen and left to fend for herself. Her adoptive parents were once hunters, but they retired when they adopted Lyra. She was a scholarship student at the university, top of her class in history studies, but she dropped out after two years. Lack of funds. She’s been working at that café for two years. She has no criminal record, no biological siblings, and almost no digital footprint. She’s a ghost, sir."

I scrolled through the images: a grainy ID card, a high school graduation photo where she looked uncomfortable in her own skin.

"She has no one," I murmured, more to myself than to him. "No family to come looking for her. No one would notice if the air around her changed." While she may be adopted, the likelihood is that they won't bother looking for her. Why would they?

It was a dangerous realization. A girl who belonged to no one was a girl who could belong to me. She had broken into my home—an act of defiance that should have been met with a permanent solution—and yet, looking at her file, I found myself intrigued by her lack of biological roots. She was a blank page, one I found myself wanting to write upon.

"Sir, do you want me to bring her to the estate?" Marcus asked.

"No," I said, my eyes narrowing as I looked at the time. "She’s been keeping her head down, thinking she had escaped. I want to see the exact moment she realizes she didn't."

I stood up, grabbed my coat, and headed out of the door, through the lobby, and to my car so fast that I left the other three in the dust to catch up.

I drove myself back to town, the engine of the car a low growl in the quiet evening. I pulled up across the street from the cafe just as the Open sign was flipped to Closed. I watched through the window as she poured herself a cup of coffee. She looked tired, her shoulders slumped, her movements heavy with the relief of a finished day.

She thought she was going home to her adoptive parents' home. She thought the day was over, and her mundane life was carrying on like every other day.

I stepped out of the car, the evening air sharp against my face. I timed my steps perfectly. I saw her through the glass, fumbling with her keys, her head down as she pushed through the swinging kitchen door. She was distracted, her mind already miles away.

I reached the door at the exact moment she did. I didn't wait for her to open it; I pushed it inward with a firm, deliberate hand.

The collision was inevitable.

She hit my chest with a soft oomph, her small frame rebounding off me like a bird hitting a wall. The lid of her cup flew off, and I felt the brief, sharp heat of the coffee splashing against my coat, but I didn't flinch. I reached out, my hands catching her elbows to keep her from falling, my fingers sinking into the soft knit of her sweater.

"Damn it," she gasped, her hands flying to her chest where the dark liquid was soaking into her clothes.

"Careful," I rumbled.

I felt the tremor go through her the moment she heard my voice. It started in her arms and traveled up to her throat. Slowly, painfully, she lifted her gaze to mine. Her eyes widened, the pupils blowing wide with a terror that was as intoxicating as that jasmine scent.

She looked at the coffee stain on my chest, then back at my face, her breath coming in shallow hitches. I didn't let go of her. I let the silence stretch, watching the realization dawn on her that I wasn't just a customer, and this wasn't just an accident.

"You’re shaking, Lyra," I said softly, her name tasting like a victory on my tongue. "Is it the cold, or are you just happy to see me?"