The Lost Alpha Queen

Chapter 5: Mateo

With everything going on lately, I keep thinking about Bella. She should be here, she should be getting ready to turn eighteen, to be crowned queen. She should be celebrating with her family, but my father destroyed that. My father killed her and her family as they slept without a care in the world. She was my best friend. I cannot believe she has been gone for almost ten years. I loved her but I lost her and now I am scared to love again. I turned eighteen last month and I am terrified of finding my mate. What if I don’t love her as much as I loved Bella? I hope I can. As a kid, I thought Bella would be my mate, but fate had a different plan and she was taken from me. She will always be my Bella but I need to let her go so I can accept my mate when she comes into my life. I do not want to have to be afraid of meeting my other half of my soul. But I also do not want to disrespect Bella's memory.

I shake myself out of that thought process and focus on the night ahead. Rafe called me earlier to tell me about the assignment he was given by Migel. This was also the perfect way to get Lexa and Maliah out of pack territory. Apparently, someone needs to get onto pack land without anyone else knowing. Which is weird because all wolves are allowed into the capital city. We both agree this must have to do with the plot against my father. Maybe this is someone distantly related to the royal family or something. I don’t know why it took them this long to come, but I guess now that they have support on the inside, they believe they can actually get the throne back.

Rafe was told to get someone he trusted completely to help him. He called me immediately. I know most others don’t trust me, but now is my chance to prove them wrong. We were to drop the girls off at a parking lot about an hour's drive outside of pack territory around nine. There will be a car in the parking lot, a black Jeep, and the keys will be in the gas door. The girls will need to drive the car to the Minneapolis airport, return the car and catch a flight back east to Lexa’s pack.

Once we deliver the girls, we are to report to guard duty on the northwest border by eleven. The only thing we were told was to make sure a small section of the border was clear and to look the other way. That seems simple enough.

I made sure Maliah had everything she needed for the journey. Our father did not care in the least that she was leaving. I put her bag in the trunk and we drove over to Rafe and Lexa’s house to pick them up. Once we have both of them loaded in the car, we head out toward the parking lot. When we arrived at the lot, I went out to help them with their bags but I froze. My wolf, Miles, perks up. He smells something intoxicating but it's faint. Miles starts whining and wants to follow the scent, but I stop him. We need to see Maliah off and get back, then we can figure out what that scent is.

I hug Maliah goodbye and Rafe says goodbye to his mate. Once they are in their vehicle and pull out, so do we, heading back toward the pack. We are back in the pack with a little time to spare. We decided to just let our wolves run and play in the reserve before heading toward the border. We relieve the other guards at eleven and run the border before rounding back towards where we started. When we came up to the designated strip, I smelled that intoxicating smell again. My head swings in the direction of the smell but I cannot make out anything. Miles starts yelling in my head, “Mate!!” over and over again. He wants to run towards the smell but I have to force him again to stop. “Why mate not smell us?” Miles asks.

“I don’t know buddy, maybe she hasn’t gotten her wolf yet. Or maybe she just doesn’t smell us. We will figure this out. Right now, though, we have to stay on task.”

Miles whimpers but accepts that answer and when Rafe’s wolf, Rocky, bumps me, I follow him. We stop not far away and look back. As we look, we see two figures crossing the border. One is definitely a male but the other is a petite female. As they ran, I caught a strand of blond hair flying out of her hoodie. I have only known one female wolf to have blond hair like that, Bella. But it can’t be, she died all those years ago during the attack. My father kept telling me she was dead. There were so many bodies and the building was completely destroyed. It would have been impossible to survive. My father never showed me her body. Could she have survived? My brain is all over the place and I am determined to find out. As I start to move in the way they went, Rafe shifts back. “Where are you going? What just happened?”

I froze and forced myself not to follow her. Once I shifted back, I looked at Rafe. “Did you see her?”

He looks at me weirdly and shakes his head, “no, I was not facing that direction and by the time I looked all I saw was their backs. Why, what’s wrong?”

I sigh, deciding if I should tell him what I think I just saw. “She’s my mate… I also think she might have been Bella.”