His Online Mate

Chapter Three

Chapter Three: The Guard Detail

"When a killer is hunting on campus, the safest place in the world is supposed to be behind a locked door. Unless your guard is the Beta you hate."

Prologue: The North Border

Underdog (Robert) POV

The mud in the North Forest was slick with rain and black blood.

My breath came in ragged, burning hitches as I dragged myself behind the hollowed trunk of an ancient oak tree. My left shoulder was shattered, purple-black frost spreading across my skin where the shadow thing had clawed me.

It wasn't a normal wolf. It wasn't human. It was something starved, smelling like crushed hemlock and rot, feeding on raw magical energy.

I have to warn them, I thought, my trembling fingers clutching my cracked gaming device. My screen flickered with the red interface of Runeclash. With the last bit of strength in my hand, I tapped out an encrypted distress ping to our private guild lounge before the screen went completely dark.

A heavy, unnatural cold crept over the clearing. The shadows between the trees coalesced, two glowing violet eyes opening in the dark.

"Vibes... Demon..." I whispered into the freezing rain as the shadow lunged. "Run."

Part I: The Orders

Jess POV

"The campus is on total lockdown as of 06:00," Alpha Miller barked, pacing back and forth across the war-room in the main administrative hall. "The High Council is sending enforcers, but until they get here, security is on us. We have three missing students in forty-eight hours—two wolves, one human. Robert Vance was taken near the North Perimeter last night."

My chest seized. Robert. Underdog.

"We don't know what's hunting out there," Miller continued, his eyes turning amber with stress. "It’s targeting both species. The media is circling, and if that human scholarship girl gets touched, the High Council will strip our pack of the land."

Miller stopped in front of me, pointing a heavy finger at my chest. "Jess. You're my Beta. You are personally assigned to guard Willow. I want you attached to her hip twenty-four seven until this killer is caught. If she moves, you move. Put her in a secure room and don't let her out of your sight."

"Alpha, I should be on the border search party—"

"Robert is gone because someone dropped their guard!" Miller roared, his Alpha voice vibrating the glass windows. "Protect the human, Beta. That is an order."

My jaw throbbed under my skin, but I bowed my head. "Yes, Alpha."

Ten minutes later, I was standing in the dimly lit hallway of the human integration dorms, my heavy boots echoing against the floor. I stood outside Room 402, took a deep breath to settle my wolf, and knocked firmly on the door.

Three clicks of a deadbolt echoed from inside. The door swung open a crack, held by a brass security chain.

Willow peered out. She was wearing an oversized hoodie, her hazel eyes sharp and defensive. The second she saw my face, her expression soured into pure annoyance.

"Oh. It's you," she said, her voice dripping with ice. "If you're here to give me a lecture on pack curfew, save it. I'm locked in, just like the campus alarm said."

"Off the chain, Willow," I said, my voice smooth and authoritative as I held up my Beta clearance badge. "Orders from Alpha Miller. A killer is hunting both wolves and humans on campus. I'm your official guard detail."

"My what?" She blinked, staring at me like I had spoken in ancient Greek. "I don't need a babysitter. Especially not the guy who tried to muscle me in the quad."

"I'm not asking for your permission," I replied, pushing the door inward just enough for her to unlatch the chain. "It's either me staying in your room, or I drag you down to the pack holding cells for your own safety. Pick one."

Willow glared at me for three agonizing seconds before letting out a loud, frustrated sigh. She unhooked the chain and threw the door open, stepping back with her arms crossed tight over her chest.

"Fine. But if you touch my stuff, I'm throwing a chair at your head."

Part II: The Awakening

Jess POV

I stepped into her tiny dorm room, and it instantly felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the space.

In the tight confines of her room, my broad shoulders made her desk and single bed look like dollhouse furniture. I moved toward her window, checking the lock and testing the reinforced frame before turning back to face her.

"The glass is reinforced, but keep the blinds drawn," I instructed, my dark eyes sweeping over her small space.

"I know how windows work," she snapped, leaning against her desk.

She was clearly terrified about Robert, and having me stationed three feet away from her wasn't helping her nerves. Yet, as I settled my tall frame onto the small wooden chair by her door, resting my forearms on my knees, she looked at me with a strange intensity.

"You look like hell," she blurted out before she could stop herself.

I lifted an eyebrow, a faint, cynical half-smile tugging at my lips. "Thanks. You really know how to make a guard feel appreciated."

"I'm serious. You look like you haven't slept in three days." She sat down on the edge of her bed, pulling her knees up to her chest. "Is it true? About Robert Vance?"

My expression hardened, my eyes darkening with a flash of genuine pain. "He's missing. We found his jacket near the North Border. No blood, but... magical resonance. Whatever took him wasn't normal."

Willow’s chest tightened. "He’s my friend," she murmured softly, staring down at her hands. "I mean... I didn't know him well on campus, but he was a good guy."

I looked at her, a flicker of surprise softening my harsh features. "You knew Robert?"

"A little," she lied smoothly. "We... had mutual friends."

She pulled her laptop onto her lap, opening the encrypted regional forums to see if any new information had been leaked about the disappearances.

Suddenly, her laptop chimed with a private notification from a server interface. A global broadcast alert had been sent out to all top-tier guild leaders in our sector.

ADMIN ALERT: Encrypted distress signal received from user 'Underdog'. Coordinates locked near North Sector Ruins. File corrupted.

Her breath hitched sharply. "Oh my God," she whispered out loud.

My head snapped up instantly. "What?"

"Nothing!" she lied quickly, slamming her laptop screen half-shut. "Just... news alerts."

I stood up from my chair in one fluid, intimidating motion, taking two heavy steps toward her bed. "Willow. Show me what's on your screen."

"It's private!"

"There's a killer on this campus targeting students!" I growled, letting my Beta command bleed into the air. I reached down, placing my large hand on the top of her laptop screen, forcing it back open. "If you have information about Robert, you tell me now."

Willow glared up at me, defiance burning hot in her hazel eyes. "It's a distress ping," she whispered, her lips parting as she exhaled a sharp breath. "From a private gaming server. Robert sent a signal before he was taken."

My dark eyes scanned the pixelated interface on her screen. Dark blue graphics. Gold font. The jagged emblem of a dragon's crest in the corner.

Runeclash.

My brain short-circuited. I stared at the dark interface, then down at the username logged into the top corner of her dashboard: DemonBitch.

No. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard it rattled my teeth. No, no, no. Impossible.

I leaned in closer, my chest practically touching her shoulder as I took a sharp, ragged breath. And that’s when the air changed.

The heavy scent of floor wax and rainy night vanished, completely obliterated by a sudden, violent explosion of fragrance radiating straight off her skin.

Wild honey and burnt sugar.

It hit the back of my throat like a shot of liquid fire, flooding my bloodstream, racing down my spine, and lighting every single nerve ending in my body on fire.

In the darkest, quietest basement of my mind, my wolf—the one who had been sullen and nursing a bruised ego ever since yesterday morning—suddenly slammed its paws against my ribs and woke up with a deafening, triumphant roar.

FEMALE! my wolf howled, its voice echoing through my skull so loudly I almost stumbled backward. OUR FEMALE! THE FEISTY ONE! THE ONE WHO HIT US! WE KEEP HER!

Shut up! I screamed back at my wolf internally, my knuckles turning white where I gripped her laptop. She’s a human! She has a boyfriend back home named Mark who wears cardigans!

DO NOT CARE! my wolf snarled back, practically tail-wagging in my head with psychotic joy. SHE IS MATE. CLAIM HER. BITE HER. SHOW HER THE PACK.

My breath hitched audibly in my chest. My pupils dilated until the dark brown of my eyes turned almost completely black. My fangs pricked the inside of my lower lip, throbbing with a desperate, primal urge to lean down, sink my teeth into the soft curve of her neck, and mark her right here on her dorm bed.

She was my fated mate.

The sharp-tongued, hilarious witch who had been my midnight sanctuary for two years... the girl who had taken my hand in text chats when I was stressed... was the exact same human girl who was currently staring up at me with absolute hatred in her eyes.

And the timing couldn't possibly be worse.

A serial killer was hunting wolves and humans on campus. My best friend Robert was bleeding out in the woods somewhere. Alpha Miller had ordered me to guard her. And now, my wolf was demanding I court the girl who would rather throw a chair at my head than give me her phone number.

"What?" Willow asked, her forehead creasing in deep suspicion as she pulled back from my looming chest. "Why are you looking at me like that? You're acting creepy, Beta."

I swallowed hard, forcing my fangs to retract, forcing the golden amber out of my eyes, and forcing my wolf back into its cage—even as it clawed at my chest to get to her.

"Nothing," I rasped out, my voice sounding completely wrecked. I straightened my spine, taking one forced step back to give her space before my wolf lost its mind. "Just... processing."

I looked at her—really looked at her—knowing that the girl who called me DaddyVibes every night at 11:30 PM was sitting two feet away from me, completely oblivious to who I was.

Oh, Sunshine, I thought, a slow, dangerous, possessive heat curling in my gut. You have no idea what you just started.