The. Mate Who Marked Me

Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Vampire Hunter

KADE'S POV

The night was supposed to be simple.

I'd come to Ravenhollow for one reason, to finish an investigation that had nothing to do with pack politics or ascension ceremonies. Six months of tracking whispers of vampire activity near the eastern border had led me here, to a pack too busy throwing a birthday celebration to notice the danger creeping along its edges. I'd spent the better part of the evening in the records room beneath the packhouse, going through old territory agreements, looking for any hint that Ravenhollow's leadership had been trading information with the very creatures I'd spent my life hunting.

I found nothing conclusive. Just old paperwork and older grudges. I was already headed for the door, business finished, ready to put this pack and its self-important almost-Alpha behind me, when something stopped me cold.

Help me.

I froze mid-step.

The voice wasn't spoken aloud. It echoed straight through my head, raw and desperate, thick with pain, the kind of plea that didn't belong to a stranger. No one near me had said a word. I glanced down the hallway, half convinced I'd imagined it, my hand still braced against the door.

Then I saw her.

A girl came barreling down the corridor, her whole body trembling, her dress soaked through with something sour smelling, milk or worse. Tears streamed down her face, but it was the emptiness in her eyes that hit me hardest, like something inside her had just been hollowed out and left behind.

She never saw me.

She hit me full force before I could step aside, and I caught her on instinct, my hands closing around her arms to keep her upright before she could hit the floor.

The second my skin touched hers, something detonated through me.

Fire. Recognition. A pull so violent it nearly buckled my knees, the kind of thing I'd heard warriors describe in low voices around campfires and never once believed was real. I'd spent twenty six years certain the bond was a story pack wolves told themselves to make an arranged existence feel like fate.

I was wrong.

I looked down at her, my heart slamming against my ribs hard enough that I was certain she could hear it. She was beautiful even like this, even wrecked, her dark hair plastered to her tear streaked face, her whole body shaking in my grip like she might come apart if I let go.

I'd never seen her before in my life.

And somehow I already knew.

She was mine.

The realization hit like a fist to the chest, knocking something loose in me that I hadn't realized was still standing guard. Twenty six years without a mate. Twenty six years of telling myself it didn't matter, that a man who hunted monsters for a living had no business tying himself to anyone. And now, in the space of one collision in a hallway that reeked of spoiled milk and heartbreak, all of that certainty cracked straight down the middle.

"Are you hurt?" My voice came out lower than I meant it to, rougher, like the words had to fight their way out.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Instead her thoughts poured straight into mine, unfiltered and raw, the kind of bond connection I'd only ever heard described secondhand.

They ruined my dress. They laughed while I cried. He rejected me in front of everyone.

Something in my chest went very still, and then very cold.

Rejected.

I turned toward the crowd still gathered near the doorway, watching, whispering, some of them still laughing behind their hands like this was entertainment instead of cruelty. My jaw clenched hard enough to ache, and the wolf under my skin surged forward, furious and protective in a way I'd never felt over anyone who wasn't pack.

A growl built low in my chest as I locked eyes with the nearest of them. "Get out of my sight." My voice dropped into something darker than I usually allowed myself in front of strangers. "Now, or you'll regret it."

A few of them shifted uneasily, exchanging glances. One girl near the front, blonde and smug, laughed like she hadn't heard me right. "And who exactly are you?"

I took one slow step forward, letting my power bleed into the air around me, the same weight I used on battlefields, on enemy packs, on anyone stupid enough to test how far my patience actually stretched. "You really don't want to know."

Her confidence cracked instantly. I watched the whole group shrink back as my presence pressed down on them, felt rather than seen, the kind of thing that made even seasoned warriors reconsider their next move.

"Last warning," I said, quiet and even, each word deliberate. "If any of you go near her again, I will make sure you regret it for the rest of your very short lives."

Silence.

Then they scattered, all of them, practically tripping over each other to get out of the hallway, shoes squeaking against the polished floor in their rush.

Pathetic.

I turned back toward my mate, already reaching for the right words, something to steady her, something that would make the fear in her eyes ease even a fraction.

She was gone.

My chest tightened as I scanned the empty hall, the doorway she must have slipped through, the rain visible past the open door beyond. I shoved outside after her, searching the grounds, the tree line, my heart pounding in a way I didn't recognize and didn't like.

Nothing. No trace of her anywhere, no scent trail I could follow through the downpour, the rain washing away every sign of which direction she'd run.

I dragged a hand down my face, cursing under my breath, forcing myself to slow down, to think like a hunter instead of a man who'd just found something he didn't know he'd been looking for his whole life.

Who are you, I thought, staring out into the dark, rain soaking through my shirt without my noticing.

Why could I hear you inside my own head.

My hands curled into fists at my sides. Twenty six years of hunting things that didn't deserve mercy, and in one night I'd found the one thing I'd stopped believing I'd ever have.

Jason found me still standing in the doorway ten minutes later, his eyebrows raised at the state of me. "You're soaked. What happened?"

"I found her," I said, before I could decide whether I wanted to explain it yet.

"Found who?"

I didn't answer right away. I just stared out at the rain, at the empty grounds where she'd disappeared, already calculating how long it would take to find a girl I knew nothing about beyond the sound of her voice inside my own head.

"My mate," I said finally.

Jason went very quiet.

I turned back toward him, already moving, already certain of exactly one thing in a night that had upended everything else I thought I knew.

She was my mate.

And I was going to find her.