Ashlynn’s eyes sparkled like chips of broken glass. “Yes, Alpha,” she said through gritted teeth.
Tate sharply tipped his chin toward the door.
She pushed to her feet and stalked out of the room with her head held high. Moments later, he heard the front door slam shut.
Farrell took a seat at the table. “That girl has some nerve. I think you got through to her, though. She heard you loud and clear when you said you’re not interested in rekindling your relationship with her.”
“Agreed,” said Luke. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if she later managed to convince herself that you only said these things in anger. She always seemed so confident that she could change your mind, though I have no clue why.”
Tate sighed. “It was always her biggest weakness.”
“What?” asked Luke.
“She gets tunnel vision when she wants something—doesn’t see anything but the end goal, so she doesn’t properly see the other aspects of the situation.” It was no doubt why she’d tried pursuing a grieving Koby. “She doesn’t acknowledge the hurdles, which means she never manages to overcome them and just doesn’t know when to stop.”
“If she doesn’t learn to get past that, she won’t make a good Alpha for whatever pride she one day leads,” said Luke. “It sure as shit won’t be ours.”
“Too right it won’t.” Tate’s phone began to chime. He fished it out of his pocket and saw that the caller was Deke. Tate answered, “Yeah?”
“Stay calm,” said Deke. “Havana’s fine, but … she was shot outside the shelter just now.”
Tate’s entire body went tight as shock slammed into him. His mind went utterly blank, as if unable to fully process what he’d heard. “What?”
“It was a drive-by shooting,” Deke went on. “We got her inside the shelter. There’s a healer here who fixed her up.”
Tate fisted his hand as panic and fury set in. He let out a stream of vicious curses. “Put her on the phone,” he ordered, needing to hear her voice.
“I can’t, man. She’s out.”
Tate tightened his grip on the cell. “You said she was okay.”
“She is, but she took three bullets—one to the stomach, one to the shoulder, and one to the throat. She lost a lot of blood. She’s sleeping it off in Dawn’s office.”
Three bullets. Tate squeezed his eyes shut and abruptly pushed out of his chair, making it skid backwards. “Fuck.” She could have died. Probably would have choked on her own damn blood if a healer hadn’t been so close. It was a minor miracle that she was alive.
“What’s going on?” asked Luke.
Tate didn’t answer. Didn’t want to say aloud what he’d heard. Didn’t know if he could speak the words without losing it.
His cat hissed and clawed at him, wanting him to move, move, move and get to her. And the internal battle that Tate had been waging against the urge to brand her just … ignited. It became a rampant storm inside him that whirled and whirled and whirled. It then abruptly swept outward, smashing his mental shields into nothing. Like that, a primal knowledge hit him so hard it almost made his knees give out.
He took a shuddering breath as several emotions rose up out of nowhere and thundered through him. Satisfaction. Certainty. Pride. Possessiveness. For months, he’d subconsciously prevented that primal knowledge from sinking in. Right then, he didn’t fight it. He let it take hold. Let himself accept it. Havana Ramos was his true mate.
He understood now why he’d felt so driven to mark her. He’d been right in thinking that it hadn’t been about claiming her. No, not even his subconscious would urge him to force a claiming bite on her. It was something else.
He’d involuntarily buried the realization that she was his true mate, keeping it trapped behind a mental wall. But the day she’d told him it was time that they went their own way, that wall had fractured. And the knowledge that she was his had been battering at the wall ever since—driving him to keep her close by whatever means necessary, even if it meant forcing his brand on her.
Not even the joy he felt at accepting the truth could push the anger from his system. His mate had been shot and, worse, he hadn’t been there for her.
“Seriously, Tate, what’s going on?” Luke persisted.
“Drive-by shooting,” Tate told him, his voice guttural, surprised he could speak at all when fury clogged his airways. “Havana was shot.”
“Mother of fuck,” spat Luke.
Tate clenched his hand tighter around his cell. “Tell me you got the bastard who did it, Deke.”
“Wish I could,” replied the enforcer. “We were more worried about getting Havana help. The bullet that hit her throat nicked an artery. The shelter has cameras; they might have caught a decent glimpse of the shooter.”
Nicked an artery.
Tate’s cat hissed out a long breath. Fuck. He stalked out of the room, intent on reaching her. “I’ll be right there. Don’t leave her side, Deke. You watch her every fucking second, you hear me?”