“Where could she have gone?” I asked.
“Work, probably,” Roman answered. “Humans tend to do that.”
“So, do we wait?”
“Wait?” he scoffed. “Why wait, when I can track her down?” He took one whiff of the air and off he went.
Now, I’m not much of a tracker myself but even I could tell that he was headed in the right direction, because there was this sort of excitement building all around us. Then, finally, it reached its pinnacle in front of a large glass structure. My instincts screamed, ‘Here! Here! Here!’
“Are you sure she’s here?” I asked just to be certain.
“Has my nose ever led us astray in the past?” Roman looked at me, with a look of confidence painted all over his face. One day, that cockiness would bite him in the butt, I was sure. “She’s in that hotel.”
Trusting his word, I started towards it. Without getting too close, I was able to see inside and there she was, sitting behind the desk. “There’s a man speaking with her,” I commented.
“He’s probably just a co-worker or something. Humans tend to form relationships with the people they work with. Sometimes even romances.”
I didn’t like the thought of that. While Jane was far from ours, I still considered her as such because, deep down, I knew she was the one we had been looking for all this time. I had searched endlessly for a mate only to come up empty-handed time and time again. I had started to suspect that she didn’t exist and I was chasing after a phantom. Now, I knew exactly who she was. It only took the decimation of my pack to find her. The world was a cruel place like that.
The man was leaning in rather closely. I feared that he might kiss her and just the thought of it filled me with a jealous rage. I didn’t know who that man was but, already, I didn’t like him.
I stepped forward, about to barge in but Roman held me back. “Your wolf is showing,” he said.
“Huh?”
“Your eyes. Calm down, will you?”
It took me a minute but I was finally able to breathe properly.
“There, that’s better.”
By the time I looked back inside, the man had disappeared, leaving Jane alone. While I had argued that we should leave her be until the threat of our rival pack had been dealt with, now that I saw her again, I knew that such a feat would prove impossible. The call of one’s mate is truly irresistible.
Together, we walked inside.
Jane looked surprised to see us, her jade-colored eyes widening.
“What happened to you guys?” she exclaimed, as she rushed over. “It looks like you were rolling around in the mud all night long.”
“You could say that,” Roman answered.
“And why are you still shirtless?” she demanded of me. “If my boss saw you two, I’m pretty sure I’d be without a job. I mean you’re tracking in dirt and you’re halfway naked.” She said that, like it was a bad thing but I could see her hungry eyes roaming every inch of my exposed skin. I was sure she could feel it too — the call to mate — to explore each other’s bodies and bring new pups into existence.
“We’re travelers of sorts,” Roman explained, “but we lost our backpacks along the way. So, here we are, with nothing but the clothes on our backs.”
“Wait… so you don’t have any money? How the hell are you supposed to survive in the city with no cash?”
“Oh, we’ve got cash. Lucky for us, I managed to keep my wallet in my pants.” Roman reached into his back pocket and removed his wallet. While many wolf packs liked to keep their distance from the humans, we still acknowledged the need to interact with them and having their currency was a big part of that interaction. Since I knew very little about it, I tended to let Roman handle that side of things.
“Okay, so did you come here to book a room?”
“That’s part of the reason,” he grinned. “We also came here to see you.”
Her cheeks reddened. It was something that seemed to happen quite a bit and I liked it. Somehow, it made her appear even more beautiful.
“Alright… so, I’m assuming you guys want separate rooms?”
“No. Same room is fine,” I answered.