Chapter 100

Mira

“She said his name was Malachi, though she didn’t know if it was his real name.”

“Malachi means falcon,” I said, in a trance. I shook out of it. “How can it be him?”

I was in shock, outraged, angry, and sad. An emotional molotov cocktail, ready to explode if I came into contact with a hard surface.

“I don’t know,” Dominic answered. “It seems like a cosmic coincidence, but I don’t really believe in it. The universe is vast, but the world is small.”

I sat with that, agreeing that too many of the things happening around us seemed to be connected for me not to believe this part of the tale.

The man in the glasses, the one who had kidnapped me and Rae and was holding onto Julian, was the same man responsible for the death of Dominic’s mother. It was so absurd that it made perfect sense.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said again. “Are you hungry?”

I was, so we salvaged the meal he’d been preparing and ate standing up in the kitchen.

“We’re still trying to track the group after they left the bar the night, but nothing has turned up yet,” he said, disappointment in his voice. “I would guess they can be very persuasive in keeping locals quiet, but we’ll find them somehow.”

“We can’t do anything without a proper plan,” I said. “They’ve outmaneuvered us before, and we risk losing Julian for good if they know we’re coming.”

“Exactly, and we’ll need to combine our strength with the other Packs as well,” Dominic added, “create a web to trap them.”

We fell into a silence while our thoughts whirred around in our heads. I remembered the card I had received on the day of the wedding, presumably this same man. The thought came to me that perhaps I should reach out to him, arrange a meeting. But I knew it would seem too dangerous so I keep the thought to myself, for now.

A buzzing somewhere brought us both out of our reveries and back into the room. Dominic’s phone was on the counter under an oven mitt, and someone was calling him. It was getting late, and an initial fear crept in at who could be trying to reach him. We saw the screen at the same time.

It was Celeste.

He froze, the oven mitt hovering above his phone, unsure what to do. He looked at me, and must have easily read how I felt about his ex calling him late at night. I hadn’t told him about her visit to the hospital, but I wondered if she was calling about that.

Or maybe to continue whatever they were discussing ‘the other day.’

I could feel the jealousy on my face, and I brought my eyes to him. With a nod, he pressed the button to ignore the call, then turned off his phone.

“She can wait until morning,” he said, trying to brush it off.

“She came to the hospital today,” I said quickly, needing to get it off my chest, “with Lucian, for Tessa. She tried to get me to push her weird pseudo-pharmaceutical remedies on my patients.”

“That’s…odd,” he responded, seeming uneasy.

“I agree,” I said, “and obviously, ethically, I cannot promote something just because a friend of the Alpha wants me to.”

“Obviously,” he said, fully on board, “I’m sorry that she did that. I hope she didn’t seem to think she could get special treatment just because of our past.”

“I’m not sure,” I said, my voice sharp, “but she made sure to mention that she was spending time with you the other day.”

His face froze, and I saw a flash of guilt in his eyes.

“Yes,” he said, holding some breath, “we went for a walk in the woods. She’s been trying to recollect her kidnapping, though it might help learn more about the Rogue and their tactics.”

“And?”

“And,” he continued with my goading, “it ended up being a terrible idea. She nearly had a full panic attack in the middle of the woods.”

“And?”

“And, I tried to calm her down.”

I could tell there was more, because he suddenly wouldn’t look at me. “Dominic,” I said, needing to dive in the deep end, “did something happen between you too.”

“Yes,” he said, sighing. “She kissed me.”

My heart stopped, and then chugged back to life. I felt cold all over, and felt my head nodding like a bobblehead doll.

“Oh.”

He was holding me now, which turned out to be a good thing between my knees felt weak.

“She was out of her mind, it was a mistake, and we both said so,” he confessed and defended. “It was over before it began, and I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I was a coward, and I am ashamed.”

I kept looking at him, and it seemed like I was wearing someone else’s prescription glasses. But then it passed, and there he was again. My Mate, the man who saved me after I saved him. And while an old me might've let my pride lead me, I chose to listen to my heart instead.

“Alright.”

“Alright?” He seemed so surprised. “Mira, aren’t you angry with me?”

“I don’t think so, no,” I said, searching deep. “Should I be?”

“Well, no,” he said, “I guess not.”

“I think I’d like to go to bed.”

I spent most of the night tossing and turning, pressing up against Dominic then trying to get as far away from him as possible. The spider web in my mind was spinning and weaving all the paths of my life together. I woke up exhausted.

Thankfully the next few days at the hospital were quiet, and I could afford to spend my downtime figuring out what next moves should be made on our hunt for the Rogues. Dominic started picking me up again, and we chose to walk home so we could get some fresh air and visit with community members along the way.

We made it through our first week of marriage, and were settling into a rhythm that suited us. It was not perfect, nothing ever can be, but it was effortless to go through our days together.

One afternoon, I ran into a patient of mine in the waiting room of the trial lab.

“Corinna,” I said, smiling at her, “I didn’t have you on my schedule for today. Is everything alright?”

“Oh yes, Doctor, I’m just fine!” she resounded, rising to shake my hand. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I’m just here to start the new drug trial.”

My face fell.

“What new drug trial?”

“I thought you would know, I saw your name on the sheet backing the project,” she told me, confused and slightly concerned.

“Can I see that sheet?”

She pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket, and sure enough there was my name in the bottom corner. It felt like I had my identity stolen, even though it was just the letters of my name typed out on the paper.

“I didn’t sign off on this,” I told Corinna quickly. “Please, before you do anything, just wait for me, okay?”

She shrugged. “Will I still get my five hundred dollars?”

My eyes went wide. Who was promising all that money to gullible patients?

I went to the desk at the lab, flashing my badge as if anyone in the hospital didn’t already know who I was.

“I need to know which doctor coordinated this ‘trial,’ now.”

The young man at the desk looked scared, but quickly pulled up a document on his computer.

“It looks like it wasn’t a doctor,” his voice cracked as he spoke, “it was a woman named Celeste.”