Chapter 99: Chapter 98

Katie “Are you sure you're okay?” Quinn asked again.

I'd already told her yes about a dozen times.

‘dam. You “lam. You don’t need to keep asking,” | reassured her.

After they nearly killed each other, Mason finally told me that Xander was his brother.

Talk about a f ucking bomb drop.

When | asked if he and Asher knew anything about the Constantine Pack, he’d somehow left out that little detail.

But | guess | understood why. They obviously didn’t get along.

Once Mason got me home safely, Quinn came over to keep me company while he dealt with the and Zane situation.

Xander For the past two hours, she’d been quietly staring off into space, then glancing over at me every few minutes and asking if | was good.

Now that Stella was down for her nap, Quinn's weirdness was getting to me.

“What about you?” | asked.

at She looked up at me again, a confused expression on her face.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You've been acting very...distracted ever since you came over.”

Quinn sighed. “I know you think Mason is really great with Stella, but I’m just worried...”

She trailed off and cleared her throat.

“I'm worried you think he’s Stella’s dad. And | can tell you for sure that he’s not.”

A twinge of annoyance flitted through me.

“Quinn, I’m not stu pid,” | said in a huff. “Plus, it would be super f ucking weird if Mason knew that Stella was his child and didn’t say anything to me about it.”

Realistically, | knew this.

But the hopeful (or maybe extremely st upid) part of me wanted to believe that Mason somehow was Stella’s father.

They got along so well. And he and 1 did, too.

After all, Mason was my...

What would | even call him? My boyfriend?

liked him, but we hadn’t even kissed.

G ods, this was way too complicated.

“It's just...l mean...are you sure you've never met Xander before?” Quinn asked.

| co cked my eyebrow.

“Xander? Before today, | didn’t even know his name.”

Quinn bit her lip.

“Xander looks so much like Mason, and you always say Stella looks like Mason, so if Mason’s not the dad then-”

“Oh please, Quinn. Don’t even go there,” | scoffed. “He’s an Alpha. And | have zero memory of ever meeting him or his Beta before.”

| took my hair down and then threw it back up into a messy bun.

| was suddenly restless and needed something to do with my hands.

Because the truth was, my wolf did act like she’d known Xander and Zane.

“You can trust them,” she’d said.

But Lily was all over the place ever since I'd shifted after Stella’s birth.

I'd barely heard a peep from her in the three-odd months | was pregnant, and now she seemed to awaken at the strangest times with the strangest thoughts.

Right now, | wasn’t sure she could be trusted.

Xander “What the f uck was that?” | roared, pacing the length of my and Zane’s hotel room that evening.

We'd come to Stillwood to find Mason, and instead our heads had been totally f ucked by some random woman and her baby.

An incredibly s exy woman named Katie whose scent was nothing like I'd ever experienced before.... Zane blew out a big breath and shook his head.

“No f ucking clue.” His eyebrows knitted together. “Blade’s never had a reaction like that to anyone, not ever...”

He trailed off, but | knew what he was going to say.

Alice.

Our mate, the woman we'd loved.

| thought back to our early days with her.

She was beautiful, fun, and seemed like someone who would make a great partner.

But had | felt that instant, all-encompassing need to have her?

We were so young, who could really say?

And besides, all that was a lie anyway..

Maybe we were still just hurt from her betrayal.

Maybe Hunter was acting out of spite, latching onto the first truly gorgeous woman we’d seen since all this horrible shi t had gone down.

was.

Or maybe there really was something special about Katie.

Suddenly, the entire reason we were here had taken a backseat to figuring out who this mysterious Katie And why were our wolves practically tearing out of us to get to her?