The Alpha's Prey [Alpha-series (I)]

Chapter 19

He thought he would die, I realized in shock, my heart aching for my mate, for the shattered men he had been before we met. Because he couldn’t find me, he thought he would soon turn Rogue and had to be killed.

This added a completely new perspective to the whole turning-me-without-my-consent-thing.

I searched for you for so long and then suddenly finding my mate like this … It was overwhelming, to say the least.

Sure, he had acted like a testosterone-driven madman back then – but in all honesty, who wouldn’t have in this situation?

Sometimes, words just weren’t enough to describe how we felt, so I did the only thing that I could: I snuggled my head against his shoulder and draped my right arm over his hard chest. Caleb responded by pulling me even closer to him, one hand tightly wrapped around my shoulders while his other one gently caressed the arm that lay on his chest, his head softly resting on top of mine. We lay like this a long, long time, just the two of us and a shared silence that held a million unspoken feelings.

“I am glad you were alright”, he eventually rasped. “All these years that I searched for you, I thought of reasons why I couldn’t find you. I feared you could be suffering, that you could be sick, your family could treat you badly or something else could have happened to you, something horrible. But you were fine, and I thank the goddess for that.”

He pressed a soft kiss to my forehead.

“At least one of us can cook now”, I dryly stated, trying to ease the mood.

It worked. Caleb let out a hearty laugh, undoubtedly remembering the last – and only – time I tried to cook him something. Let’s just say the eggs didn’t make it, and our cupboards showed some severe burn marks for a couple of days until we had found the time to buy paint and fixed it. Now I was eyed suspiciously whenever I went into the kitchen on my own.

“Always happy to be of service to you, milady.”

“There you go”, I said while handing Caleb his painfully old-fashioned flip-phone back. “Finally, you have a decent background! I can’t believe you never changed it before …”

He took a good look at the photo of the two of us on top of the Met Museum that would greet him from now on whenever he opened his phone before putting it away again. I loved the shot. It showed Caleb back hugging me while the beautiful skyline of New York stretched out behind us. Both of us had a love drunken and genuinely happy smile on our face. It was one of these rare pictures taken at exactly the right moment, giving off a natural warm vibe.

Caleb shrugged.

“I only own that thing for business purposes. I don’t intend to spend any more time with it than necessary, so I simply never bothered.”

I still had a hard time accepting that werewolves weren’t exactly keen on following up with the latest human technologies, but there was no point in arguing with him now about his antiquated outlook on things. So, I bit back the snappy comment that was on the tip of my tongue and instead leaned my head back against his shoulder, enjoying the beautiful sunny sky above us. Even though it was already late September the temperature was well beyond twenty degrees these days. The summer was saying goodbye in a grand fashion this year.

After sleeping in and then having brunch with some old friends of mine, we had spent the day exploring the touristic hot spots of the city: times square, central park, the statue of liberty, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Brooklyn Bridge – the whole nine yards. Now we sat on a bench on the Brooklyn promenade, taking a small breather.