The One 17
Chapter 17: More Questions
Hunter
I watch as my mate stares at me in disbelief. I’m beyond thrilled that she’s at least talking to me.
She no longer looks like she’s ready to run at any minute. It seems as if she’s truly interested in
what I’m saying.
I’m hoping that I’ve cleared up whatever memory she has of me from the night of her sister’s
birthday. Looking at it from her perspective, it may have looked like I was watching her possessively.
‘We probably were. I was pulled to her even then,’ Shaw says, and I can feel him ming himself.
‘Neither of us knew. How could we. But we’re here now. We need to make this work, make her see
that we mean it.’
“Did you have any other questions for me?” I ask her.
She shakes her head, and I see a ghost of a smile before she answers. “No, but I reserve the right
to change my mind.”
“I was serious about you asking me anything. I will never lie to you. I will share everything with you,
my mate.”
I see her frowning again. Hopefully, it’s good that I’m surprising her. I really do mean what I’m
saying.
“Can I ask you my questions now?” I ask.
She nods, looking hesitant.
“Where did you go?” I ask. While I didn’t know she was my mate, I’ve often thought of Sophie over
the past two years, wondering if she was safe, if she had been captured.
“I found a human town. It’s a small ce, in an area with a bunch of cattle ranchers.”
I raise my eyebrow at that. Cattle ranchers don’t think much of wolves running around their areas.
It’s actually a very smart and probably one of the safest choices she could have made to settle
down.
“How did you survive?”
“I got a job at a diner as a waitress. Sometimes, lone wolves. would travel through, and they’d all
ask if I was okay,
recognizing that I was a juvenile. But they’d continue on their way, and I stayed.”
“What happened that you finally left? You didn’t go straight home, so it’s not that,” I say and now I
understand the conversation between Sophie and Penny earlier. Penny knew that Sophie’s pack
was close by. That’s what she meant when she said it must be hard to be this close.
“Some of the she-wolves on the run starteding through the area. The Alphas and other ranked
wolves eventually followed. On the night I left, I saw a woman captured, being mated in front of the
Alpha’s pack members. I had run back to my apartment and seen another group of ranked wolves
at the diner. I knew they’d catch my scent and find me. Hedda and I ran with just a small bag, but
thest bus of the night wasn’t leaving for another hour, and I knew I didn’t have that much
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288 Vouchers
time. I ran to the next closest bus station and hopped a bus there. At the first stop, I got off and
asked the driver where the next closest bus station was. I wanted to make it hard for the hunters to
find me. He seemed to realize that I needed to get away quickly and he suggested the train. You
don’t have to pay for the train, you find an empty car and you jump into it, or at least, that’s what I
did.”
Her eyes have gone unfocused as she remembers that night. Her jaw has tightened, and no tears
have spilled over, but I can smell the saltiness of them, along with the heightened fear that the
memories are bringing to her.
I desperately want tofort her, pull her into my arms and hold her, but I know that’s not an option.
Not yet at least.
“When I jumped in the car, there was another girl there, another she-wolf running from the iming
process,” she says.
I nod. “Penny, right?” I ask and her head snaps up to me.
“How do you know that?” she asks, and her body tenses as if she’s ready to flee again.
I put up my hands. “I was waiting for you to return to the space inside the mountain, but I could hear
the two of you talking. I heard you call her Penny.”
I watch as she rxes. She scrubs her hands over her face. “Penny was there. She’s an underaged
G**a and unlike me, she hadn’t found a ce to settle. She’d been running and apparently word of
your little food pantry is making the rounds.”
“Food pantry?”
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She shrugs. “It’s free food, right?”
“I guess,” I say, chuckling.
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She looks down at her hands again. “That’s a good thing that you do. I didn’t know if we could trust
it. I was actually thinking, or hoping really, that it was my family who was doing it.”
“They can’t. The unmated Alphas still watch your parents all the time.”
She growls at that. “F**king vultures,” she says, and I raise my eyebrow at her.
“What?” she asks, frowning at me.
“Suchnguage, Little Sophie Meyers,” I say, smiling at her.
“I told you, that little girl is gone.”
“Yes she is, and in her ce is a beautiful woman, striking really You were beautiful when I met you
two years ago, but now…. you’re breathtaking.”
“Back to using your pretty words, Alpha?” she asks, but I can see her blush, even though she tries
to hide it.
“Call me Hunter, and as I said before, they aren’t just pretty words, they are words from my heart.” I
shrug. “Maybe it’s the mate bond. I don’t know and I don’t care. I just know that you are the most
beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”
I can tell she doesn’t know how to respond to what I’ve said, and an ufortable silence begins
to weigh heavily between
us.
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“When’s thest time you ate?” I ask her, not wanting her to leave. I quickly nce over her body,This content ? 2024 N?velDrama.Org.
seeing that even though she’s been settled and in one ce, she’s still much too thin.
“Penny shared some of the food with me,” she says.
I frown. “You make it sound like it was hers and not yours. It was meant for everyone.”
“She and I had agreed to go our separate ways after arriving here. She was hungrier than I was, so
I told her she could eat and leave first, and I’d stay for the next day’s meal. But there was a lot of
food and she practically fell into a fooda, she ate so much.”
That makes me chuckle. “I’m d there’s enough food. I’ll make sure Kinsley knows that she’s
doing a good job.”
Of course, that reminds me that today is my day to leave food. “Would you be willing to go back to
the hideout with me?” I ask
her.
She narrows her eyes at me. “Why?”
“First, because it will be dark soon and you’ll be safe there. Second, because my Beta female is at
the store today, and I was supposed to bring the food. But Shaw was too worried about you, and we
left without thinking about food. Of course, you’re always wee toe back to my pack with
me…”
I break off as she begins emphatically shaking her head, no.
“I didn’t think so. So, rather than you sleeping out here on your own, I can feel safe leaving you if
you are there. You have some clothes there and then when Ie back, I’ll bring food for us
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Chapter 17: More Questions
288 Mouchen
and we can continue talking,” I tell her.
“What else is there for us to talk about?”
“I’d like to tell you about what my pack is like, what your life could be like if you ept me as your
mate.”
“Like what?” she asks me.
Rather than answer, I set aside the branch I had ced over myp. My erection is mostly gone
now, so hopefully I won’t scare her. I stand and reach out my hand to her.
“Come with me. I don’t mind killing to protect you, but if I can avoid a bl**dy fight, I’d prefer it. You’re
too vulnerable out here and Shaw and I won’t befortable until we have you tucked away for the
evening.”
She looks at my hand, then up at me. Tentatively, she reaches out. Her hand is cold, and I help pull
her to her feet. She trips over the bushes that were covering her nakedness and stumbles into my
body. I catch her easily, my arm wrapping around her waist as I look down into her pretty green
eyes. The nearly gone erection springs back to life.
Whether it’s the surprise at falling into me, or the feeling of the tingles that just whipped across my
body and I’m sure hers as well, her eyes go a bit ssy, she licks her lips, and she leans into me.
“Sophie, you need to stop looking at me like that. If you don’t, I’ m going to kiss you.”