Page 16 of How I Met My Mate

Several other men that I recognize from the booths at the market hurry in.

“Is Giselle okay?” one of them calls out. “What happened to her?’

“One of the spoons here was coated in silver, and she picked it up. I need you to glove up and go through every single piece of silverware here,” Cole says, his tone turned grim.

“Look for the Frostbane insignia on the silverware,” I add. Cole gives me an appraising glance, then leads me out of the café.

“Thank God you got me out of there. I wouldn’t want to get attacked by a rabid rat-raccoon,” I say coldly.

“Yeah. About that. We need to talk.”

“You think?”

He puts his arm around me and my traitorous nerves sing with happiness and I fight the urge to lean into his warm, solid strength.

Instead, I shake him off and step away as we walk, scampering to keep up with his long-legged stride.

We reach a metal bench adorned with insignia of wolves sitting on it, and sit down.

“Why are you lying to me?” I demand.

Anguish shines from Cole’s beautiful brown eyes. “I don’t want to hide things from you. I’m in impossible situation here. You know how fragile the peace is between humans and wolves. And you know how humans look at us with suspicion and always assume the worst about us.”

“Not always,” I protest defensively, but his steady stare skewers me.

Okay, yes, I did jump to the conclusion that my friend had been kidnapped by shifters, on very flimsy evidence. Much flimsier than I would have believed if shifters weren’t involved.

“Fine. I did that.”

“Last week,” he reminds me.

“Yes.” I wince at the memory. “I feel differently now that I’ve been here and met people and seen that you’re a group of people who care deeply about your friends and families, and who live just like humans do.”

“And you know how bad it was when humans and shifters were at war. Shifters and their families living in hiding deep in the woods, or hiding the fact that they were shifters. Humans hunting us. Shifters staging revenge raids. Everyone living in fear.”

It was in the 1960s before the Shifter-Human Accord was signed, but still recent enough that I, and everyone else, still feel the echoes of those dark times.

“What does this have to do with what’s happening at the coffee shop?”

He leans back on the bench with a scowl, folding his broad arms across his chest. “I don’t know yet. I’m making headway, but I’m not fully sure.”

The childish sound of laughter rings from down the street, and I watch two little tow-headed boys scrambling up the side of the wooden play structure on the playground.

“Let me help you,” I urge him. “I’m good at investigating. It’s what I do.”

There’s a long, long pause. All of the teasing, adoring humor has vanished from his face, replaced by nothing but pain.

“Here’s the problem. I trust you with my life, Alexis, but this is much bigger than me. This is something that could cause panic in humans, and then humans might start attacking us again, and we would have to defend ourselves, and then the next thing you know, the whole peace treaty is shattered.”

“So basically, you don’t trust me, and I don’t trust you. Not much of a foundation to build a future on.”

The words hang between us, sharp as broken glass.

Cole’s jaw tightens, and the muscle there jumps once before he looks away. His eyes, usually warm and rich as melted chocolate, are shadowed now—haunted. The easy confidence is gone.

My own throat feels tight, my pulse pounding in my ears.

The breeze stirs a lock of hair across my face, and I blink hard, trying to hold it together. He sits beside me, broad shoulders bowed, staring at the ground.