Damiano

"--Lastly, the Trinity packs will be working together, meaning that Alpha Damison, Alpha Rivera, Mr. Ethan Damison and Ms. Romano will be coordinating with each other," said the Council Head, naming the people we were supposed to be coordinating with.

"Oh, hell no!" I muttered internally.

Don't get me wrong, I was as excited as anyone would be at the offer of being teamed up with their mate. In fact, when I saw her today after all these years, a smile automatically crept up my face. She was happy, she was savage and she was a badass. It was beyond hot! And the fact that her gaze didn't deflect from my direction for even a second, made me feel so special! I didn't want to change a single thing about her which was exactly why I had decided to stay away from her in the first place, something that wasn't going to be possible now that we had been asked to coordinate with each other.

"Oh come on," I chastised myself, "are you honestly going to risk the lives of all those innocent supernaturals who are potentially in lethal danger, simply cause you can't handle being in the same room as your mate?"

"Suck it up, man!" I told myself, "how hard can it be? Just assume a detached attitude with her and everything's gonna be fine. Shouldn't be a difficult thing to do." Repeating this to myself, I walked towards where she stood with Alpha Damison and his brother.

As I walked towards them, I tried my hardest to control my amusement at Alpha Damison's excitement at the knowledge of Shaayna having found her mate as well as my urge to cringe once he realized that I was the said mate. Keeping a neutral expression, I approached them before introducing myself.

"I'm Alpha Rivera," I said in a professional tone.

"Shaayna Romano," my mate replied, her tone mimicking mine, nodding her head in acknowledgement.

Clearing my throat, I moved on to greet the Damison brothers.

"So…." began Alpha Damison, "how do we go about doing this?"

"The first thing that we need to do is look into the places where these people went missing from," said Shaayna, "let's locate the places in our respective territories and meet up tomorrow to see if there are any common areas. Suits everyone?"

"Tomorrow's fine by us but I feel like the four of us having a discussion together is going to arouse quite a lot of suspicion and the council wants us to keep it on the low." I reminded.

"We could meet in my office," suggested Shaayna, "it's in the human territory so it won't look quite as odd."

"We could do that," replied Alpha Damison.

"So, it's settled then," I said, "we'll meet at Ms. Romano's office tomorrow. Does 1pm sound good?"

"Fine by me," replied Shaayna.

"I'll text you the address," she said, saving my number on her phone before excusing herself to go and talk to the others present in the hall.

"If you hurt her, Alpha Rivera, I will personally rip you apart," said Alpha Damison, dropping all pretenses of politeness once Shaayna was out of hearing range. I could smell the waves of anger roll off of him, the cooperating and professional attitude diminishing with every passing second.

"I don't understand what you're trying to imply," I said, trying to play it off.

"Oh, drop the act, Rivera!" he said exasperatedly, "You know exactly what I'm talking about. I know that Shaayna and you are…." he paused for a second, cringing as he said it, "mates."

"Oh, trust me, I intend on staying as far away from her as I possibly can. I do not want to have a mate, let alone be mated to someone belonging to the enemy pack. As far as hurting her is concerned, as long as she doesn't try shit with me, there won't be any trouble. I assure you, Alpha Damison," I said, "my intentions are to simply find out who's kidnapping supernaturals from our packs and ensure that they no longer pose a threat to my pack. So, let's keep our personal relations out of this and work towards our common goal, that is, ensuring the safety of our packs. The sooner that this is over, the sooner we can get rid of each other."

Alpha Damison nodded stiffly. "This is for the best," he murmured under his breath.

I walked away from the hall and towards my car, the tears that I had held back, streaming down my eyes. I hadn't intended for the words to come out so harsh. I wanted to tell Alpha Damison that I could never dream of hurting her, that I would rather die than harm her in any way but revealing my emotions had always cost me and I wasn't going to let that happen anytime soon.

"You've got to stay strong," I told myself, wiping my tears as I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror, "she's better off without you. Conceal your emotions. Emotions are for the weak…." I chanted over and over again to myself until my eyes had dried up. Wearing my shades, I drove out of the council premises and towards my pack.

As I sat in my home office, noting down the areas where the disappearances had occurred in my pack, I heard a pitter patter of footsteps before the door to my office burst open, revealing Claire, a backpack on her shoulders, bringing an instant smile to my face. When I had become her legal guardian three years ago, we weren't too close. I was a closed- off twenty-three-year-old who had absolutely no idea on how to raise a child and she was a two-year-old who had just lost the only parent she had ever known. But with time, she had weaseled her way into my heart and I had matured into a father figure for her.

"Dee, am I ugly?" she asked me, a sad look on her face.

"Of course not, honey," I answered, a little taken aback that she would have such a thought, "what made you think that?"

"My tooth fell," she said, stretching her palm to show me a tooth that had fallen off, "Tim laughed and told me I looked weird."

Of course, it was Tim. He was always picking on her. It was about time that I took some action against him. But before I did that, I needed to comfort Claire.

"Honey," I said, bending onto my knees, "you'll always be the most beautiful girl in the world. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, okay? Besides, the teeth that you lose now, will get replaced by stronger ones. It's a part of growing up, it means that you're getting stronger."

"Strong like mommy and you?" she asked me curiously.

"Yes," I laughed in response, "now, let's get some ice cream to celebrate you losing your first tooth."

"Okay," she replied, her sadness long forgotten as she handed me the tooth and I wrapped it in a handkerchief before stuffing it into my pocket.

Having tucked in Claire, I entered to my own room. "She's probably forgotten about me," I said to myself as I checked my phone for the nth time that night, "or maybe she's busy," I consoled myself as I kept my phone on the nightstand before going to sleep. My phone pinged with a notification as I enthusiastically sat up, excited to have received a message from her. Except, it wasn't her who had texted me. It was my beta, informing me about the training schedules of the warriors of our pack. Acknowledging his message, I slumped onto the bed, keeping my phone aside as I accepted the truth that I was trying to avoid. Shaayna had forgotten about me.

Yet, as sleep almost consumed me, my phone lit up with multiple notifications.

Unknown: Alpha Rivera, this is Shaayna Romano.

Unknown: The address of my office is 23 Peyton Street, Seattle.