Amanda slowly started to hear voices talking around her but was having a hard time opening her eyes. As she continued to take slow breaths, she tried to put the pieces together of what happened. As much as she tried to open her eyes, her head continued to throb. Then she remembered she hit her head and fallen to the ground. She remembered being able to open her eyes for a moment, and she saw Hudson standing over her.
She smiled and breathed out, “Hudson.”
Hudson’s heart filled his chest when he heard his name being said on his mate’s lips.
“How do you think she’s doing?” Tabitha asked as they all sat around Amanda in Ruby’s living room.
Hudson ran his hands through his hair as he shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“She was lucky that you were there, Hudson. Who knows what that monster would have done to her,” Ruby said as she handed Hudson a bottle of water.
Hudson agreed. “He’s playing with her. Somehow, he found out that she was my mate, and he’s taunting me with her.”
He opened the water bottle and drank the whole thing.
“What are we going to do?” Tabitha asked.
“I’ve got to call my dad. I went home to talk to him and told him and my mom that Amanda was my mate. He talked about posting warriors around the campus to keep watch. But I don’t know if that’s even going to help now,” Hudson said and paused before he continued. “The weirdest part was it didn’t smell like the same one I fought with a few days ago. This one smelled different,” Hudson told them.
“Which reminds me, Hudson. I think I know who the Lycan is,” Tabitha spoke out.
Hudson rose quickly from the couch and walked over to where Tabitha was sitting and stood in front of her.
“What?” he snarled at her.
“Whoa, back down. I tried to get a hold of you to tell you, but you refused to answer any of my messages.”
Hudson took a step back and tried to calm down.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. What did you find out?” he asked her in a calmer voice.
Tabitha let out a sigh before she began.
‘When Amanda came back to the dorm yesterday morning, I noticed the smell and asked her about her morning. She told me how she ran into someone named Deak, and he asked her if he could walk with her to the coffee shop and her first class.”
Hudson let out a low growl from his chest.
“Yes, I met him when Amanda came in for her usual. He’s Hungarian. I could smell that he was a shifter, but I couldn’t quite place it.” Ruby chimed in. “he’s definitely a charmer.
Hudson took slow deep breaths as he took in the information they has given him and calm his wolf down at the same time. “He’s a student here at the college, at least that’s what Amanda has been led to believe. I guess she has run into him a few times on campus,” Tabitha continued.
“Tabitha, can you let Marco know about this and see if he can get in touch with Steven so that they can run a background check on this guy? I want to know anything and everything they can find on him.”
“Got it.”
“Hudson?” Ruby said in a calm tone.
Hudson looked over at Ruby who was still sitting near Amanda and kept an eye on her.
“What are you going to tell Amanda when she wakes up?” she asked.
Hudson looked at Amanda as he felt an ache in his chest. He was on his way to the café to apologize for his behavior after class on Monday and ask her if he could on Monday and ask her if he could take her somewhere where they could talk privately. He knew he needed to be honest with her and tell her everything about him. He would be taking a big risk by telling her his secret. But he knew it was best. He wanted her to pick him, but he knew in order to do that, he would have to open up to her and tell her the one thing that could have her running away from him, leaving him broken and alone.
“I need to tell her the truth. It’s the only way she’ll be able to decide whether or not she wants to be with me. I don’t want to trick her. This has to be her choice completely. I guess that’s the one good thing about being human. She doesn’t feel the pull of the mate bond like we do. If she decides to reject me, it won’t wreck her, and she will be able to move on,” he told them.
Tabitha got up and walked over to him.
“Hudson, don’t talk like that. You don’t know how she’s going to react. And if she chooses to not accept you, you’ll still have me and the rest of the pack to support you, just like we always have.”
Ruby nodded in agreement.
Hudson gave them a crooked smile and said, “Thanks. I just wish I wasn’t such an idiot in high school. Even then, I always had a thing for her. But I was too self-absorbed to think that my mate could be human. I didn’t want to fall for her and then have to break it off after finding my mate. So, I pushed her as far away as I could. I broke her over and over again. Every time I was mean to her, it killed me inside. I just didn’t know what else to do. I guess fate has a cruel sense of humor.”
“Hudson, you need to tell her everything you just said to us. It might give you a chance,” Ruby told him.
“I just hope she wakes up soon. I want to look into those hazel eyes for just a moment before I tell her what I truly am, and she looks at me with disgust and not with love.”
Hudson walked over to where Amanda was and crouched down beside her. He took his hand and pushed her hair back from her head before he brushed his lips against her forehead.
“Please, wake up for me. There’s something I have to tell you, and I hope you will be able to see how much I care for you. I’m sorry for everything. Please open your eyes and show me you’re okay,” he whispered to her.
Amanda continued to lay there with her eyes shut. She was trying to keep her breathing calm while her mind went crazy over everything she heard them talk about.
She didn’t know which information to be mad about more. From what she’d gathered, Hudson was a wolf shifter and helped her in the alley. Ruby and Tabitha were shifters too. She couldn’t believe that Tabitha had known Hudson this whole time and had acted as if she’d just met Hudson and Marco. Hudson talks about them being mates and that he actually liked her in high school but treated her horribly just to keep her away from him.
And what the hell was a Lycan?
No, Amanda refused to open her eyes for Hudson because, at the moment, the real world sounded like a nightmare, and she wanted nothing to do with it.
“I think that’s a very wise choice,” Ruby told her.