“I grew up in Portland mostly. I just decided I wanted a change of pace. I work online mostly, so I don’t have to be in town.”
Her explanations sounded legitimate enough. It wasn’t as if she were going to tell him the real reason she’d come to Fate Mountain. She couldn’t tell him now or ever.
She asked herself again why she had agreed to go out on this date. But every time she looked into Damien’s face, she remembered.
“How long have you lived on Fate Mountain?” she asked.
“I’ve been here since the rest of the Bear Patrol moved here after the Great War. That must’ve been, what? Five years ago?” he said, throwing another piece of bread in his mouth.
“Do you like it here?” she asked.
“I love it. I own my own house down on Elm Street. A four-bedroom with a big backyard. Perfect for raising a family. I even have my own office for all of my tech equipment. I could show you sometime, if you want.”
“That’d be cool,” she said.
She was supposed to be making him hate her, not accepting invitations to go to his house! This date wasn’t going at all according to plan.
How was she supposed to make him hate her? She already liked him way too much. He was too nice, too cute, too charming. She had to blow him off, but she didn’t know if it was even physically possible.
Everything about his warm smile and beautiful eyes was drawing her to him, and she wanted to let him. She imagined what it would feel like to have his big hands on her body.
When he’d led her across the dining room, she could feel the power and strength in his arm. If only she could see this thing through the way a normal person would. But she couldn’t. She wasn’t a normal person. She was hacker and a foster child with a mother who’d gone missing twenty years ago.
Raven was anything but normal. She couldn’t have the kind of life that Damien was suggesting. A life with a four-bedroom house on Elm Street with kids in the family and a man like Tech Bear Paladin as her mate.
Her heart hurt just thinking about everything she couldn’t have. The waiter walked up a moment later and asked if they were ready to order. Raven hadn’t even looked at the menu yet.
“What are the specials?” she asked.
“We have this Keenan special Pacific crab with zesty lemon sauce and potatoes au gratin.”
“I’ll take that. And a glass of Chardonnay,” Raven said, handing the waiter her menu.
“I’ll take the same. And a pint of Fate Mountain lager,” Damien said.
The waiter took their menus then brought them their drinks a few moments later. Raven sipped her Chardonnay, barely able to look at Damien’s gorgeous face. She replayed all of the times they’d played Dragon Lands together. All of the times they’d saved each other in battle. All of the times they’d shared loot. All of the times they’d stayed up late, joking and talking about all the silliness in the world, and how they were above it all.
They had been partners in crime online in the fantasy world. Too bad they couldn’t be that way in real life.
Chapter 5
Damien gazed at Raven across the table, holding back his bear with all of his strength. The petite little goth girl was the cutest thing he or his bear had ever seen in his entire life. Damien had been all around the world and had seen corners of the Internet that most civilized people would never want to see, and he still knew that Raven was the goddamned sexiest woman he’d ever laid eyes on.
Everything in him was roaring and screaming to make her his without another second’s hesitation. He wanted to reach across the table and take her hands in his and ask her to be his wife. He’d scarfed down his meal in record time and sat patiently watching her as she delicately finished hers. When the waiter came to check on them, he ordered them raspberry chocolate torte for dessert and another round of drinks.
He wanted to take her back to his place and claim her and put a baby inside her right now. He didn’t want to waste any time. He knew she was the one.
Raven, the elf rogue he’d been playing Dragon Lands with for seven years—she was it for him. All along, this little woman had been his friend. They’d been through so many things together online. Somehow, deep in his heart, he’d known she was his mate. Even though he’d only known her as an avatar and a voice over chat. She was his fated mate, the one and only woman who would satisfy his bear, his heart, and his soul for the rest of his life.
There was no one else. He wanted her, and he wanted her now. But he could sense a deep hesitation coming from her. Every word she said and every gesture and expression she made seemed as if she was holding something back. When she smiled up at him, he could see the creases in her forehead and the lines around her pretty brown eyes. They told him she was worried about something.
After a shifter claimed his mate, they had an almost psychic connection. But before the claiming, the bond was much weaker. There were only half impressions and flitting images that connected him to her. And somehow, his mate bond to Raven had told him long ago that the elf rogue he played Dragon Lands with was his one.
The waiter brought the raspberry chocolate torte and set it in front of them with another round of drinks. Raven had already downed her Chardonnay and started on her second glass of wine before she took a bite of the dessert.
When she tasted the torte, she groaned, and her eyebrows rose in excitement.
“Oh my God, this is delicious,” she said, chewing the sweet confection.
“Chef Keenan is a genius. He’s well known around these parts.”
“I know his wife, Lily, from the diner,” she said.
“You know Lily?” he asked.
“Doesn’t everyone know Lily?” Raven said with a giggle.
“I suppose most people around here do. She is out at the diner almost every day.”
“So, you being a bear, doesn’t that mean that you’re in tight with the rest of the bears on Fate Mountain?” she asked. “You have a clan or something? Isn’t that what it’s called?”
“Yes, we have a clan. Commander Rollo is my Alpha. And Levi Blackthorn is the Alpha of the Rescue Bears. There are other clans, packs, and prides around Fate Mountain. But the Rescue Bears and Bear Patrol work together a lot, and we’ve become a pretty tight group. In fact, Levi is throwing a big Thanksgiving dinner at the lodge on Thursday. I’d love it if you could come with me and be my date,” he said. “Rollo’s wife, Zoe, really wants everyone to be there.”
He watched her face for a reaction, feeling his heartbeat radiating through his veins, his anxiety growing with every second of silence. He watched her little jaw as she chewed her chocolate torte and waited for her to respond.
“Thanksgiving?” she said hesitantly.
“Did you already have plans?” he asked.
“Well, not really,” she said.
“Do you have family back in Portland?”
“No,” she said, almost too forcefully.
The tone of her voice surprised Damien, and he sat back in his chair for a split second before he was able to gather his thoughts. Clearly, her family was a touchy subject.
“I grew up in foster care,” Raven said, wiping the corners of her mouth after she finished her chocolate torte.
She folded her hands in front of her on the table after pushing away her dessert plate, and she leveled her gaze at Damien, her mouth a straight line.
“So you don’t have family to visit for Thanksgiving?” he said gently.
“No, I don’t,” she said looking away and out the window at the growing darkness over Lake Fate.
“Then you should definitely come with me to the Thanksgiving party. You can meet the rest of the clan. All of the Bear Patrol will be there. So will the Rescue Bears and all the kids. I know Shane is making the turkey. Or something. I think he’s gonna fry it or make a turducken or something like that. I don’t know. Shane is the chef. My thing is eggs and bacon, but he really puts out a great spread for Thanksgiving. You really should come.”
&n
bsp; Damien knew that he was overselling it and he should probably dial back his enthusiasm. But he really couldn’t help it. With his bear growling in his brain, he had to do something to bring Raven closer to him.
He felt as if he were failing with her with every word he spoke. Why was it going so badly? He should feel as if they were bonding and coming closer, but the opposite was happening. He didn’t understand what was going wrong. They’d been friends online for so long, this should be easy. But he knew the stories. Fate had a way of throwing a monkey wrench into the mix and making even the most fated of lovers work for their happy ending.
“I guess I can come with you,” she said. “There’s no real reason I can’t come.”
“It’s settled, then,” he said too abruptly. The waiter came back with the check and slid it onto the table beside Damien’s left hand. He put his credit card into the billfold, and the waiter took it away while Raven sipped the last of her wine.
“I’m glad you’re coming with me,” he said.
“Me too.” Her hard tone betrayed her words. “I didn’t have anything else to do, so it will be better than nothing.”
That wasn’t exactly the response he’d hoped for. But, as she’d said, it was better than nothing. He didn’t understand what was wrong. He knew Raven had always been moody and sarcastic, and that was part of what he loved about her, but this was something else. This was something beyond the attitude he normally got from his elf rogue. Something was wrong, and he was determined to find out what it was.
Chapter 6
Damien walked Raven to her car and stood beside her door expectantly as she unlocked it and pulled the door open. He held the door, looking down at her with his sparkling blue eyes. She knew he wanted to kiss her, and she wanted exactly the same thing. But the thought of having his warm, full lips pressed against hers terrified her.
She couldn’t take it. It was just too much for her right now. She knew that if she let him kiss her, her entire cover would be blown. She’d have to tell him the truth about everything, and then what would happen? She’d probably be thrown in jail, and she’d never find out about her mother. At the end of the day, she wouldn’t have Damien either.
But he didn’t ask if she’d let him. He cupped her cheek gently, his warm skin touching her cold flesh. Not stopping, he leaned in and pressed his lips against hers in a hot rush of passion. Raven let out a low groan as their lips met in the cold night air. On hearing her groan, he wrapped his other arm around her waist and pulled her to him.
The heat of his kiss slid hotly and wetly into her mouth, and she gushed for him. He leaned over her, crushing her body against his hard flesh. She could feel him stiffening against her, and it sent a flood of moisture between her legs. Raven wrapped her arms around her paladin, pulling him closer. She held him until there was no distance between them.
In that moment, with the black sky full of stars overhead and the cold autumn air nipping at her cheeks, she wanted to let herself go, to abandon all worry and all doubt and let herself be lost in the embrace of her mate.
She knew this man. Now she knew his kiss. It was everything she could imagine a perfect kiss could be. And that was why she pushed away and slid into her car. She shoved her key into the ignition, and the seat belt alarm started to go bing, bing, bing. She slid the seat belt over her chest and hooked it. Damien stood above her in the door, looking down at her with confusion in his eyes.
“I’ll see you on Thanksgiving,” she said breathlessly.
She couldn’t get away fast enough. This was all happening too fast, and she knew that if she let herself get too close, she would be swept up in the moment and jeopardize everything. Damien gently closed the door behind her and waved with a smile before he backed away and walked toward his car.
Raven watched him walk. The tight blue jeans he’d worn on the date hugged his strong legs and behind. God, could a man be any sexier? She hated herself for having to drive away. What woman in her right mind drove away into the darkness to be alone when a man like that wanted her? The answer was Raven. And she wasn’t in her right mind. She’d never been in her right mind.
She pulled out of the parking lot and drove back to her building in Fate Mountain Village. Stumbling out of the car in the dark, feeling drunk and disoriented even though she’d only had two glasses of wine. She made her way up the stairs to her apartment. It was cold inside. She had left the heater off, and the entire place felt empty and stale.
She flipped on the thermostat and collapsed on her futon. With her face in her hands, she let out a long, angry growl. She had to know what had happened to her mother. She couldn’t just let it go. All her life, she’d wondered. She was twenty-five years old, and the mystery of her mother’s disappearance had been an obsession for as long as she could remember.
Now she finally had the skills she needed, and she wasn’t going to quit now. She had to hack into the Fate Mountain Police databases again. She had only scratched the surface, and she knew there had to be more information. Not only that, but if she was able to input that information into the random-probability generator, then she knew she could find out what had happened to her mom.
The random-probability generator would give her the most probable circumstances of what had happened. And that was as close as anyone could hope to truth. Something had happened to her mom, and Raven was not going to let her disappearance go unsolved. It was her mission in life, and she wouldn’t let it go. Even if that meant never getting to be with Damien.
Just the thought of it made tears stream down her face, her dark eye makeup smearing, giving her raccoon eyes. She knew she would look frightful if she bothered to look in the mirror.
She just sat on her cold, empty futon and cried her heart out. She cried for the mother who had never gotten to see her grow up and graduate from high school. She cried for the marriage and the family she would never have. She cried for the girl she would never be. She cried for herself and her emptiness. Raven had no idea who she was, and she never would until she knew what had happened to her mom.
She lay down on her futon and pulled her fuzzy fleece blanket up over her shoulders, kicking off her Doc Martens and snuggling down into her pillow. There had to be a way to get out of the date with Damien.
She knew he would want too much from her. He wanted things she could never give to him. She hadn’t been able to be a complete psycho bitch on their first date, and he clearly wasn’t put off by her. She could tell that much from his kiss. He wanted to go to Thanksgiving. Imagine, taking his hacker to Thanksgiving with all of the cop bears on Fate Mountain. She had to get out of it.
As much as she wanted him, now more than ever, she had to let him go. She didn’t want to tell him it was his fault. And she hadn’t been able to be the jerk she’d told herself she should be. Now what was she going to do? Maybe she could just avoid him. Not answer his texts or log on to Dragon Lands.
As the tears dried in her eyes and she wallowed under her blanket in the growing warmth of her little apartment, Raven decided the only way she could ever understand herself and her own life was to push away her fated mate and never ever speak to him again.
Raven woke the next morning feeling worse than ever. But she knew what she needed to do, and she knew how to do it. She picked up her phone and noticed an unread text.
“I’ll be online later.”
Damien would be waiting for her in-game, but she would never show up. Maybe it was the coward’s way out, but it was Raven’s only hope now. She turned off her phone and slid into her computer chair, ready to find more evidence about her mother’s disappearance. She knew so far that her mother had been on Fate Mountain all those years ago.
There had been a brief mention of a missing woman with her mother’s description in a report during that time, but Raven hadn’t been able to dig far enough to get any specific details.
Raven cracked her knuckles. She saw her face in the computer screen, her makeup smudged, her hair a mess. She was still we
aring the same dress she’d worn the night before. But she didn’t care. Now was the time to do or die. She was going to find out what happened to her mom, and then once she had that information, she would decide what to do with the rest of her life.
If someone had done something to her mother, Raven was determined to make them pay. But, first, Raven had to find out what happened. She jiggled her mouse to wake up her computer screen, placed her fingers over the keyboard, and started typing. Lines of code appeared in front of her as she made her way into the back door of the Fate Mountain Police Department’s databases.
She couldn’t afford attachments if she was going to solve this mystery. She had to harden her heart and keep going. It was the only way that women like her ever succeeded in this world. She had to do it on her own. She couldn’t trust anyone. She couldn’t let her guard down for a moment.
She continued typing, the green code filled the black screen, and finally, she broke through the police department’s security systems. It wouldn’t take long before the system was alerted of her presence. She started digging, moving through the files and cases that were filed at the time of her mother’s disappearance.
Further and further she searched, seeking out keywords and descriptions and her mother’s name, Harlow Lucas. One of the few things she knew about her mom—aside from a general description of the woman she hadn’t seen since she was five years old. Raven searched file after file, scanning them quickly until she finally found something.
There it was, her mother’s name. It was in a public disturbance call where no charges were filed. It was way down in the backlogs of data, only scanned in from a hard copy. But there it was. An anonymous caller had called the police about a woman disturbing the peace at Fate Mountain Lodge. Her name was Harlow Lucas.
Raven read the entire report. Police officers were called in. When they arrived, there was no one there. No arrests were made. A worker at the lodge, whose name was not noted, was questioned. But he said she’d left. It was the last known mention of her mother.