The Designated Mate novel Chapter 76

"Well, how about you show us where you work first? I'd love to get to know more about you," I said with a more than friendly smile. The action made me sick to my stomach, but I pushed through. This was for Knox. His face lost it's joyfulness as an edge of unease took over.

"I don't think that's such a great idea. I don't have a very pleasant job in the pack," he muttered.

"Well, just walk us by it then! I'm sure it'll serve for a great story of how you ended up there," Grace supplied, knowing how important this was. My hunch could be wrong, but my nose didn't lie; neither did my pacing wolf inside my head. Once whiff of the scent surrounding this guy and she was at attention.

"Alright, but this tour is between the three of us," he warned playfully before setting off in the opposite direction we'd been walking.

Poppy's POV

I was more than shocked when Travis only walked us about fifteen minutes away from the pack house. Knox's uncle either doesn't care about his members' safety, or he's overly cocky about his security. The building didn't look like anything special. Had I been forced to pick it out of a line-up amongst other typical pack prisons, I would've failed. I was, however, thanking my lucky stars that we'd just so happened to meet a guy who was probably the only easily-manipulated pack prison worker. If this truly was where Knox's parents were being held, this was huge.

I committed the building to memory before closing my eyes and portraying the image to Knox through our bond. I wasn't sure if he would see what I was trying to share clearly because of the distance, but I was praying he could.

"So, what is it you do here? It doesn't look like much of anything!" I said dramatically, internally cringing from how awful of an actress I was. Travis just laughed before nodding in agreement.

"Oh, C'mon," I playfully pouted, "you can tell me. It'll be our little secret," I whispered while leaning towards him, waving my hand behind my back in a gesture for Grace to move a little ways away so the moment between Travis and me felt more intimate for him. I knew she understood what I was doing when I saw her disappear from my periphery. Travis looked conflicted as his gaze ping-ponged back and forth between my best puppy dog eyes and the building.

"Alright, but this has to stay between us," he insisted as a giddy smile broke out on his face. I nodded enthusiastically, placing my hand on his forearm for further reassurance.

"We've got two...criminals locked up here. They wronged Alpha Carmichael years ago and he'd been looking for them ever since. Turns out, they'd been hiding around the woods near our border for some time now. We ambushed them and brought them in - they never saw the attack coming!" he rushed out through a whisper, excitement oozing from his tone. I felt sick to my stomach at the words ambush and attack. I had to bite the inside of my lip so hard it bled to keep from vomiting. I mentally slapped myself out of the funk before Travis noticed.

"That's so cool!" I whispered back, though it sounded half-hearted to my ears. "Well, why don't you show us the way back to the pack house? This has been a lot of fun, but the walk really tired me out after all the running we did last night, so I could really use a nap," I said, not lying for once. I was exhausted, but it wasn't from running; more likely from exerting all my energy into keeping myself calm, collected, and in character this entire time.