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“What the fuck happened in here?” Cole spat as he surveyed the mess all over the floor. Then he looked at the two of us locked in an embrace and frowned. “Would someone like to explain what I missed while I was outside?”
I bit my lip as I gazed at his bare chest and the way the sweats he’d pulled on earlier hugged his body. God, I was so screwed. Here I was, reeling from my first kiss, and now I was ogling Cole as well.
From the way a smug grin briefly lightened his expression, Cole hadn’t missed me blatantly checking him out, but when he saw the bruising around my neck, he looked furious.
“Silas, you better fucking explain why Eva is bruised!”
“It’s fine, I’m OK,” I said, trying to calm things.
“No, it’s not fucking fine!” He vibrated with anger, his gaze flicking between me and Silas.
“Tanner lost his shit but Eva is alright. She defused the situation, and he’s gone. Most likely to run off his aggression in the forest.”
“He better stay away for a fucking long time.” Cole’s fury hadn’t faded one bit and anxiety flared. I didn’t want either of them to kill Tanner.
It wasn’t his fault; it was mine for not keeping my mouth shut. I’d not make that mistake again. Not until he was ready to talk.
Tanner
Snow had been falling for days. Deep drifts obscured the trails I usually followed through the forest, and high above, thick white blankets of snow draped the pine trees. Some branches were so heavily laden they brushed the ground.
The air was crisp and cold and every warm exhale turned into a cloud of steam. My wolf loped along and I let my mind roam. Being in wolf form allowed me to switch off from my tangled emotions. I could take a backseat and lose myself in the physical rather than the emotional.
My wolf was a simple creature. He mostly only felt baser emotions like hunger, rage, and lust. But with Eva, everything was hopelessly confused.
She confused me.
The damn human drove me insane.
The way she flinched if I moved too quickly, shivered if I stood too close or looked at her for a moment too long.
What pissed me off more than anything was the way those expressive blue eyes of hers had melted with what looked a lot like sympathy.
I didn’t want her fucking sympathy.
I didn’t deserve anyone’s sympathy. Not when I was entirely to blame for what had happened to Jessie-Lynn.
The memory of that fateful night would stay with me forever.
14 years ago
“It’s freezing, I need another drink!” Jessie whined, her words slurred.
“You’re such a lightweight, Jessie.” I handed her another bottle of beer and she sucked it down like she always did. With zero thought of the consequences. It was one of the many reasons I loved her - she didn’t care about anything, least of all the fact I was a wolf shifter.
I’d told her the year before and she just shrugged and said, “And?”. The revelation barely made a wrinkle in her day.
Lights twinkled across the valley. It was so pretty, festive and colorful. High above us, the night sky glittered with stars. Christmas was three days away, and this was the last time I’d see Jessie before her family whisked her away to her grandma’s ranch in Wyoming. She wouldn’t be back until after the new year, and by then, school would be starting once again.
We got hardly any time together as it was. My parents didn’t approve of our relationship because she was human, and hers hated me because I wasn’t rich enough, clever enough, or from a good enough family.
They had no clue who I really was. They just judged me based on my appearance and lack of social connections.
I didn’t care. I loved Jessie. Regardless of the barriers in our path, we’d be together forever. She wasn’t my mate, but as far as I was concerned, fated mates were a bullshit concept.
Nobody in our pack, or any other pack that I knew of, had met their fated mate. The elders said it was becoming rarer these days and most couples settled down with each other for more prosaic reasons, such as the benefits of a shared income, family connections, and forging pack alliances.
As the eldest son of one of our Alpha’s most trusted betas, I was being pushed to mate with the daughter of a rival pack’s beta. We’d met a few times, but while she was pretty enough and her wolf had flirted with mine, she wasn’t Jessie.
