“Thorne?”
I don’t know what he’s doing here but I’m happy it's him. There’s nothing to fear, not if he’s here. But wasn’t he on patrol? I rub my eyes to make sure it’s him. When he doesn’t vanish, I move. I don’t even think. My wolf takes over just like she did in the meadow and I sprint towards him. I’m not even aware if Thorne moves at all until he sweeps me up in his arms in the middle of my yard.
I wrap my arms around him and hold him tight. “You came back,” I whisper.
“Of course, I did.” Thorne’s arms lift me higher. I turn my face into his neck, nuzzle close to him and he goes on speaking. “I’ll always come back to you.”
Always come back to you.
I don’t think, I act. I wrap my arms around his neck and press my mouth to his. The wind picks up around us, swirling and whipping around us like a mini tornado.
Thorne moans into my mouth. “Hells, I missed you,” he whispers against my mouth.He missed me. He’s not talking about the time he’s been gone, but the time from the meadow until now. I know he is.
“I missed you too,” I confess. There’s more I want to say but my brain feels like it’s turned to mush. There’s no other words now. Just my alpha.
Thorne teases my bottom lip and I don’t hesitate, I open myself up to him. I’m needy and he’s greedy. A match made in heaven. Thorne kisses me slower than he did in the meadows. Then, we were both mindless. Just bodies moving and reacting, driven by our wolves more than anything but now…now there’s something more to it. To us.
He’s tender in the way he holds me, body held flush against his, cradled close like he’s afraid I’ll vanish into thin air. There’s a longing in his touch that I feel in my bones. I understand that feeling, I’ve drowned in it before, so close to sorrow that there’s hardly telling the difference between the aches. Our tongues move against each other, the dance and shape of it a mirror of our bodies.
I’m breathless when we break apart. Dazed more like it. The world feels like it’s been turned upside down. The windstorm we’re in rages on, the limbs of Thorne’s Embrace groan, the sound echoes off the mountain face and rains down around us. It feels like the mountain is alive around us, like the earth is moving, still forming itself into the perfect mountain around us. Thorne carried us while we kiss. The movement was lost on me until he kicks the door to my cottage open and I realize we aren’t in my yard anymore.
The second we cross the threshold he growls. “Where is he?”
He smells Keiran. Hells.
Thorne sets me down on my feet and instantly I want his warmth back.
“It’s not what you think,” I start, fully prepared to defend myself. When Keiran thought he saw another alpha looking my way or that I was lingering near the Enforcers for too long during my chores he wasn’t shy about showing his displeasure. Those were the few times he came close to interacting with me in front of everyone. He caught himself of course, but later when it wasjust us, I got an earful. I don’t want Thorne to misunderstand, not like Keiran did all those times.
Thorne steps away from me and starts to search my cottage. “What’s not what I think?” he asks. His voice is low. He’s angry for sure. He walks past me and towards the bathroom.
“I didn’t know he’d come here,” I tell him, tripping over my feet to follow him. Thorne shoves open the bathroom door so hard it bounces on its hinges. I wince at the sound but force myself to keep walking after him. “I promise, I didn’t-”
Thorne turns to look at me. We’re in the hallway, chest to chest. I back up and bounce off the wall behind me with a yelp. Thorne’s face is hard, like it was that day in the meadow when I first met him. This isn’t the alpha that said he’d always come back to me, this is a pissed off Enforcer. Maybe I messed up following him. Right. I’m out of here. I turn to go back towards the living room but he puts out an arm, stopping me. He catches my face when I try to scoot the other way towards my bedroom.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I-I don’t know,” I stammer. I drop my eyes. “I didn’t know he’d be here.”
Thorne’s fingers gentle on my chin and he slides a thumb up along my cheek. “Of course, you didn’t. How could you?”
I look up at him in surprise. “What?”
“This isn’t your fault. He should not be here.”
Oh wow. I didn’t expect him to say…that.
“What?” I whisper.
“This is not your fault,” Thorne repeats himself. “You know that, right?” He raises an eyebrow when I don’t answer because of course I don’t know that. It was always my fault with Keiran. I squeeze my hands into fists. Why am I still letting him ruin things for me? Gods. I hate feeling like this. Like I’m going crazy. When is he ever going to be out of my life? Thorne takes a deep breath and I know he’s reading me like a book.Hells.
We’re both silent for a second longer than is comfortable before he asks, “Who is he?”
“My mate,” I say softly, but when both of our wolves growl in protest, I quickly amend my words, “my ex-mate. He rejected me before I left. I mean, that’s why I left Frostclaw. No use for a rejected mate in a pack that doesn’t want her on a good day,” I tell him with a wry smile.
“Fucking fools. You never have to see them again.”
My mouth falls open at his words. I’m shocked again by him when he grabs my hand and leads me back to the couch. “Stay there. I’m going to check the perimeter. Don’t move until I come back,” he orders. Normally, I’d push back at Thorne but this time I do what he says and don’t stop him, even though I’ve been keeping watch for hours. He vanishes down the hallway and a second later I hear the back door open and close.
