I grab his pant leg. “No!” I wince when I almost yell and hold my breath, praying that Keiran didn’t just hear that. I look up at him and swallow hard. “I-ah, look, come here,” I whisper and motion for him to lean down. When he leans down towards me I clear my throat. “There’s a man out there looking for me. He’s talking to my grandma and I don’t want him to know I’m leaving. I-I just, if there was a way you could not tell him I’m here?” Ihold up my ticket. “You can punch this now if you want. Just please don’t tell him I’m on the bus.”
The man’s eyes cut to the left. “The big blond fella talking to your grandma?” he asks. “Don’t look like she likes him too much.”
I bite my lip and nod. “Yeah, that’s the one. I’m sorry about all of this. I just want to leave town. That’s all. I swear I don’t want any trouble.”
“He hurt you?”
His question surprises me almost as much as the concern in his eyes does. He genuinely cares. A lump grows in my throat at the driver’s kindness. I don’t know how to answer that to a human I just met so I just shrug and duck my head.
“Something like that,” I mumble.
The man nods and stands. “Right then. Hand over that ticket and go on and take a seat. He won’t be getting on this bus. Go on to the back, the tint is darker there, he won’t be able to see you,” he says and flicks a switch that turns off the overhead interior lights in the bus.
I stand on shaky legs and hand him my ticket. “Thank you. I don’t know how to repay you.”
He waves a hand at me and snags my ticket. “Nothing to it. We gotta look out for each other. The good folks that is. Now go get some rest.”
I almost burst into tears when he says that. No one but Maud has ever looked out for me a day in my life. How is it that humans are already treating me better than the pack I grew up in? Is this how life outside of Frostclaw is?
“We do. You’re right.”
I hurry towards the back when I hear Keiran’s first heavy footstep on the bottom step. I’m halfway down the aisle when I hear the driver say. “Bus is full. No more passengers, sir.”
“It’s not full,” Keiran snaps. “Plenty of seats from where I’m standing.”
I throw myself down into the last seat with my backpack still on and slide down as far as I can go and lean over to get a peak around the edge of the seat in front of me. It’s empty back here which is nice. I use my shifter hearing to tune in to what Keiran and the driver are saying but even with human ears I’d be able to hear on account of all the passengers going silent the second Keiran raises his voice.
“My woman is on this bus. Where is she?”
I gasp. Keiran’s head snaps in my direction and I nearly break my neck getting myself back into the corner to hide.
His woman?What in the ever loving Luna fuck is he talking about?
He’s lost his mind. I know it. I’ve heard of shifters losing their minds in the process of wasting away but that doesn’t make sense when he has Bella. His new bond should be purging the effects of bondrot. I’m the one that should be losing it. He shouldn’t be here right now. Maybe what I’ve studied about bondrot is wrong and a chosen mate doesn’t fix it. What if that’s why Keiran is here now? What if the bondrot is slowly driving him insane? I curl in on myself, will myself to be smaller while I hear Keiran and the bus driver talking.
“Your woman isn’t here. Get off the bus now.” There’s steel in the driver’s voice. My appreciation for him soars. He doesn’t have to do this for me. There’s no reason for him to get in between Keiran and me but here he is, defending a complete stranger. Humans are amazing. The bravest of souls.
“Cordelia!” Keiran thunders and I slide down off my seat and onto the floor. I drop down and wedge myself between the seats and cover my head with my arms. There’s no way I’m getting out of this. He’s going to drag me back to Frostclaw and then what?
“If you were good enough to keep my son coming back to you, then you’re good enough for the rest of the pack.”
Nausea rolls over me like a tidal wave. If Keiran forces me back with him I know exactly what’s going to happen when Alpha Ashford gets his hands on me.
“I’d say your first heat is enough to repay the debt you owe the pack for supporting you all these years, wouldn’t you?”
Oh gods, what will he do when he realizes that I’m not in heat anymore? He’ll know it was Maud. What if he does something to her? All of this will have been for nothing if Keiran finds me.
I hear Keiran’s heavy footfall. “Step aside. I know she’s here.” I’m shaking like a leaf when I hear a commotion up at the front.
“What’s going on up there? I’ve got places to be!” A woman calls out. I hear a few murmurs of agreement sound off through the bus. I didn’t expect to hear this. I work up the nerve to crawl toward the aisle and look around the seat in front of me to see what’s going on. I watch as the woman gets up out of her seat. “This isn’t the time or the place, mister.”
“We’re going to be late.” A man joins her and leans out of the aisle to point at Keiran. “I’m not paying my ticket if we’re late. Are you gonna pay for my ticket? I only take cash.”
Keiran looks confused. He holds up his hands. “All I want to do is find my woman. We have things we need to discuss.”
“Your woman ain’t here. You’re from that wolf cult out in the woods, I know you are. Just because y’all think you run things out there don’t mean you do here in town,” the woman that spoke up earlier snaps. She’s out in the aisle now with a rolled up magazine in her hands and I’m half convinced she’s gonna smack him with it when Keiran tries to come down the aisle.
“Even if she was here, I’d say she doesn’t want to talk to you, and I understand why!” She advances into the aisle and punctuates the end of her sentence with a snap of her magazineon the seat in front of her. Keiran takes an uncertain step back and I know I was right about humans being brave.
