Page 120 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

My breath caught.

He continued, voice low and steady. "Trauma can bury the bond. It doesn't mean it isn't there.”

I looked away, blinking hard. “You do not know that.”

“I do,” he said. “Because my wolf recognized you long before I did. Nothing else makes sense to him anymore.”

The ache in my chest sharpened. I wanted to argue, to push it all away, but the words stuck. “This doesn’t make sense. I’m not… I can’t be what you need. Not with everything I’m carrying.”

“Harper—”

“No.” I shook my head. “I don't know how to do this.” My voice dropped to barely a whisper. “I don't know how to be someone's mate.”

“You don’t have to know right now,” he said softly. “You just have to stay.”

That was the problem. Feeling was dangerous. Feeling was how people got hurt.

“I need air,” I whispered, pushing the blanket aside. “I need to think. Alone.”

Jackson scrubbed a hand through his hair, a low growl rumbling under his skin, but he didn’t reach for me. He just watched me, something raw and patient in his eyes.

“I’ll wait for you,” he said quietly. “As long as it takes.”

The words landed deep, somewhere I wasn’t ready to face.

I dressed quickly in my running gear, hands shaking, and slipped out the back door. The forest waited at the edge of the property, dark and familiar. My feet carried me toward it before I’d fully decided.

Chapter 34: The Forest Went Silent

The forest swallowed me whole. Cold air burned my lungs as I ran, branches whipping past while the ground stayed familiar beneath my feet. I pushed harder, faster, like I could outrun the words still echoing in my skull.

Mate.

My chest tightened and I ran harder.

Shifters talked about mates like it was the most natural thing in the world. A destined pull. A certainty. A knowing.

My parents had been like that. Two cougars who found each other in college and never drifted. My mother used to say she felt my father before she ever saw him, that her cat recognized his before her human mind caught up.

That was how it was supposed to be. Simple. Instinctive. Undeniable.

Not whatever this was.

I dodged a fallen branch, breath coming sharper now while my cat paced restlessly beneath my skin, wanting to turn around, wanting to go back to him. Back to Jackson.

I pushed the pace until my lungs caught fire.

Now that he'd planted the idea, I couldn't stop looking back. There had been signs. The way my entire body relaxed the second he pulled me against him. The way sleeping beside him felt more restful than sleeping alone ever had. The way my cat went quiet and content around him. The way panic hit me whenever I imagined him hurt.

Oh God.

I stumbled over a root but caught myself, slowing just enough for the thoughts to crash in harder. My mother’s voice drifted up from somewhere deep and unwanted.

A wounded animal curls around its pain. Sometimes it curls so tightly it forgets how to uncurl.

I wasn’t ready to admit that might be me.

My lungs burned as I finally slowed to a stop near a creek bed deep in the forest. I bent forward, hands braced on my knees, and the cold air scraped down my throat with every rough pull.