Page 105 of Rejected By the Winter Wolf

Where? He’s agitated.

I shake my head. She’s far away. Too far to make any fucking sense.

My wolf growls. He wants out. He wants to track her down and make it better, because he thinks I caused this. He thinks I shouldn’t have told her we weren’t going to proceed with the stupid mate bond.

To him, it’s painfully obvious that we will complete it.

Apparently, I’m the only one thinking with any sense.

Astra can’t be turned into a wolf shifter. With her magic, she’d be an abomination. No better than the vampire witch who drained her dry. And I’d be just like Gage, experimenting with dark magic and witches.

Witch and wolf magic aren’t compatible. Everyone knows that.

I need her. I want her. But at the end of the day, I can’t have her.

I grind my teeth and return to the room. I could wait or hope for her to come back. That would mean giving her the time to do so.

The overwhelming feeling in my chest isn’t optimism. It’s abandonment.

My wolf is upset, but he doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t offer insight or a solution. We’re just… We’re careening down a path I can’t get off of.

I reach for Griffin. Unlike Astra, I can pinpoint his location easily. There are so many threads connecting me to my pack, but I’m closest to my hunters. And they’re closest to me.

Griffin, Coral, Jessamine, and Roman are nearby. There are other hunters, too, but they’re finishing disposing of a coven they found. Erasing any sign of them for the humans, keeping the town safe.

Astra disappeared, I tell him. Be ready in case I need you.

His alarm shines through. I know what he’s thinking. We only just found her, and she’s gone again? I’d laugh if I didn’t want to shout.

It’s fine. Stand by.

I push his echoing concern away, too.

Now, though, I see our hunt through Astra’s eyes. And I’m reminded that she asked me to stop hunting covens. Covens that may or may not be minding their own business, destroyed by our hate. Families ripped apart…

But what did I do while she was gone?

I doubled down.

“I hate her,” I mutter. I have the constant reminder of what she is plastered on the side of her face, but even that, I find endearing.

Sometimes.

It’s her save-the-witches attitude that rubs me the wrong way. Why shouldn’t it? I have no doubt that she feels the same about me and my ideology.

My wolf slides a memory at me, hemmed in by a silent admonishment I haven’t felt from him before.

I know better than to resist it.

I sit on the edge of the bed that still smells like her arousal and close my eyes. I’m immediately engulfed in it. I was ten at the time, still a child in so many ways.

My father strides through the open door of Erin and Matteo’s house. I look up when I see him, my hands pausing on the toy trucks I was smashing together. He doesn’t bother to even glance at Erin, whose head immediately bends. I don’t like that. I don’t like that he makes her fear him so much that she lowers almost her whole body when he enters a room.

And he walked into their house like he owned it.

Well, he does. He likes to remind me that he owns everything around here, right down to the pack members.

“Come with me,” he orders, his gaze fixed on me.