Page 152 of Rejected By the Winter Wolf

I glance at him again, my body tense. “You seem pissed. But it isn’t like I’m the one who wolfed out⁠—”

“The full moon is tomorrow,” he says in a low voice. “Or did you forget that? I’m operating on limited control. I’m not angry. I’m tired. I’m stressed. My wolf craves the company of his pack, and we’ve been gone for far too long.”

I bristle.

He jerks the steering wheel, swerving onto the shoulder. A dust cloud rolls in front of the truck, illuminated by the headlights.

“Go pee,” he says sharply. “I changed my mind about the motel. It’s better if I just drive through the night to get us back.”

I grit my teeth. “Fine.”

I unbuckle slowly and reach back for my bag, then open my door. My legs wobble when my feet hit the gravel. He doesn’t comment that I’m taking my bag with me—there were a few folded napkins in it, last I checked. Maybe he’s making excuses for me or he just doesn’t want to poke at me any more tonight.

How hard would it be to disappear?

To leave Kian, leave everything behind?

I go two steps more and sink to my knees, digging my fingers into the dry, dormant grass. My bag, looped around my arm, hits the ground beside me.

There’s no rhyme or reason for us to be together. To continue with this mate bond.

Not when I heard every fucking word go through his mind, the cracked door between us letting in the whispered, scheming thoughts of the villain in the next room.

Mate me.

Use me.

The magic under my skin has been roiling ever since. Even as I held my composure, kept my emotions indifferent. Not letting him sense anything wrong with me except my upset at our evening gone awry.

Kian plans to destroy me from the inside out by getting into my heart—the one place I never thought I’d let him in. And yet, inch by inch, he’s been digging through my guard, rooting through my soul. I let him inside me. And the pain of what he wants to do is unbearable.

My magic agrees.

“Astra,” Kian calls. His voice is off.

Worried?

Fake worried.

The grass under my hands, with so little life tucked away in their roots, blackens.

I will find my mother on my own.

I’ll break this mate bond.

I’ll leave Kian and his pack to rot.

Promises I give to myself and the earth.

The anger pouring out of me is stifling hot. It’s burning me alive.

Transporting has saved me in the past—but I need something different. I need to make sure Kian won’t just tug on the mate bond and come running after me.

I turn my hand. The sapphire is visible in my palm, pulsing with the bluish hue. It’s lit from within, the dark power it stores begging to be let loose.

Without thinking, I draw on it. The blood magic floods into me, and I wrap it around the mate bond. Harden it.

Contain it.