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A deep black bruise had developed over my heart. Ink-black veins, like spidery webs, stretched and twisted around the perimeter of that dark circle, growing longer and thicker with each agonizing second. Throbs of excruciating pain pulsedthrough those darkened veins, a malevolent rhythm that echoed the torment tearing at my insides.
In that unbearable moment, I realized what this was. I’d never seen it with my eyes, and I’d hoped it was a wives’ tale told to bad mates.
The mate bond, unacknowledged and denied, was tearing me apart from the inside out, and I knew with a bone-deep certainty that there was only one thing to do.
I picked up my phone and dialed Ry.
I didn’t remember what I said other than one single phrase.
“Bring her back.”
CHAPTER 5
Ryker
This day had been torture, and I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve this.
Okay, so maybe I’d pulled a lot of shit in my life, but what specifically signed me up for this fun little dick-punch alluded me.
On Friday, I had been right as rain. I’d had a cigar, a few beers, relaxed, got laid, and was prepared for a whole lifetime of the same fucking thing. Running the pack was my whole life, and I was certain that a better pack leader than Caelum didn’t exist. He was brilliant and made sure that I rarely had to deal with bullshit.
Then Saturday night happened, and my world got turned up-fucking-side down. We scented our mate early in the night and stalked her and her mop-haired kin all the way back to her dorm.
Was it a good time to fuck her? Of course not. Would I have? Absolutely. If Caelum hadn’t been there, that skinny teenagershe was with had been going to get an eyeful, because I was about a half-second away from fucking the shit out of Kaci. I didn’t know if it was her smell; other men said it was hard to deny, and it was. For me, however, it was her perfect, round little butt that I wanted to sink my teeth into.
Luckily, Caelum settled me down and then the girls wisely ran away. He and I went back home, and we devised a genius plan.
We’d get rid of her! We didn’t need a mate. Mates were liabilities. The vast majority of the alphas out there, and their betas, got killed only because their mates had died. Well, fuck that shit. We had another pack trying to take our turf every couple of years, and we weren’t interested in putting our dick under the hammer like that.
Not to mention, we liked our lives. They were perfect. We had a good pack, a tight crew cultivated over a decade now. We had a university. We had a real-world reputation in the human world. That wasn’t easy—most packs lived in the fucking wilderness. We had freedom, we had comfort. We lived normal-ish lives… well, human-normal, anyway.
It wasn’t fair that it could go south this quickly. Nor did it make any sense at all! I’d gone toe-to-toe with this girl a half dozen times, including just last Friday. She was hot, but she hadn’t smelled like my mate. She didn’t make my dick hurt when I looked at her. She was just a fuckable girl, like most others.
Fuckery was definitely afoot. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it didn’t feel right, and so this was going to have to be looked into after I got the brat on a plane and waved bye-bye.
The plan was easier said than done; we weren’t going to trust the rest of our pack with our woman; that was insane. If they cameback with her scent on them, I’d have to bite their face off. I didn’t want that drama.
So,wehad to deal with her personally. That meant I had to sit in a car with her for a few hours until we got to New Orleans. I could do it; I was just going to breathe through it. I was going to think cold thoughts. I was emotionally prepared this time.
At first, I thought it was going to be easy. She looked out the window, not at me, and I looked into my cellphone where I conjured up the most unsexy things to look at to keep my dick from exploding. And it worked until she looked at me.
Right into my eyes.
Her eyes were so fucking blue, it was like looking into a tropical ocean. It was like I was going to fall into them and actually get wet. I was wondering if she wanted to at least get tongue-fucked because my brain assured me that she wanted, and expected, any part of my body to enter any part of hers.
These thoughts weren’t even sane. I knew it; it was madness. But the madness was making so much sense. It was calling to me.
It said, ‘Of course she wants to get fucked in the backseat of this car. What a great place to make babies. It’ll sure be a good story for the grandkids.’
I locked my muscles, trying to make absolutely sure my body didn’t listen to my brain’s garbage.
She looked away—it was easier for her than it should have been because she should have my dick in her mouth—but I told myself inwardly that it was good that she’d looked away. Made things easier.
After all, this was a good plan. She was going to San Francisco, where there wasn’t a pack within a thousand miles, and then she was going to Italy, where nothing happened ever. She would have a great time; we would live guilt-free lives even for a couple of wolves that had just shipped their mate onto the other side of the planet. If this worked perfectly, we were going to secure her a job in New Zealand, where literally nothing could hurt her short of a bad whale encounter. She’d be safe, so we’d be safe. Then we’d just continue as we were.Flawless logic.
We were close to the airport when her head looked back in my direction. At this point, I considered stopping at the nearest 7/11 and putting ice down my pants because the last miles were rough. I turned my head towards her and caught her eye, because apparently I’m masochistic, and I felt… feelings.
Fuck, she was sad. She didn’t want to fucking go to San Francisco. She wanted to stay here, close to where she grew up, where she had family, friends, and warm summers. She was confused, she didn’t know why she was singled out for this, and she felt like she was being punished. I got it—it was written all over her cute little freckled face.
