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I held my hand up to stop him from fumbling through an apology. There was no point in laying blame. If either of us was more culpable, it was me anyway. The draw to bite me would have been too much to ask him to overcome in a heated moment like that. I should have been stronger and stopped it from happening.
He frowned at the dismissive gesture but didn’t say anything else as I wrapped myself in the sheet and walked to the door. I used part of the end as a sling over my shoulder so that if anyone was in the hallway, they wouldn’t see the newly forming scar on my neck.
Fortunately, there was no one to witness my walk of shame, and I was able to quickly shuffle back to my room undetected. Anyone seeing me walk out of Trace’s bedroom in a sheet would quickly jump to some embarrassing conclusions.
Thankful to finally be alone, I shut the door and leaned a chair under the handle as a makeshift lock. It wouldn’t be enough to stop Trace from getting inside, but it would at least slow him down if he tried to break in.
I wandered over to the mirror and stared at the unrecognizable woman on the other side. Tears welled up in my eyes as I poked the shiny skin, testing to see if it was really there. A few pricks of pain were all that it gave me; by tomorrow, I probably wouldn’t even be able to feel it.
My wolf drooped at my tears, torn between wanting to comfort me and not understanding why I wasn’t excited to be marked by the attractive alpha. It wouldn’t do any good trying to explain my feelings to her. If she could understand, she would already feel the loss with me.
I picked through my clothes until I found my one and only turtleneck. I smiled to myself, thinking about the day I had gone shopping with Ella, and she had insisted that it made me look like Reese Witherspoon fromSweet Home Alabama. It absolutely did not, but it did do a pretty good job of covering up the bite mark.
When I was satisfied that no one else would see the affected skin, I pulled on some old, comfortable jeans and grabbed the cheap burner phone that I had been using.
I hesitated, holding it in my hand without dialing. I hadn’t called Patrick since I left Dark Claw, but I needed to talk to him. He’d understand my feelings about being bitten by Trace. And at the very least, he’d be thrilled to get his truck back since I was no longer on the run.
It rang a few times before he picked up.
“Hello?” His voice was gruff, not the tone he usually used to speak to me. Of course, he wouldn’t recognize the new number. He probably thought I was a telemarketer.
“Hey, it’s me.” I could feel him melt through the phone, and my own shoulders relaxed, too. Not completely, of course, but enough that the difference was recognizable and comforting.
“Oh, jeez. Are you okay, Mariam? Are you safe?”
“Yeah, I’m as safe as I’m ever going to be,” I said, sighing. “He found me.”
There was a pause on the line, and I thought for a second Patrick had hung up. Finally, he responded.
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” I sank to the floor and leaned against the bed. “I have been staying with another pack for about a month, and he showed up here last night.”
“But you’re okay? He hasn’t tried to force you into anything?”
I chewed on my lip, unsure of how to answer that. I couldn’t say with conviction that he had forced me into accepting the mating bite. That was probably a surprise for both of us. But Trace was definitely keeping me in his home against my will. My silence must have confirmed Patrick’s worst fears.
“I’ll kill the fucker,” he growled. “Tell me the name of the pack, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“That’s not going to help anything, and you know it. He’s an alpha, if you didn’t know, and he’s only trying to pursue his true mate. If you kill him, you’re the one who’s going to end up executed...or worse.” He started to protest, but I cut him off. “It won’t do any good anyway, Patrick. He bit me this morning. I’m screwed.”
Patrick sucked in a sharp breath upon hearing that information. The mating bite took this out of the realm of something that could be fixed with brute force. As soon as we had sex and sealed the deal, I would start feeling his feelings, thinking his thoughts, like we did in our dreams but all the time. We were becoming one, and an interruption to that process could kill me, too. Once it was complete and in place, the death of my true mate would undoubtedly be the end of me, if not in body, then in spirit.
I remembered that clearly with my own parents. After mom died, it was like the cancer was a blessing for my dad. He wasn’t eating or sleeping anyway. He had almost wasted away to nothing before the chemo had even started taking its toll. I refused to have a death like that; I’d much rather end things on my own first.
As if sensing my thoughts, Patrick growled again. “Don’t even think about it, Mare. We will do something to fix this. Maybe some time together will show him that, despite being incredibly hot, you’ve got a lot of issues.”
I snorted at the backhanded compliment. He was trying to make me feel better, and it was working. “I’m not sure how to get your truck back to you. I know driving my old clunker must be a drag.”
“That’s really the last thing on my mind right now, Mariam,” Patrick replied dryly. “Look, don’t do anything to piss him off, see if you can block the connection at all if it starts to form, and we’ll both try to come up with some solutions. I’m not going to lose you like this. I miss you, Mare.”
His voice was so quiet at the end that I almost couldn’t hear it. “I miss you too, Patrick. I’ll call again soon.”
I hung up and set the phone on the floor beside me. I closed my eyes, trying to imagine when I would see Patrick or Lance or anyone else from my normal life again. Maybe Trace would agree to let me visit home, though something told me he would insist on coming with me.
It wasn’t going to help to stay in the bedroom all day sulking, especially because I didn’t want to give Trace a reason to come and find me. I showered and tidied up the room a little bit by putting away my clothes and straightening the bedsheets.
If Trace had just let me sleep in here, I wouldn’t be wearing his bite mark right now. I frowned and wondered if the thought had occurred to him. It was impossible to tell if he regretted what happened, as it was pretty much what he said he wanted. I was now tied to him, without anyapparent options for escape.
