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“It seems like a rune… We’ll have to look it up and see what it means.”
Heath’s words soothed something in me. It was a reminder that he was on my side, and that he would help me through any situation, no matter how dire. He had always been there for me.
Even when my own brother exiled me, Heath had been right there to defend me, earning his own banishment in the process. Then Heath’s illustrious father had rejected Frost Fang for daring to exile one of his children, and taken the rest of Heath’s siblings with him to the Elder Forest pack. He’d invited — commanded — Heath to join him, but instead, Heath had followed me into the wildlands.
“Can you sense her?”Heath asked, and I swear I felt something like jealousy emanating from him across the pack bond.
“Yes. She’s… calmer now. Not as scared and frustrated.”
I hated the thought that what I’d done had scared her in any way. It was one of the reasons I’d been close to destroying the pack house.
“I think she and Flint are cuddling.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”Heath asked, picking his head up from his front paws.
“No…”I answered slowly, realizing for the first time how weird that was.
My wolf felt content, knowing that Flint was protecting her. Even when I sensed them lying in bed together — the mate bond gave me greater insight into Freya than the pack bond ever had.
Still, her feelings toward Flint felt stilted in the mate bond. Like she wasn’t allowing herself to fully relax into the bed beside him.
“And I even sensed it when Flint touched the bite mark,”I went on.“With his lips. That’s strange, right?”
“You’re an alpha who’s not losing his mind about his mate literally in bed with another alpha. An alpha who apparently kissed the mark you left on her.”Heath laughed.“I’d say that’s fucking strange, yeah.”
All I wanted was to soothe her fears through the mate bond. Her discomfort, disappointment, and worry ate at me. I desperately wanted to make her feel comfortable and safe, but my presence had the opposite effect, and that destroyed me.
Freya couldn’t feel me through the one-sided mate bond… but she could feel me through the pack bond. So I sent her reassurances, trying to calm her mind and ease her fears. It seemed to help, because I felt her settle in next to Flint. And in turn, that soothed me.
“I can’t lose Freya.”I sighed.“My feelings for her are infinitely stronger than what I felt for Nira. I thought I loved her back then… I didn’t even know what love is.”
Heath said nothing, and the whisper of the nighttime wind through the branches overhead did little to soothe the ache in my chest.
“And to think you once had me drop her off in the middle of the wildlands,”Heath laughed, but his laugh felt hollow.
My rumble met his words. I knew he didn’t mean to make fun of me, but it reminded me how much of a fool I’d been then — and how much of a fool I was being now. I’d let my mate down, despite wanting to do right by her.
I needed to figure out how to prove to her that I was worthy of her. That I hadn’t meant to hurt her. That I wasn’t trying to stand in the way of her being with the others if she wanted to.
Heath tilted his head and got to his paws to stretch. We both heard the telltale whispers of brush moving aside for a large body and the crunch of leaves under hoof at the same time.
“Want to go for a hunt?”Heath asked, his excitement bleeding across the pack bond to me and infecting me with the primal urge to hunt.
In answer, I jumped to my paws and dashed down the slope toward the sound of a deer in the thicket below. Heath separated from me to circle around and cut off its chances for escape.
Compared to everything else I was dealing with, this felt easy. Simple. Primal.
My wolf took charge, and every action beyond that came by pure instinct. Together, we brought the deer down and then feasted on its carcass. The fresh meat made me feel alive, like all was right in the world.
At least, my wolf thought so. In the back of my wolf’s mind, my all-too-human thoughts intruded.
Was Heath right about why Freya had rejected me? Did the disappointment I sensed in her come from a concern that I’d ruined her chances with Flint?
Part of me feared that if I gave her permission to be with others, she wouldn’t come back to me. But a wiser part of me knew that if I tried to keep her to myself, she’d never be mine.
By the time the sun came up, I knew what I had to do.
“Heath… Are you still interested in Freya, even though she wears my mark?”I asked as we rinsed off in the icy river.
