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I don’t have it in me to be kind or gentle right now. Not when my mate has left the territory.
“She’s gone,” my words are growled and contain the echo of my wolf’s voice.
“She is,” Tilly confirms even though I didn’t pose it as a question.
I roar, “Where the fuck did she go?”
Tilly sighs as she slumps down on the edge of her bed. I can’t sit, not right now, so I pace back and forth in front of my sister. She watches me warily, which is a good idea because anything could push me right into feral right now.
Her voice is soft as if she’s trying to make the blow of my mate running from me not hurt as much, “She woke me up in the middle of the night and told me that she needed to go back to school.” I snarl my displeasure. “She said that she needed some space and room to breathe and think about everything she learned last night.”
“You didn’t stop her?” I rock back on my heels, my mind not catching up with what Tilly is telling me. “You just let her leave the pack?” My words are broken, “Leave me?”
“I argued with her about it, but she was adamant. I’m sure it couldn’t have been very comfortable for her to know that she was surrounded by werewolves when she just learned of our existence. I tried to put myself in her shoes and imagined how I would feel.” She tilts her head to side as she watches me attempt to gather the edges of my frayed soul. “Wouldn’t it be better for me to help her leave safely instead of her trying to find her own way back to school?”
I run my fingers through my hair, tempted to grip it and rip it from my head. She has a point, but that does nothing to lessen the pain ripping through me because of the distance my mate has put between us. I’m not sure why it didn’t wake me up the moment she left my territory, but it’s impossible to ignore now.
“We were always going to be leaving tomorrow anyway, she only left one day early,” Tilly points out like that makes it any better.
It doesn’t.
As I try and take deep breaths, my wolf is howling in my mind. The song he’s creating is one of longing and sadness.
“I’m sorry,” I whimper in my mind, “I fucked this whole thing up from the moment I caught her scent. Maybe if I would have treated her better from the beginning, we would have had the opportunity to tell her about us without it being a dire situation.”
“No,” my wolf growls, “Trina would have still found a way to sabotage us. She’s wanted to be the Luna of this pack for years. She would have never allowed our mate to come into the pack peacefully.”
At the mention of Trina’s name, my body starts shaking with pent up anger. I need to deal with her, but I’m liable to rip her head off if I’m not careful.
“You’re still planning to leave tomorrow?”
Tilly nods slowly as she bites her bottom lip. I look at her expectantly because it’s clear that she has more on her mind. My wolf is itching under my skin to get out and run. It might do me some good and work some aggression off.
“I’m going to need a ride,” she winces slightly. “I told Elodie to drive my car back to school.”
I nod slowly, glad that my mate is safe as she travels home but hating the fact that she needed to get away from me and my pack. This is her home.
No, I didn’t do a good job of treating her like she belonged at first, but I saw the error of my ways. I shouldn’t have fought the bond for as long as I did, even if it was only a matter of days.
I should have done a lot of things differently.
I give Tilly a curt nod and then race out of her room and the house. Elodie’s hibiscus and spun sugar scent is all over the place. Normally, it would be comforting, but not right now. With every breath I take, I’m reminded of how she ran from me.
Of how the truth of who I am, of who we all are, was too much for her.
“You don’t know if she’ll come around. She was about to be attacked last night. That isn’t how anyone should find out about our existence,” my wolf tries to soothe me as I give myself over to the shift and his paws meet the forest floor.
As he takes over and starts to run on our territory, I find myself wondering, “What if it’s too much for her?”
“She’s our mate, it won’t be too much for her,” he assures me.
I’m not so sure that he’s right, but I don’t have it in me to dash his hopes. Not yet anyway.
Hours later, after I’ve explored all of my territory for any more rogues, I stalk toward the packhouse after I shifted and pulled on a pair of basketball shorts. I didn’t smell anymore rogues and I can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right about this situation.
Why would two rogues come onto our land now? We haven’t had any rogue attacks for a while and there haven’t been many people looking for sanctuary, who happen to be rogue, lately.
I step into my office and my eyebrows shoot up when I find Mayer and my father waiting for me. Their eyes are guarded as they watch me stomp around the edge of my desk and slump down into my chair. My body is exhausted, but my mind is going a million miles an hour.
