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As Rowan watched her blush and her eyes dart away, unable to meet his, he couldn’t help but think that she was actually sweet.
***
Rowan was forced to look at Juniper, who was currently staring at him with heartbreak in her eyes.
It had now been a year since he’d confessed to her that she was his mate and made empty promises about how he was going to announce her as his mate and put an end to the pack ostracizing her and the bullying she’d always faced.
Now, he watched as she ran away from him after looking at him with so much hurt he had felt weak at the knees. And yet he’d still been unable to defend her.
‘GO AFTER HER. GO AFTER HER,’ Hanlon screamed at him with so much panic in his voice. Rowan could hear the pain from the hurt they were causing their mate, yet he was glued to the chair he sat on, unable to do anything.
He knew he could not very well go after her after he’d only just rejected her in front of his people and had stayed silent as they’d laughed at her and called her a liar. His hands had bunched into fists as her adoptive sister had dragged her away from the bar and pushed her down, but still he had done nothing, even as his wolf raged and threatened to hurt them all.
Rowan could feel pain in his chest. He knew that he had betrayed Juniper and he wanted to go after her, but now was not the best time. He would go after her when there was no one watching, when they could talk without his pack members finding out that he was speaking to her. He would apologize and things would be right again.
***
Rowan looked around as he walked toward the place where they had first spoken. He stayed hidden behind the trees as he had done the first time, looking fixedly at her little hut and willing her to come out so that he could talk to her and explain things to her. She would understand, he knew she would.
He didn’t know how long he had stayed, perched behind the tree, before he realized that it was quiet. There was no one there. He stepped forward from behind the bushes and snuck up to her hut. He peeped and realized as his heart dropped that it was empty. There was absolutely nothing there.
The realization came crashing down on him that she had left. His wolf howled inside of him and screamed at him angrily.
‘YOU SHOULD HAVE GONE AFTER HER!’ Hanlon howled, completely torn apart by what Rowan had brought upon them.
***
Rowan woke up in a cold sweat. He felt pain and guilt hit him instantly as they usually did when he woke up from these dreams. His wolf howled in pain continuously.
‘When are you going to stop this? I told you I know that I messed up. Stop giving me these nightmares,’he said, his anger mixed with guilt, but his wolf continued to whimper, not responding to him.
Rowan sighed, placing his head in his hands. Seven years had passed and he’d grown out of the immaturity that had cost him his mate. However, his wolf had gone the opposite route, choosing to act like a child and plaguing him constantly with these nightmares about his role in how they’d lost their mate.
Rowan had looked for Juniper as hard as he could but he had not found her, and that was when he’d realized that she had gone to the human world and clearly did not want to be found.
He was only just waking up that evening and he was already upset. He looked at his phone just as it rang, and saw from the caller ID that it was his best friend, Articus White, alpha of the White Moon pack.
“Hey Rowan, where are you?” Articus asked immediately, not bothering with greetings.
Rowan cussed under his breath as he looked at the time. He was supposed to be at Twin Moon, the bar where he usually met his friends, but he was just waking up.
“My bad. I just woke up now. My wolf played a prank on me,” he said apologetically.
“Was it that dream again?”
“Yes,” he sighed. “I’ll meet you there.”
Rowan hung up and hurried to take a shower. As the water flowed down his body, he frowned. It was really not the best day for the stunt his wolf had pulled. He was tired. He’d been out all night searching for something that had been killing animals in the forest. Be it a predator or something else, he’d hoped to fell it all night. He tried for a bit of peaceful rest before the meeting but had failed now.
Moonwood forest was a very important part of Rowan’s pack, so it was protected by him. His pack hunted and logged wood there, so it was important that he kept it safe, especially since it had been in their pack for so many years.
When he had gotten the report that his hunters had begun to find dead animals scattered in different places all over the forest, he had been very worried. And it didn’t seem like they’d been killed by any other animal. More importantly, the animals had not been eaten.
He had quickly begun to dig up likely reasons this was happening. Perhaps humans had managed to find their way into his forest without his knowledge and were hunting the animals for sport.
He had begun to patrol the area to find out what it was that was responsible. It could have been some other shifters… like werebears… or even rogue wolves. The possibilities were endless.
Although, the chances that it was rogue wolves were slim as they would have been hunting for food and not for sport.
