All I wanted to do was keep on running. See if I could outpace the grief and disappointment I felt right now in myself.
Fate, I’d struggled for years with what I’d done to my father. I’d even left the pack, staying gone for almost eight years because of it. Then, I only came back because of what I did to Sara’s stalker. Summer had helped me come to terms with the fact that he’d deserved to be taken out because who knew what he would have done to Sara, but still, I’d lost control. I could’ve killed him and Sara.
But those incidents? Those were nothing, nothing, in comparison to what I just did.
I killed a man. I killed Summer’s husband. She was trying to divorce him, but he was still legally her spouse. And I ripped his throat out in front of her.
No control. Nothing.
Just… a gruesome death.
The way Summer looked at me with horror… I sat back on my haunches and howled at the sky, where the clouds were starting to break. The moon was behind them somewhere.
Summer. Fuck.
It killed me to be away from her. She’d been hurt and scared. And I left her alone in the middle of that chaos. But I’d had to leave because I was the one who’d scared her.
But how was I to live without my mate?
She was marked and claimed. She was mine.
I wasn’t going to force her to stick with me. I didn’t want her trapped the way she’d been with Marty. It would be so much worse because of the damage I could inflict. She saw how lethal I was. How reckless. How wild.
I was worse than her husband.
I didn’t deserve her.
32
SUMMER
* * *
Boone didn’t come back last night. Rand and Natalie were sure he would. They’d thought he just needed to think things through, and then he’d show up at my apartment with his tail between his legs. I didn’t know–maybe they meant literally since he was in wolf form when he left. I’d feared they were wrong because I knew Boone.
He’d stayed away from his pack and his family for years after getting violent with his dad. He’d banished himself to a cabin on the mountain after he hurt that guy in New York.
We’d called Roy and Ace last night to fill them in on what happened and ask if they’d seen Boone. They hadn’t, but Ace went over to his cabin to see if there were any signs of him. There hadn’t been.
I’d called Cody last night to see if Boone’s truck was still in the saloon parking lot, and it was. Wherever Boone was, he was probably still in wolf form.
I sent off another text to Ace:
Any word or signs from Boone?
His reply came immediately:
No. I spent the night at his place just in case he came back, but he’s not here. Roy said he hasn’t shown up over there, either.
Tears speared my eyes.
Damn him!
I threw the covers back and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I felt so heavy. My face throbbed, making my skull ache, too. Marty had hit me good, but the ache in my cheek didn’t match the ache in my heart.
Aubrey had checked me out last night and had me take ibuprofen and put arnica on the bruise to prevent swelling, but I guessed they’d worn off because it hurt like hell now.
I padded to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Whoa. Was that me? It wasn’t the bruise that threw me off. It was the bleakness of my expression. I didn’t remember ever looking or feeling this bereft, even in the middle of figuring out if I could escape my marriage to Marty.
