Wyatt
Wyatt practically flew around the corner of the building then leaned up against the wall, breathing heavily. His chest felt as if it was on fire, and it wouldn’t entirely have surprised him to look down and find himself ablaze. No more than what had just happened. The dragon inside him was roaring to be set free so that it could get back to its mate. Wyatt clamped his mouth closed and breathed through his nose just in case any flames actually escaped. When a little puff of smoke blew out of his nose, he panicked, checking up and down the street in case anyone had seen it.
Wyatt’s mind was working at a mile a minute, his instincts screaming at him with the fact that was becoming impossible to refute—that woman was his mate. He knew it as surely as he knew the sun would rise the following morning. But how could it be true? There were no dragons living outside of Antarctica… and yet, there she was.
Wyatt had needed to get away from her while he still could, even though every instinct in his body fought against it. Urged him to go back, to be with her, to claim her.
He could never inflict such a cruel punishment on any woman.
After that night, that one goddamn night that kept coming back to haunt him, he knew he could never claim a mate.Wouldnever claim a mate. When he had been banished from his clan, he’d been warned that any attempt to return to the homelands would be punished by death.
Shifters weren’t made to be alone. A shifter needed proximity to their people, to their own kind, as much as they needed to shift into their other form. Most shifters who were ejected from their pack or pride went crazy from the loneliness. Wyatt didn’t know of any other dragons who had ever been banished so he couldn’t speak for others of his kind, but he was made of strong stuff—and it had damn near destroyed him just the same. If he hadn’t fallen in with the other shifters in Miami, if he hadn’t had his SWAT team to keep him thinking forwards, it might have been a different outcome entirely.
But that hadn’t been enough for them, sentencing him to a life away from his home. No. The elders had placed an embargo on him. If any other dragon was caught anywhere near him, their punishment would be as severe as Wyatt’s. They’d done it to cut him off from the clan, to ensure there could be no bonds left that tied him to his home. To his former life. And he’d come to accept that.
But he couldn’t accept that for his mate. Whoever she was, whatever her reason for coming here, she didn’t deserve to be shackled to him. A broken husk of a man cut off from his past and with no hope of a future.
No. There’d been only one thing to do. So, he’d done what he’d had thought had been the gentlemanly thing—he’d left before either of them could acknowledge the bond. Although now that he had a small amount of distance from her, his departure didn’t feel gentlemanly at all. It felt the opposite. Running away like that made him feel like a coward. A man with Wyatt’s strength and usual bravery didn’t generally get to experiencethatparticular feeling. And he didn’t like it one bit.
He pushed away from the wall and headed along the sidewalk. No, he’d done the right thing. He had to believe that—he had to stick to his guns. But hadn’t she at least deserved an explanation as to why he couldn’t mate her? He glanced over his shoulder, indecision warring inside him, but then turned and continued on his path. He’d made the right decision and he had to see it through. Although it didn’t feel like it at that moment in time, it would be better for the both of them that they hadn’t spent any longer in each other’s company. The longer a shifter spent with their mate, the more the bond strengthened and the harder it was to walk away. It was already damn near impossible. If he had stayed around her any longer, he didn’t think he would have managed to do what needed to be done. And itdidneed to be done. There could be no doubt about that, no matter that his dragon writhed and cried out inside him.
Mate. Mate. Mate.
He gritted his teeth and pressed on. Still, as he walked, he couldn’t force his mind from her. Couldn’t help but wonder what his mate was doing in Miami. Had they sent her there for him? Had she come to bring him home? Perhaps his father had sent dragons out into the world in search of him. He crushed the hope before it could take root, as he had so many times in the past. There was no sense in tormenting himself. As far as his father was concerned, Wyatt was no longer his son. And the feeling was mutual.
Wyatt’s father was an elder in their clan, and he’d turned his back on Wyatt the day he’d been banished, shunning him, just as all the other elders had. That old fool was as stubborn as a mule—he never would have sought Wyatt out. None of his clan would have looked for him. Banishment was absolute. There were no takebacks—however much he might have wished otherwise. The only thing for him to do was head back to his house and forget all about the beautiful woman with the long brown hair and big blue eyes who would forever and always own a piece of his soul.
