He moved then, turning us so that I lay on my back and his face hovered above me. “Why did you feel guilty?”
Fighting to keep my expression neutral, I replied, “I felt like I was abandoning you. You were still so deep in your grief.”
He stared down at me, his face unreadable. “Do you pity me, Chloe?”
“Absolutely not,” I declared. “But I know what losing a mate does to a wolf. I saw what happened to Gram when my grandfather died.” I lifted a hand and cupped his face, my thumb tracing the bottom curve of his lip. “I knew I could help you through it.”
He stared down at me, his blue eyes taking in my face. “I didn’t realize how much I liked having you around until you were gone,” he admitted softly. “I never thought I would want another female again in my life, but when I found you here, it was as if I was seeing you for the first time. I don’t know what will happen when this is all over, but I want you to promise me you won’t leave again without saying good-bye.”
A crack formed in my heart at his words. From that tiny opening, a seedling of hope sprouted. His words weren’t an admission that he recognized me as his mate, but maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t completely blind to it after all.
“I promise, Ian,” I whispered.
He made a noise, something between a chuckle and grunt. “I always hated my name,” he mused, his hand tangling in my hair. “Until you said it.”
As his mouth covered mine, the small seedling of hope in my heart bloomed.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lachlan
Two days later,I woke before Chloe yet again. As I had the past couple of mornings, I put a great deal of effort into rousing her. It wasn’t until I saw her smirk that I realized she was faking sleep.
I smacked her ass sharply in retaliation, which led to a wrestling match that we both won.
As we had for the past two days, we ate breakfast after working up an appetite. Though I wanted pancakes again, Chloe nixed the idea, insisting that our exercise should come in the form of a run and sparring rather than breaking in the kitchen table.
After breakfast, Chloe dressed in another pair of leggings and a tank top.
“Let’s go to the clearing,” she suggested. “We’ve barely left the house in days and you need to get back into top shape.”
For the next hour, we sparred. She won, again.
“You should practice your tracking skills,” she suggested.
I grabbed the towel I’d brought from the house and wiped the sweat from my face and chest. “You mean you want to practice your evasion skills.”
She grinned. “That too.”
A few moments later, she disappeared into the woods. I waited for a while before I followed. Immediately, I picked up her trail, both in scent and sight. My she-wolf could kick ass in a fight, but she sucked at covering her tracks.
Shaking my head, I followed the trail, stopping every so often to listen for telltale sounds that would give her away. When I ascertained her location, I crept around behind her, careful to stay downwind, and pounced before she even knew I was there.
“Dammit, I didn’t even hear you this time,” she complained. “And it took you less than ten minutes to find me.”
“That’s because you don’t cover your tracks,” I explained.
“But if you can follow my scent, why should I bother?”
I stared at her. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to throw false trails? Sure, your scent will give you away, but if you do it right, it will take a good tracker a lot longer to figure out which way you went. By that time, you could be long gone or set up a defense. A mediocre tracker might never be able to figure out where you went.”
Chloe tilted her head to the side. “Show me.”
For the rest of the morning, I instructed her and, with her razor sharp mind, she picked it up quickly. The final time I found her, it took me thirty minutes and my stomach was growling loudly by the time I realized she’d climbed a tree.
Standing at the base with my hands on my hips, I looked up at her grinning face. “Good call with the tree.”
When my stomach rumbled again, she leapt down, landing lightly on her feet. “Hungry?”
