She scrambles away, mud covering her sleeves as she scoots backward through the underbrush. One hand stays raised in front of her, fingers twitching like she can hold back whatever monster she believes is stalking her.
I take another step back.
And then I run.
Ivey tight to my chest, instinct drives me into the dense tangle of forest. I veer left, away from the path Malvina had forced us down. Branches whip at my face and catch on the fabric of my sweatshirt, but I don’t stop.
I risk a single glance back, just long enough to catch a flicker of movement through the branches behind her. Its big, dark, and weaves through the forest. I don’t pause to make out its shape or guess whether it’s friend or foe. Or even real.
It doesn’t matter.
I keep running, knowing I need to put space between us and the dangers hunting us.
Chapter 3
Rennick
We’re just shy of thirty minutes away of my territory’s iron gates—from the place that raised me, but with each passing minute it feels less like a return and more like a retreat. Because I know when I pull up to that house that looms over the lake she won’t be there, and where Noa is…that’s my home now.She’smy home, my very reason the earth is steady beneath my feet, and each mile I put between us feels like it’s being marked on my skin by a dull blade. One jagged bloody tally mark at a time.
My wolf paces under my skin, snapping at the cage of my bones, begging me to turn the fuck around and go back to her.
I grip the steering wheel until the leather creaks.
The image of her is burned into my skull. The way she looked this morning, curled beneath that soft comforter of her bed, that damn hoodie of mine draped over the pillow her delicate face rested on. Her skin was still too pale from the sickness I’ve forced upon her, but for those quiet moments, she was peaceful. I’d sat in the chair in her attic bedroom, fighting off my own exhaustion for as long as I could. Just watching her breathe. Committing every detail of my mate to memory.
Sleep had stolen me eventually. And with it, came the dreams. Each one different, but every single one ended the same. I lost her every time. Sometimes I walked away, just like I had in that clearing. Other times, forces—shadowed and faceless—tore her from my arms. No matter how hard I fought,I couldn’t change the outcome.I was left alone with nothing but the soul-deep devastation of her absence.
Her touch pulled me out of it. Soft fingertips on my face, tracing the raised lines that marked the beginning of my reign as pack Alpha, cutting through the devastating nightmare with something gentler than I could ever deserve. But still, the fear didn’t lift. Because awake, I couldstilllose her. To the sickness born from my thoughtless rejection or to the stone walls she’s had to build to keep me out. To protect herself from me.
But I won’t let her slip away again. Even if losing her is the punishment I’ve earned after everything I’ve done to my sweet Noa, I won’t accept it. I’ll fight with everything I have and whatever’s left after that until she’s safe. Until we’re whole.
I had said as much before I left her in the safety of the Victorian manor she calls home. I’d cradled her face in my hands and spoken my promise out loud, clear enough to be heard over every lie I’d ever made her believe.
“One day, you’ll believe that I’m not walking away from you. Not again.”
I’d seen the doubt flash in her eyes, but there was something else. Hidden beneath the hesitation and fractured trust I’d put there, there was a flicker of light I’ll do everything in my power to never destroy again.
Hope.
Her tender and cautious hope gave life to my own.
I’d also made this vow, silently, with each pass of my lips against hers when she’d kissed me earlier in her room, and again when I’d descended between her thighs, devouring her with my mouth. Each kiss, each caress of my tongue, each tremble I pulled from her body was that same unspoken promise.I. Will. Fix. This.
My cock stirs at the memory, thick and aching in these damn borrowed sweatpants. The second pair I’d needed to borrowsince I’d ruined the first pair when Noa had come apart in my hands, soaking my tongue with her sugared slick. The taste of her coupled with the soft whimpers she’d made as she came triggered my own release.
A growl tears from my throat before I can stop it, my wolf slipping through my tenuous control.
Canaan shifts in the passenger seat beside me, running a hand through his mess of light brown hair. He doesn’t look at me when he speaks, just stares ahead at the winding mountain road. “You’re gonna have to learn how to be apart from her, man.”
“I don’t know how you do it,” I mutter, jaw tight. “How you can be away from Rhosyn and not lose your fucking mind.”
His exhale is quiet but heavy. “It’s different for us. Don’t get me wrong, I hate it. I want to be with her every second, but we’ve been bonded for years. Our connection’s steady. Yours and Noa’s? You two are hanging on by a thread.”
Not just a thread.Thethread. The one my wolf has been guarding with his life since the moment I walked away from her. It’s frayed and tattered, but it still hums with life in my chest, just waiting for me to right my wrongs.
“It’s never been that intense for us,” Canaan admits. “We want to be together and being apart sucks, but it’s not like a primal, the-world-is-ending kind of need to never be out of reach. Or out of each other’s sights. I think that’s a scent match thing. A curse of an alpha-omega bond.”
A curse?
