Chapter 59 – Ryder
Fifty-Nine
RYDER
After an hour of walking, it feels like we’ve gotten nowhere.
Even with Carina’s magick doing most of the carrying, we’re slow.
We need to get out of this province—hell, this side of the country—before Sloane comes for us.
Conan needs to be returned to the pack, properly laid to rest, and we need time to grieve.
And Carina needs to be safe.
If only we had a way of reaching Jasper to return us back home. Carina’s spent most of the trip seated on my back, though she walked a bit, despite the irritated snap of my jaws she ignored. She hasn’t spoken a single word to any of us.
The Carina from camp, the Carina from the cell, and the Carina now are three different people.
When all I need is to feel her calming emotions to reassure me she’s okay, she’s stiff and closed off and barely looks at me.
Her emotions are turbulent at best— a storm of grief, horror, anger, depression, rage, and acceptance.
She’s cycling through each one faster than we can walk.
She’s ignoring me and it’s aggravating, but more so, I’m annoyed she’s not letting me help her through her pain.
Once we’ve passed the Manitoba border, around the area Jasper dropped us off at, I pull everyone to a stop. Carina doesn’t wait for me to lower my body before she hops off and disappears into the forest. The others pretend not to notice.
“Rest,” I command before following Carina through the thicket and to a nearby stream she’s managed to find.
If she hears me coming, she continues ignoring me as she lowers to a crouch on the bank and goes to dip her hands. She stops before reaching the water, and her fingers curl into fists she instead jabs against her forehead.
“Leave me alone, leave me alone…”
“I refuse to.”
With a gasp, she whips around. Strange new eyes wide but immediately narrowing as she stiffly climbs back to her feet. “Ryder.”
“We need to talk.”
Her breath stalls, something I feel through the connection. “About?”
“I think you know what.”
“I suppose it’s unavoidable.” She sniffs and stares at the stream to ask, “When did you know I was your mate?”
Finally able to admit it—to admit everything—the truth tumbles out, mingling with the mental demand she allows: that I erase the four feet of distance between us so I can stroke her bite mark and remind both myself and her that she’s mine.
“Right away, though I didn’t realize it was a n?kak?stis bond. When we met by the lake, there was something different about you. The way I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“You saw me. That’s why my spell didn’t work. It was…this.”
“It’d make sense. We don’t know how the bond works, only that Earth or fate or something in the universe gives us one. Surely whatever that power is ensured you couldn’t hide from me.”
She exhales audibly, biting her bottom lip.
“Your scent lingered right up until the meeting. I went into it knowing I’d be taking a witch named Carina Hargrove, but my mind couldn’t escape you.
Little did I realize the woman plaguing my mind was Carina.
All of a sudden, the witch my body was screaming at me to be near, to protect, was coming home with me.
That first night when I left you in my cabin, Marissa explained it all to me.
” I take another step, a stick cracking beneath my weight.
“What would have happened if you were already mated?” Her lips part with the question, spinning half-formed answers before giving me the chance to respond. Her question may have the power to break me because her concern says more.
“Don’t think I ever could have. Either way, I never planned on completing the bond. You were needed by Twilight Grove. You’re slated to become a High Priestess. We were strangers thrown together by unfortunate circumstances. I didn’t want to complete it… Didn’t want you.”
My voice dies on the wind—a plea for her to read between the lines.
“Why keep me around?”
“Because when my soul demands you being nearby, it’s really fuckin’ hard to ignore. It’s why you were placed in my cabin. If you couldn’t be my mate in all the correct ways, I’d make sure a piece of you clung.”
I take another step her way, which she immediately notices.
“You didn’t keep your own deal.”
“No,” I reply soft enough that the syllable gets lost in the babbling stream by our feet.
“It was my intention to walk away, but then you were you. You weren’t like anything I expected.
You cared about the pack, about Leah, Dad…
you played with the pups. The more time we spent together, the more difficult it was to ignore what was so fuckin’ obvious. ”
“Which was?”
“I think you know the answer to that. You were so determined to run off and help the covens and ensure Dad got well, a part of me stopped caring about all of that. Which makes me a terrible son and a worse Alpha, but I started to need you safe more than anything else in the world. More than him. For shifters, a pack is our entire world. Our family, our loyalty. To harm another member is a death sentence. But there’s one thing that will always come above any pack member, no matter what. ”
“A mate.” Her whisper catches on the breeze, lost within her horror. “That’s why you promised to come after me.”
“I promised to save you because you didn’t deserve any of it. When my father was dying and I told you to go home… Later, everything I said to you at the border was true. Every word. I meant everything.”
I manage another step nearer, only an arm’s length away now.
“Then I returned.” She shuts her eyes, going still in ways that describe her heartache more than words ever could. “I walked right into it, didn’t I?”
“You came back to keep the pack safe, and that…that was the stupidest thing you could have done.” I take a final step and her scent—her warmth—wraps me up.
When she inhales, so do I. “Fighting my feelings became pointless. I desired you, so I took you. I bit you because I wanted to, make no fucking mistake about that. I claimed you to find you, kamahki, to feel you, to keep you, to protect you. The day Sloane came, I failed, but you’re back with me, and when we get home, that’s all you’ll ever be—mine. ”
Her every breath is mine. Her emotions are mine. She is mine, and needs to understand this.
My hand reaches to cup her face, fingers brushing against the pulse in her neck; the thrum immediately relaxes my own.
“Feel me?”
“Your emotions come through the link, but it’s also a one-way lead to you—designed that way so a wolf can always find his mate and care for her how she needs.” My fingers move from her pulse to the bite mark, and a low vibration thrums against my fingertips as her head tilts slightly to the side.
Submissive. A wolf who recognizes her Alpha.
As fast as it comes, she pulls away, throwing her own hands up as she whirls for the water. “No, I’m sorry, but no. Thank you, for explaining all that…but no. It doesn’t change anything.”
It changes everything.
“Calling me your fated whatever doesn’t make it real.”
My arm stretches, fingertips brushing her elbow, which she jerks away from. “Carina, it’s real.”
“None of it matters. You bonded with me to save me—and you have. Not because you feel anything. Regardless”—her hair flicks with her rapid shakes—“I need to go home. To my home. I need to get away from you and from everyone and just be alone. I’m not good anymore, Ryder.
The Darkness… It’s in control and I’m not. ”