Chapter 30 – EMMA
EMMA
Brief hugs that end too soon. Forehead kisses when I want his mouth on mine. He’s holding back, and he won’t tell me why.
But enough is enough.
The cabin is warm. Natalie made sure of that before she left last night, stocking the firewood, leaving soft blankets draped over the couch, and filling the fridge with food I’ve barely touched.
This place should feel like a sanctuary, a cozy little space at the edge of the security compound with its crackling fire and hand-stitched quilts.
Instead, it feels like a waiting room. I’m safe now, but I’m still alone, and now that I’ve met Bodhi, the hollow ache deep inside feels even worse.
This bed is too big. I lie on one side, leaving space for a body that never comes, and stare at the ceiling until exhaustion drags me under. When I wake, I reach for him automatically, but the cold sheets beneath my palm remind me all over again, with devastating brutality, that he’s not there.
The mate bond Natalie described isn’t abstract anymore. It’s a hook buried under my ribs, tugging constantly toward him. A wrongness that grows sharper every hour he stays away, along with the nagging feeling that this isn’t how it should be.
He promised me a future. A family. After spending most of my life with only Jake, after losing everyone else, he dangled this vision of belonging somewhere in front of me, but now it feels like all of that’s slipping away.
I’m sitting on the porch, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee that’s gone cold now, when Natalie’s boots crunch across the gravel path.
The compound is already waking up behind her; a distant rhythm of voices and slamming doors drifts from the main building.
Men in dark tactical gear cross the parking lot, heading toward the warehouses.
Someone laughs, the sound easy and uncomplicated, and the normalcy of it makes me ache.
She trades my cold mug for a steaming replacement in a takeaway cup and settles into the chair beside me, tucking her legs beneath her. “You look like you slept about as well as he did.”
I wrap my hands around the new mug, letting the heat seep into my fingers. “He’s not sleeping?”
“He’s going to collapse if he keeps pushing this hard.” She takes a sip of her own coffee, watching me over the rim with those dark eyes that remind me so much of her brother.
“He never came to see me.”
I feel weak being upset about a boy after everything I’ve been through. I should be grateful to be alive, relieved my ordeal is over, and focus on getting back to my normal life, not pining for a man who’s avoiding me.
Natalie tilts her head back a little and sniffs the air. “Yes, he did. He just didn’t let you know.”
Swivelling in my seat, I follow her gaze to the dense scrub behind my house. “He was stalking me?”
Although it fits with his MO. I shouldn’t be so surprised.
She shakes her head. “Guarding you.”
I scoff. “But he can’t say hello or guard me from inside?”
“He thinks he can’t.” She tips her head toward the main building, a strangely appealing mix of red brick, steel, and glass.
“That this isn’t over, and you’re still not safe, until he finds Dimitri.
He’s stuck in over-protective alpha mode.
Afraid of what he might do if he loses control.
” She gives me a sympathetic smile. “And he’s stubborn as a bear. ”
I stare down at the dark surface of my coffee, watching the steam curl upward and dissipate. Part of me wants to stay here, wrapped in this blanket, nursing my wounds in private, but the bond tugs insistently, and I’m sick of everyone else deciding my fate.
Jake, Kozlov, Ashworth, and now Bodhi.
“Go,” Natalie says, holding out a hand for my coffee cup. “Don’t let him hide behind work.”
I’m not sure what I’m going to do or say, but I’m so starved for even a glimpse of him I set down my mug and push myself up before I can overthink it.
“Training yard. Keep left and follow the fence.”
The yard sits behind the main building, a contained area with weights and heavy bags, and enough open space for sparring.
A few men are lifting weights near the entrance; their conversation’s a low rumble punctuated by laughter. They’re attractive and well-built, the kind of guys who would normally catch my attention, but my eyes find Bodhi immediately, drawn to him like a compass finding north.
He’s at the far end of the yard, shirtless despite the chilly morning air, and attacking a heavy bag with violent intensity. His skin gleams with sweat, muscles bunching and releasing with every strike. His tanned flesh is perfect, with no sign of the bullet wound. He’s breathtaking.
And while I’d love to stay here and admire how powerful and impressive he looks with all that controlled strength on display, I can’t. Because he looks like a troubled man trying to deal with his problems by beating the shit out of a punch bag.
Every punch he throws is reckless and uncontrolled, and his form deteriorates as exhaustion and frustration chip away at his focus. The bag swings wildly, and he chases it, bare fists connecting with dull thuds that echo off the surrounding buildings.
One of the other men calls out to him, telling him to take a break, but Bodhi doesn’t even glance over. Just keeps hitting until his knuckles are raw and bleeding, and his chest is heaving.
I can see the tremor in his arms from twenty feet away.
I grip the fence tighter.
Because there’s another feeling underneath the longing. One that’s been building for days, fed by every moment he’s left me alone while he deals with whatever this is. It sits in my chest alongside the want, heavier and harder to ignore.
Anger.
Does he look at me now and see me as weak because I couldn’t protect myself? Because I’m not like him?
I know what Natalie told me. But logic doesn’t quiet the voice whispering that none of it explains why my bed was cold and empty last night.
Bodhi lands one final blow, so hard, the chain holding the bag groans, and its insides rupture in a puff of smoke and dust. He stands there for a moment, head bowed and shoulders rising and falling with laboured breaths.
Then he turns and reaches for a towel that’s draped over the fence, then freezes, posture rigid.
His nose twitches just as Natalie’s did earlier. He’s caught my scent, the breeze carrying it across the yard.
My whole body tightens in response to the flare of the bond, heat blooming beneath my skin, despite the cold.
When he spins in my direction, eyes meeting mine, I don’t look away.
Don’t smile, don’t wave, and don’t pretend I wasn’t watching.
I hold his gaze across the yard and let him see everything I’m feeling.
The anger I can’t swallow anymore. The hurt.
And the burning need that won’t leave me alone no matter how hard I try to smother it.
For a moment, his body shifts toward me. The bond hums with anticipation. Yes. Come to me. Please.
Then something closes off behind his eyes, but not before I feel a gut-wrenching jolt of yearning.
He looks away, grabs his shirt from the ground, then walks off toward the main building without a backward glance.
I watch him disappear through the door, my hands still gripping the chain-link hard enough to leave red welts on my palms.
Training continues around me. Weights clank, someone grunts through a set of pull-ups, and conversations rise and fall, all oddly normal, as I snap out of my daze.
The cold finds its way through my jacket now that the flare of anger is fading, leaving me hollow and tired.
So, he can watch over me for hours in the freezing cold, but he can’t find five minutes to talk?
No. I’m not putting up with that.