Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
GARRETT
“We have a tie! Time to vote.” Hayden announces on the stage, standing to the right of Damien and me.
“Feels like I just ran five miles,” I say, still trying to catch my breath.
Damien shoots me an annoyed look between heavy breaths. “Only five? Don’t recall this—being so—hard.”
Hayden slams the flat side of the paint ball gun against Damien’s chest. “You’re getting slow. You should have pinned him before that last shift.”
“He’s a slippery SOB.”
“That’s because you shot me with paint balls. Who the fuck added that to the bin?”
“Hasting’s kid bought it in town. Christine caught him shooting up the back of their cabin. Confiscated it.”
Hayden lifts Damien’s arm. “Let’s hear your howls for Damien.”
The crowd goes wild, louder than I remember from our early twenties.
“I still got it,” Damien gloats, the asshole.
“He’s enjoying this too much,” I remark to Hayden.
“You noticed that, huh?” Hayden lifts my right arm up for the crowd. “And your vote for Garrett.”
Amid the howls, I search the grassy area for my sweet Angel.
I can’t wait to see her smiling face. Despite how sore I am, this little escapade she and Tess cooked up seems to be what Damien and I needed.
We got out our tension, all the resentment that’s been building between us, and it’s like we’re twenty again.
Cousins and friends, with nothing between us.
These past weeks have been so freeing. I’m more alive than I’ve ever been… thanks to Angel.
Where is she? I ask my wolf, scanning the crowd.
“Looks like we have a tie,” Hayden announces. “You know what that means. Another song!”
I spot Tess, but don’t see any blonde hair nearby. Something’s not right.
I shift and spring from the stage.
“It appears Garrett’s conceding the win to our alpha. Let’s hear it for the Howling Howliday Cousins!”
My wolf’s hackles rise as I dart through the crowd, feverishly scenting the air. Too many shifters. I can’t sort through the scents fast enough to find even a trace of my female.
My wolf veers left, to where I last saw her.
“I don’t know where she went?” Tess says without my having to shift to ask. “I just got back. She can’t be far.”
No, she can’t be. But why did she leave? One by one, I tick off the possible reasons, from needing a bathroom to having a conversation with Langdon about working for him…. to how I claimed her without talking to her first. I fucking let my wolf drive me into doing something she didn’t want.
And yet she was beaming afterwards. Then why leave here without me?
She worked with Tess to get me to this celebration, and onto that stage where I could remember what Damien and I are to one another. Family. Angel wouldn’t walk away without cause.
I’ve been too caught up in the mistakes of my past to remember what I’ve done right. And being with Angel is as right as I could ever be.
Once I leave the lake, I find Angel’s scent in the wind fairly quickly. She’s running, and not on any foot path.
Her scent hangs on low lying branches, the bark of several trees, and the snow. The course she’s taking is erratic.
“Angel?” I call out, so as not to frighten her.
She doesn’t answer, which unnerves me. A mile later, I spot her sitting on a log, breaking off pieces of a pine cone.
“I’m sorry I ran,” she says without looking up, without waiting for me to say anything. “I got upset. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Baby, I can’t fix whatever’s wrong if you don’t tell me.”
Her head snaps up. “I don’t need you to fix my mistakes. That’s for me to do.”
My palms fly up in surrender. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. But running from me isn’t the answer either.”
What little remains of the pinecone falls at her feet as she brushes the dirt from her hands. “You’re right, it isn’t.” She stands, tosses her hair back, adjusts her scarf then marches up to me. “We have a date back at our cabin, don’t we?”
“Don’t shut me out,” I say as she passes me.
She stops but doesn’t turn around. “Hurts, doesn’t it? Never knowing what the other shifter is thinking, always wondering if you’re good enough for them.”
I swing her to face me, gripping her chin harsher than I intended, but it gets her attention. “I don’t regret what happened between us tonight. I’m falling for you, Angel, but I’m not sure what I’m doing. Any of it. Tell me what you need and I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I need you to have not rescued me, Garrett. Not without the other shifters.”
My hands drop to my side. “I didn’t want to leave them there.”
“But you did. Because of me. Now they’re in some impossible to breach fortress and you or others could get killed trying to free them.”
“How did you find out—” I shake my head.
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. What you have to understand, Angel, is that there will always be another mission, an impossible to win situation, but that doesn’t stop us.
It can’t, or we lose without even trying.
But that doesn’t mean we go in half-cocked.
Rescuing you was foolish only in how I did it.
Without backup and against orders. I broke a lot of rules that day, but I won’t apologize for it.
It brought me you. And yes, I wish I could have rescued the others at the same time, but life isn’t always fair, is it?
Not every mission is a success.” I cup her face.
“None of this is on you. You were taken, and used. If you could have escaped you would have. You needed help. That’s something we all need at times.
You’ve helped me in ways I can’t even put into words, and I didn’t even realize how much I needed you.
Need you.” I lean my forehead against her.
“We will free them, Angel. It’s only a matter of time. ”
Hope shines in her eyes, as she swipes away the tears. “I want to help.”
An image of Marla flashes before my eyes. “You’re not going to like my answer.”
“Try me.”
“You help by staying out of it. Let me, Callen, Frank, and the others do our job. I need to be fully focused on what we’re doing, but I can’t, not if I’m worried you’re going to take off and try to prove yourself like Marla.”
“I’m not a fool.” She winces. “I shouldn’t speak ill of her. She was your friend. But I’m not her, Garrett. I’m not sure you can see that.”
“You’re right. You’re not her, and she was foolish. And selfish. Things you’re not.” A new fear grips me by the balls. “Tell me you’re not planning to go after those shifters yourself, Angel.”
“I already promised you that—”
“I know,” I snap as images of Marla—all smiles as she convinced me to train her—flash through my mind. She’d made promises, too.
“Things change. Shifters change. And I’ve been fooled once.”
Anger seeps into her face. “I’ve never lied to you.”
“No, not intentionally. But as I said, shifters change. I need you to tell me that all this training, all your questions about tracking which you don’t need for escape and evasion, isn’t about going after those shifters.”
“Would you believe me if I said no?”
That’s a damn good question.
When I don’t answer, she shakes her head. “Maybe I should sleep in the women’s cabin after all.” She barely looks me in the eyes as she passes me in the direction of camp.
I clamp down on her arm. “That is why you asked me to train you, isn’t it? So you could mount your own rescue mission.”
Slowly, blue eyes lock on me. “I said it once, and I won’t say it again. First, I’m not Marla. Second, I refuse to make things worse for those shifters. Your team is the best chance they have. So, no, I’m not trying to rescue them or anyone else.”
I exhale slowly, calming myself at the very idea that she’d even considered attempting a rescue. “Good. Now I don’t have to worry about you running off.”
“I didn’t say I was staying here.”
My heart sinks into my stomach. “Explain that.”
“I don’t think you’re ever going to trust me.
I expect that from the others in this pack.
From Tiberius who came up to me tonight and told me to leave, reminding me in no uncertain terms that I’m responsible for those shifters remaining prisoners.
Even Damien, despite how he’s warmed to me, still sees me as trouble because of how I distracted you that day we first met.
Maybe the shifters being held captive isn’t entirely my fault—
“It’s not your fault at all,” I interject.
“As I was saying, even if their fate isn’t my responsibility, the fact remains that you disobeyed orders and returned for me. Damien and the rest will always see me as little more than the shifter who tempted you down a wrong path. Hell, isn’t that appropriate considering our little tryst today?”
“Wait, back up for a minute. What the fuck did Tiberius say to you?”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s not why I ran. Not entirely.
I thought if I worked hard enough here, found a way to fit in, I could escape my role in those shifters’ fate.
A few minutes ago, when you found me sitting on that log, my world shifted.
Everything suddenly seemed right again, as it always does when I’m around you. ”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I’ve fallen for you, Garrett,” her hand cups my cheek.
“but I’m losing myself in the process. I haven’t been myself for a long time.
It goes beyond a sense of vulnerability.
It’s… I can’t even explain it. But nothing is the same.
Everything has been failing me. And now…
you. I asked you to train me because I don’t want to ever be helpless again.
Despite my earlier promise, you assumed the worst of me just now, that I’ve been using you so I can go after those shifters.
I’d never use you, Garrett. I couldn’t, because I love you. That’s why I can’t keep doing this.”
“What the hell does that mean?” My voice cracks. “Are you leaving me, Angel? The pack? Because if you have to leave, I’ll go with you.”
She backs up from me, shaking her head. “I need… space. I don’t know if that means leaving the pack, too.
I’ve thought about it before. A lot. Right now…
” She takes a deep breath. “I’m going to the women’s cabin tonight.
And before you ask, no, I don’t know what I’m doing.
I only know love shouldn’t hurt or destroy.
It should build a person up, not tear her apart. ”
What the fuck is happening?
My entire body’s on edge, so much that I don’t even feel the pain of my wolf biting me in panic. I’m too numb because I’m losing my Angel, and I don’t know how to stop that from happening.
“Angel, please, we need to talk about this.
“I… I need to think, and I can’t do that around you.” She kisses my cheek. “Bye, Garrett. Please don’t follow me.”
She walks out of my sight, leaving me standing there, as alone and empty as before I met her. Worse… she’s taken a piece of my heart with her.