Chapter 11 - Lila
I spent most of the morning pretending Caleb doesn’t exist, but it’s only effective for so long.
The cabin is barely big enough for two people to carry on with their day in semi-privacy, so I try to linger outside. The fresh air helps, at least, but it doesn’t seem to take long for him to appear again.
Not right in my face, but close enough for me to know he’s keeping an eye on me, even from afar.
I drift from the back porch to the stream not far from the cabin, trying my hardest to just seem contemplative, or like I’m biding my time, but truthfully, I’m trying to think of a way out.
Most of the ideas don’t stick, but I keep coming back to the same common denominator. I just need to get to the house and get Astrid. Maybe then I can just run and hope for the best. Maybe I can put everything behind us and move on completely.
I know the pack would come looking eventually, and most certainly Caleb, but it’s the only thing I have to cling to.
Still, every time I think I’ve found a way, the idea dissolves as the likelihood of anything working feels so low. It doesn’t help that the bond complicates everything, clawing away at me on the inside.
All of it is so unbelievably infuriating.
Worst of all, despite how furious I am with him, and despite everything he did to me, I can’t shut him out completely. Not while he’s literally in my head now.
It’s early afternoon when it happens the first time, and I’m sitting on the back porch by myself, watching the stream from a distance. Everything’s quiet, and while I can sense him nearby, it feels like something of a reprieve.
There’s a nasty spider in the kitchen. You should come see it.
I jump in place, brows immediately furrowing as his voice fills my head, almost like a memory, but far too clear and direct to be that. His words brush against the edges of my mind, almost like a caress. The presence is so distinctly not mine, and I freeze.
Caleb? I think back, not at all meant for him to receive.
His voice slides back in, feeling far too familiar there, as if he’s been in my mind all along. So you do know how to use it…
Staring at nothing in particular, that disbelief grips me, and it takes a moment to process before the realization strikes me.
The mental link. I knew it was part of the mating bond, but I’ve been so furious with him and everything happening that it completely escaped me.
I see you’re not very good at protecting your thoughts yet. That’s dangerous.
I narrow my eyes and snap back at him through the connection, Stop it.
But of course, he doesn’t leave. Instead, I feel his amusement through the bond, almost like distant laughter, but more as a sensation than an audible sound.
Tempting… but I felt you pulling on it first, whether you knew it or not, Caleb sends back with a strange kind of ease. It’s far too smug for my liking. Were you secretly thinking about me?
My cheeks immediately burn at the implications, and it takes all of my power not to squirm.
I wasn’t.
Lila, you definitely were.
That matter-of-fact tone only pisses me off more, and I glance over my shoulder to find the kitchen window open and Caleb leaning his arms against the sill with his chin resting on them, and an infuriating grin.
“Caleb,” I hiss out loud, teeth gritting. “Stay out of my head.”
“I will if you stop thinking so loud,” he says before standing up and moving to the back door, pushing the screen open, and leaning in the threshold. “You were practically shouting.”
“I wasn’t.”
He shrugs, gaining far too much amusement from this. “Kinda felt like you were.”
God, I hate him.
I hate how easily he gets under my skin, and more so than that, I hate how my pulse flutters at the sight of him.
I spent so long pushing down those feelings before, and without even trying, he has brought them back to the surface. He’s twisting and reshaping them, lacing memories and resentment with more heat than he should even be allowed.
More than anything, I want to throw something at him right now, but I don’t. I won’t let him see how unsettled I am by all of it.
Caleb just watches me for a while, eyes still gleaming from his previous teasing, then he crosses his arms deliberately. It takes incredible strength not to stare at the way it makes his muscles pop.
“You haven’t eaten anything today,” he says quietly, not hiding that subtle concern. “You should.”
Blinking back at him, it almost feels like I’m enduring whiplash.
When I don’t say anything, he eases his shoulders a bit, dropping that smug undertone. “Let me make you something.”
At this moment, he doesn’t feel like the Alpha, or the man who broke my heart. Instead, he just looks normal, like he’s trying. Trying for me.
I don’t know what to do with that, or the care that seems to come with it.
“Is this supposed to fix everything?” I ask finally, voice sharp out of sheer self-defense.
“No,” he murmurs, eyes never leaving me. “It’s just a meal.”
I huff out a breath, well aware that it’s more than reasonable. “Stop trying to be nice.”
The corner of his lip just barely pulls before he stands up fully and begins back inside. “I’ll try harder to be infuriating.”
I scowl. “You already are.”
But given the flicker of amusement that travels down the link again, I have the feeling I’m far less intimidating than I want to be.
***
After forcing myself to eat the quick meal Caleb made for me, the rest of the afternoon passed in waves of awkward silence, accidental eye contact, and even more silence.
Every time I think I’ve found the courage to confront him even more about our past, the bond pulls at me, and my resolve crumbles. And by early evening, the tension in the cabin is unbearable.
I step outside to breathe and clear my head, picturing the forest path leading me home. Not to Caleb’s house, but to my house, regardless of how modest it is. Regardless of the danger surrounding it now.
But even from out there, I can still feel his presence through the bond, low, steady, and simmering just beneath the surface.
It feels like I’m being haunted by someone still living, and no part of me was ever prepared for this.
I don’t even know how much time passes before I return inside, finding Caleb already sitting on the side of the bed like he’s lost in thought, wearing a pair of joggers and a plain tee that looks far more relaxed than what I’m used to seeing him in.
He rubs a hand over the back of his head before glancing at me. He looks almost vulnerable, and I hate how it makes my stomach twist.
“Lila,” he starts quietly, “we need to talk.”
My words dismiss the thought before my heart has the chance to interfere. “I don’t want to.”
“Too bad.”
Catching me with his arrogance, I look at him in disbelief. “You still think you get to order me around?”
“I’m not trying to,” Caleb murmurs, though his words are edged with the subtle command he can’t always turn off. “I just… I need you to understand that I’m not trying to trap you.”
I huff out a breath, but it lacks any genuine humor. “That’s exactly what it feels like.”
He sighs and absently rubs his hands together. “I know. But I’m not your enemy, and I don’t want to be.”
“You weren’t supposed to be before either.”
That brief quiet is far heavier than I want to contend with, but I still can’t bring myself to move anyway.
He swallows hard. “I can’t change what I did. I know that.”
“No, you can’t.”
I half expect that to be it, but Caleb stands from the bed and takes a step towards me, followed by another until I can physically feel the room shrinking. My heart thrums, and the bond pulls even tighter.
He stops, leaving a step between us, and his gaze focuses on me with such a startling intensity that my throat goes dry.
“Tell me to back off, Lila,” he murmurs, sounding almost pained. “And I will.”
I should, and I know it.
I should scream the words at him, shove him out of my way, and do everything in my power to block him out for good.
But the bond is the one screaming now, drowning out any reason.
To make matters worse, his scent hits me in a tangle of the forest air, smoke from the fireplace, and that warmth belonging only to him.
Everything rises to the surface… longing, anger, hunger, and memories that demand to be replicated.
It’s all so overwhelming, I can’t even focus on my words.
Caleb lifts his hand with hesitation, almost trembling as if he’s fighting the exact same storm as me. Then, with the faintest touch, his fingers graze my jaw.
At once, everything in me short-circuits.
My blood runs hot at the proximity, roaring in my ears and disorienting me.
For a beat, I want to lean into it. To soak in the feeling of his skin, and to enter that state of euphoria, I know he can provide for me.
I inhale sharply as my sense returns, and I smack his hand away.
As if broken from a trance of his own, Caleb stumbles back a step, eyes dark with something far worse than anger. Want. Pure, unbridled desire.
Blinking back at me, he looks startled, but he doesn’t try again. Instead, he pulls in a breath and puts more distance between us, fighting himself again.
“Fuck,” he mutters hoarsely. “Sorry…”
I know he’s being sincere, and it’s the bond shaking our self-restraint, but I don’t accept it.
Instead, I turn away before he can see just how shaken up I am by it, and before he can sense just how close I am to giving in.
This time, as night blankets the cabin, I face the wall while Caleb sleeps on the couch across the room. Neither of us even wants to tempt fate.
But sleep still doesn’t come for me anyway.
Between my awareness of just how near he is despite the current distance between us and the insistent, agonizingly lonely part of me that remembers too much from before, I can’t get my mind to shut off.
I try so hard to push it all down. To not feel or want.
But the bond doesn’t care what I want. It echoes his name in my head and my heart, whispering for me to just give in.
And for the first time since the ceremony, I’m terrified I might lose the fight against primal instincts.