Chapter 27 You Don’t Always Find What You’re Looking For
Chapter twenty-seven
You Don’t Always Find What You’re Looking For
Ididn’t remember falling asleep, and I recalled no dreams, which was disorientating in itself. For years, I had dreamt every night, never good dreams, but some less devastating than others.
It was an odd sensation to wake without the smoky ghosts of my nightly imaginings chasing me awake.
The sun was bright, flooding the space beneath the loft bedroom with light.
I listened, waited like it had become a habit to hear where Cole was.
Only silence.
I moved, which caused my neck to ache, and I saw the dark red stain of blood on the pillow.
The marking came flooding back to me along with Cole’s departure.
I pressed my fingers lightly against the ache of my neck and hissed in pain.
It was real.
Cole had marked me.
I had begged her to.
And she had regretted it so much that, as soon as the high of instinct had faded, she had left and apparently had not returned.
Guilt made me feel sick.
I had known what I was doing, had seen the change in her the moment I had taunted her alpha instincts to the surface.
Alpha instincts. I always thought it was bullshit, personally. An excuse for inexcusable behaviour. And I thought most alphas that claimed to be overwhelmed by instinct were using it as such.
But Cole.
She had made it clear she didn’t want this.
Clear that she was handing me back.
The true mate bond wasn’t enough.
Still, was there anything more powerful in terms of producing an instinctive response than a true mate?
Alpha instincts were always used as an excuse for an alpha taking something that wasn’t theirs, for using force to get what they want. The truth of it was that an alpha's instincts didn’t take control; it gave it away.
Had I forced her?
Coerced her in some way when I challenged her, when I said she wasn’t my real Alpha?
My head hurt.
I felt sick.
No wonder she had left so quickly and hadn’t returned.
I needed to find Cole. Needed to tell her it didn’t have to mean anything. That she didn’t have to follow through on what it meant.
It was an archaic concept anyway to be marked.
If she didn’t want me, she wasn’t obligated—not by some scar.
I got up and dressed for the day, finding my only other set of clothes, the previous day’s torn and scattered across the bedroom.
Cole was nowhere in the cabin. I’d half expected to find her out on the back porch, maybe even in the hot tub or in the bathroom.
I was alone.
I put my jacket on at the door and lifted up the collar to hide the marking.
Part of me was repulsed by the thought of hiding it; my own instinct was to show it.
To let everyone see her mark, her claim on me.
But the logical part of me recognised that it would likely draw attention and questions that would lead back to Cole and only further her regret.
I knocked on the door of Darren’s cabin. He would know where Cole was or help me find her.
I fixed the collar of the jacket and pulled my hair over my shoulders as I waited for him to answer.
I knocked again, losing patience. Where was he? Without me?
There was no answer.
“He’s at the arm-wrestling event,” Alpha Sara said as I was walking away from his cabin.
She was exiting her cabin.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked.
I tried to think of something to say, but nerves made me take a beat too long to speak, and suddenly Alpha Sara was walking towards me.
“Uh, no. I was just bored and wanted to know if he’d like to do something,” I said as she approached.
“While it’s not an event I’d find entertaining, it is open to all spectators, though challengers are organised by sex and presentation. It’s taking place at Community Hall 3,” she told me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Wait a moment, omega,” Alpha Sara said when I turned to leave, and at that very moment a gust of wind blew my hair back.
I pulled my jacket collar tight, imagining that I was casual enough about it not to draw attention.
The way Alpha Sara’s eyes narrowed in on my throat told me I hadn’t been fast enough or casual enough.
“Show me your neck,” she commanded.
“Why?” I asked. Because, of course, I had to make things worse for myself by questioning her.
“My sister might put up with your insubordination, but not me, child,” she told me.
“It’s really nothing. I slept weird, and—”
She pulled my hand from my neck.
Her face was a blank mask.
“I can’t believe her,” she hissed, taking my jaw in her hand and turning my face to see the mark better. “She did this recently. This morning?” she asked. “No, last night,” she concluded, reading me before I’d even thought to school my face.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It was my fault,” I told her.
“Hey!” Darren called, running over to us. “WTF, Mum? Let her go,” he said.
Alpha Sara released me like I was something dirty.
Darren reached us and saw my neck as well. His face became shocked.
He hated me too.
I ran away from them both.
Darren called to me once, but didn’t follow me.
I had ruined everything.
I should have just been happy with what I had: a break from life with Ashford. I should have made the most of my time with Darren. I should have ignored Cole.
Instead, I pursued and pushed her and taunted her, and now everything was worse. For everyone.
It was later in the day than I thought. I realised as the sun was already beginning to lower in the sky and people were sitting outside the restaurants and food stalls, drinking and eating.
I had to find Cole. I had to make this right.
I wasn’t thinking. Not clearly. I went back to the last place we had been together—the meeting rooms in the conference building—walking through the sports hall, which was still busy with the business fair, and through the building to the meeting rooms on the upper floor.
Walking past men and women in business-casual attire, pushing through swing doors, trying not to look lost, trying not to be noticed.
As I walked, I heard a familiar voice. Dread trickled down from the top of my head. Ashford.
I turned around, walking back down the hall and away from the sound of his voice.
I wasn’t fast enough.
“Harriet?” he called.
I walked faster as if I hadn’t heard him. I just had to keep ahead of him until we were somewhere busy. The sports hall or outside, with all the food stalls.
I pushed through another set of swing doors and recognised a poster on the wall advertising virtual assistant services. Was I lost? What way had I come? I pushed on, worried he was still behind me. The stairwell had to be close. The green fire exit signs caught my attention, and I followed them.
I pushed open the door to the stairwell and was pulled backwards by my jacket, off my feet, and I fell to the ground.
Ashford stood above me.
“Didn’t you hear me calling to you?” he asked.
I looked up and saw the moment he noticed Cole’s mark.
A long silence stretched between us.
“Here, let me help you up,” he said, offering me his hand.
I took his hand, and he pulled me to my feet with ease.
“Sorry, I’m in a rush,” I said without looking at him and tried to move past him back to the stairwell.
“Not so fast. Wherever you’re going can’t be more important than me, can it?” he asked.
Voices began to near us, and air rushed into my lungs. I wouldn’t be alone with him for long.
His eyes never left my throat.
“You must have been busy after we reconnected yesterday,” he said, scenting the air with no subtlety.
The swing doors nearest us pushed open, and a group began to walk towards us.
“I really should be going,” I said as Ashford turned to see the approaching group.
I quickly moved past him, just out of reach.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he called behind me.
Tonight?
It was only when I was outside—the cold air, the dimming light—that I recognised the feeling within myself, that foreign pull.
The full moon.
I had forgotten.
I ran back to the cabin, completely ignoring any attention that my frantic sprint may have attracted.
Back in the cabin, I made my way to the kitchen, opening each cabinet, desperately looking for wolfsbane. This was Hail. They had to have wolfsbane somewhere!
I opened every drawer next. Even checked the fridge and freezer, and finally the mirrored cabinet in the bathroom.
None.
Not a single tea, pill, gummy, or anything.
I walked out to the back porch and sat on its edge.
It was too late now to suppress the shift anyway, I decided, looking at how low the sun was above the treeline.
I was going to shift.
There was no choice.
Cole had offered to protect me during the last full moon. To keep the others away from me.
But she wasn’t here now. Obviously by choice. If I were her, I wouldn’t want to be near me either.
Without her, I was a lone omega on a full moon.
It’d probably be better for Cole if I were attacked and killed.
Ashford wasn’t going to come to my rescue this time either. Not after he saw Cole’s mark.
I had two options.
Accept my fate, sit and wait for the inevitable, or—I had at least a couple of hours before the moon rose—I could make a run for it.
Try to be as far into the forest as possible when the shift happens.
From how everyone was behaving, drinking and eating in the centre of the resort, it was most likely that Packs were planning to shift together.
If I were far enough away from everyone else when I shifted, it would give me a head start.
I would run until there was no more forest.
That option came with its own dangers. I didn’t know the area, and if I strayed too close to a human town or village, I could be shot at, fined, or criminally charged. There were safety zones, national parks, and segregated areas for shifting for a reason.
No one wanted werewolves in their back garden on a full moon night.
I sat there, weighing my options as the sun crept slowly lower.
If fate wanted me to die on the full moon, she should have taken me out three years ago.
I got to my feet and walked towards the treeline.