Chapter Seven
Andrew
I've been running for an hour when she finds me.
I'm deep in the forest on the eastern edge of pack lands, pushing hard through the underbrush, and my wolf is finally starting to settle. Four paws on earth, the rhythm of breath and steady thudding motion, the smell of pine and turned soil and the creek half a mile north.
Then I catch her scent on the wind and my wolf perks up immediately. She’s in wolf form. Here in the forest. With me.
She comes through the trees at a dead sprint, her coat silver-gray in the dappled sunlight. She doesn't slow down. She just falls into stride beside me, matching my pace, and we run.
The woods are green and alive. April in Arkansas means everything blooming at once — dogwood flowers in the clearings, wild violets underfoot, the canopy overhead just thick enough to keep the forest floor cool. The air is warm on my fur. Somewhere a woodpecker is working on a dead oak.
We run until the trees open up into a small clearing I've known my entire life. There's a fallen log at the edge, soft moss covering the ground, and the light coming through the canopy in long golden bars.
I shift first. The change rolls through me fast, my bones reshaping, and then I'm standing on two legs in the clearing, naked and already regretting the decision to stop running.
She shifts a second later.
And there she is. Naked. Right there. About six feet away from me in a patch of sunlight. Slender, pale, the perfect globes of her breasts tipped with pink.
I tear my gaze away and look at the trees. Very interesting trees. Extremely compelling bark patterns.
"How many?" she says.
I risk a glance at her. She's looking right at me, her gaze burning through me.
My mouth quirks up in a smile. "How many what? Trees in the forest? A whole bunch. More than ten, definitely."
She lets out a sharp breath of exasperation. "How many times did you pay for my food?"
Oh. That.
I look back at the trees. "Does it matter?"
"Yes."
I exhale. "I don't know. A lot."
"Why did you do it?"
I shrug uncomfortably. This conversation would be easier if we were both wearing clothes.
"You just seemed hungry."
She's quiet for a moment. Then: "Not because you cared about me at all?"
"Maybe a little,” I mutter.
Maybe a lot, I think. Maybe my heart ached for the scrappy little pest who followed me around like I was there to save her.
Maybe I wanted to protect her even back then, before I understood what that meant.
Maybe when I saw her standing in that cornfield two weeks ago, something in me recognized her before my brain caught up.
I don't say any of that.
Instead I look at her properly, and I catch a new undercurrent of worry in her expression. She's hiding it, but I've been around her long enough now to pick up on her moods, or maybe it’s the fated mate thing. Or both.
"Is anything bothering you?" I ask. "Other than me, that is?"
She shrugs and looks away. "Oh, you're not that awful, I guess."
That's not an answer.
I take a step toward her. "Henrietta."
She looks up at me, and the space between us feels smaller than it did a second ago. The bond hums under my skin, steady and insistent, and for once I don't fight it.
"What is it? Did something happen? Are people treating you badly in town?” I’ve started hearing snide comments about her and the Romero clan.
"Nothing. I just—" She stops. Starts again. "You fed me. When I was little. You took care of me."
"Yes."
"And then you—" Her voice cracks slightly. "Why did you turn my father in if you cared about me? Why did you say those things about him, when you didn’t even know what he was really doing? He wasn’t dealing drugs. He had just purchased some healing herbs, that was all."
There it is.
I could tell her. Right now. I could tell her what her father was actually doing in those woods, and what I found, and what I destroyed before I reported him, and why he's alive at all.
But she loved him. And he's dead. And the truth would just be one more thing taken from her.
"I had to," I say instead.
It's not enough, but it’s all I can give her.
She steps closer. We're standing in the clearing, both naked, both pretending we're not aware of it, and the sunlight is warm on my shoulders and her eyes are locked on mine.
"I don't know what to do with you," she says.
I smile ruefully, aching with need. "Join the club."
“Maybe…” she sighs. “The proximity thing doesn’t seem to be working yet. Fighting this intense desire, all the time – it’s exhausting.”
“Intense desire, you say?” I arch an eyebrow.
“Intense desire to kick your ass,” she shoots back.
I should just brush this off, but I can’t lie to her. “I also have been dealing with some pretty intense desires. I can’t sleep. I can’t focus. All I can think about is how much I want to be with you. My brothers are definitely catching on.”
“Well, we can’t have that,” she murmurs, and takes a step closer to me, and then another one. “Maybe if the proximity isn’t working…maybe we just need one night together, to get it out of our system.” She looks at me, vulnerable, lips parted. “What do you think?”
And then somehow — I don't know which one of us moves first — we're kissing.
Her mouth is soft and fierce at the same time, and my hands find her waist and pull her against me, and she makes a sound that goes straight through my chest. The bond flares hot and bright and my wolf is somewhere in the back of my mind doing victory laps.
We sink down onto the moss together. Her hands are in my hair, my mouth is on her throat, and she arches against me with her head tipped back and the sunlight caught in her hair.
I can feel every place we're touching — her thigh against mine, her fingers digging into my shoulders, the soft curve of her hip under my palm.
This is a terrible idea.
I don't care.
Her skin is warm under my hands. I trace the curve of her waist, her hip, and she shivers and pulls me closer. Her mouth finds mine again and the kiss deepens, slower this time, deliberate. She tastes like want and something sweeter underneath it, and I can't get enough.
I pull back just enough to look at her. Her hair is spread across the moss, her cheeks flushed, her eyes dark and fixed on mine.
"Andrew," she says, and it's not a question.
I kiss her throat, the hollow at the base of it, the soft skin just below her ear. She makes a sound that drives my wolf insane. Her hands move down my back, her nails dragging lightly, and I groan against her shoulder.
"We should stop," I say, not meaning it even a little.
"Probably," she agrees, and pulls my mouth back to hers.
We don't stop.
Her hands are everywhere — my hair, my shoulders, my chest. Mine are learning the shape of her, the places that make her breath catch, the way she moves against me when I find them.
The moss is soft beneath us and the air is warm and somewhere overhead a bird calls, sharp and bright, and none of it matters except her.
This is a mistake. This complicates everything.
I kiss her again.