Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Grayson
Miranda is asleep on my chest.
That’s what registers first when I surface, before my eyes open, before my brain has finished sorting out where I am.
Her cheek is pressed against my chest. Dark hair has fanned across my collarbone, and one of her legs has hooked over mine sometime in the night.
Her breathing is soft and even. My shirt, the one she’s wearing, has ridden up over her thigh.
My eyes open.
I shouldn’t get used to waking up like this, but my wolf is stretching inside me, smug about the knowledge that we are covered in our mate’s scent. I look down at Miranda’s sleeping face. Her features are smooth in sleep, relaxed. She looks so much younger.
Lifting my hand, I caress her cheek, mesmerized by the gentle curve of it.
Her lips are plump and red, and I can’t stop coveting them.
I’ve tasted them more times than I thought I ever could over these past three days.
Secret restaurant dinner dates, walks in the park at night.
The news is leaking from the tabloids into front pages of newspapers.
Grayson Wolfe and his nurse.
It’s a cute title, and I have a copy of it cut out and stored in my wallet. The picture on it is of us, walking hand in hand in the park, her eyes lifted to mine, a smile on her face. My own smile flickers and fades as I study the woman in my arms.
Are you really that good of an actress that you can fool even me, Miranda?
Knowing her personality, I just knew she would have a hard time being physically close to me like this, but it comes to her so easily. It kind of bothers me even as I soak in her touches, her affection.
The sharpness to her has faded slightly. I wonder if it’s because being debt-free has allowed her to stop living in survival mode.
I touch her cheek lightly again. When she’s around me, I forget I can’t actually be with her. I forget that I have to send her away. I don’t want to think about it. I want to enjoy this time with her. I want to pretend this is real.
Outside the window, the sky has gone gray before sunrise. The clock on the nightstand reads 4:47.
I ease my arm out from under her shoulders. She makes a small, protesting hum, and her hand slides across my chest, searching for the warmth I’m taking with me. My ribs do something painful. For one breath, I press my palm against her back, for two, and then I roll her gently onto the pillow.
Settling, her hair falls across her cheek. She doesn’t wake.
Time to move.
I pull on running shorts and a tee from the chair by the window.
The floorboards in the hall creak under my feet.
Out of habit, I stop at Ethan’s door, push it wider, and look in.
He’s a small lump under his blanket, one fist curled around ChuChu’s worn ear, mouth open.
The door clicks shut behind me without a sound.
The patio is wet with dew. Those two garden chairs sit where Miranda and I sat the night she drank my beer, telling me she used to be the life of the party. My gaze lingers for a second too long before I keep walking.
The lawn ends at the tree line. Past the tree line, I’m invisible. Inside it, with the sliding doors facing this stretch of grass, I’m not. If Miranda wakes early and looks out, she’ll catch me. So I don’t shift here.
Deeper into the woods I go. Past the first ridge, then the second.
The mansion shrinks behind me until it’s a pale outline between trunks.
There’s a particular pine I use for this, thick bark with a low branch.
My shorts and shirt I hang carefully over the branch, set my shoes underneath, and then I let the change come.
The shift moves through me in a hard wave. Bones reset, muscle reshapes, that brief flare of pain feels like a tax for putting it off too long. Then I’m on four legs, breathing in the cold mountain air, running.
The wolf knows this ground. I take the slope hard, paws striking dirt and root, lungs burning in the cold.
The burn is what I came for. I want the noise in my head drowned out by something physical, anything physical, because that din has been getting worse for three days, and I’m running out of ways to quiet it.
Higher up the rise I push. The ground is soft under my pads, while the pines have gone still.
I gave her my grandmother’s ring.
Why?
I’m too impulsive where she’s concerned. I could have bought a ring, an expensive one, but having her tied to me like this, even if it’s fake, makes me want to do more.
I push myself further, straining my muscles, desperate to outrun these thoughts and desires. I want her adorned in the best of the best. I want the world to know she’s mine. My wolf is in complete agreement, but common sense wars within me.
Ever since she signed those contracts, a small part of me is desperate to find a loophole to keep her in my life.
Maybe, just maybe if I hold my wolf back, I don’t have to give her a mating mark.
I can turn this arrangement into something real.
If Coach sees how attached Ethan is to her, he might agree to actually allow this relationship.
My wolf purrs in agreement.
My paws hit the dirt, and the bond hums under everything.
Low and constant, growing louder by the day.
I keep circling back to what would happen if I just let it.
If I stopped fighting the pull and let myself have her properly.
I picture days that end with her in my bed because she wants to be there.
Mornings like this one without the guilt clawing at my throat.
Her safety could be guaranteed. I could keep my mouth off the place on her neck where the mark would go so the Council would have no grounds to act.
Relationships between shifters and humans get tolerated only if the alpha approves it.
I’ve never heard of one, but if Coach has already approved this in the eyes of the pack and the Council, maybe he doesn’t have to retract it.
So in theory I could make this work.
I stop on the ridge, chest heaving, wolf breath fogging the air, finally letting myself look at it directly.
A relationship without the mark. It will always be incomplete, my wolf will be desperate and unhappy, but that’s the only other alternative. The other option is I let her go, live without her.
Sitting on my haunches, I close my eyes.
When I married Vanessa, she had pursued me for a long time.
She was beautiful, and I was enchanted. I didn’t realize the woman who existed behind that beautiful mask was ugly to the core.
My wolf never wanted to give her the mark, and she always fought with me over it.
I tried, but my wolf refused. To compensate her, I let her live the extravagant lifestyle she enjoyed.
Our animals are sharp and intelligent. They understand more than our human sides do. And my wolf probably recognized what she was before I ever could. It didn’t want to tie itself down with her. But with Miranda, it is salivating to mark her, to make her ours in every way.
I huff, pawing at the ground.
I can’t make that mistake.
My brother thought he could circumvent the Council and the Accord. That if he gave his mate the mark, they would have no choice. And now they’re both gone.
All I have to do is avoid giving her the mark.
I start running again. The sun is rising by the time I turn back, my muscles feeling the strain of the past hour. Back at the pine, the shift comes again. I’ve just pulled on my pants when the wind shifts.
Miranda’s scent reaches me, and I lift my head, alarmed. Shirt in hand, I walk over to the tree line and look around. That’s when I see her, standing at the edge of an old oak tree, looking down at something. I stare at her, emotions twisting inside me.
I know what she’s looking at.
I cover the distance between us, and she looks up when I approach. Her eyes squint at me. “Why are you shirtless?”
I look down at the shirt crumpled in my hands. “Oh. It’s hot. I went for a run.”
Her eyes linger on my chest, and if the situation had been any different, I would have puffed up my chest. However, my eyes go to the gravestone she had been staring at not minutes ago.
The grief never truly goes away. Losing someone you grew up with, who protected you, who was your shield against the world, is a blow one never recovers from. I still feel my brother’s absence in so many aspects of my life.
Miranda follows my gaze. “Gabriel was your brother?”
I nod, trying to find my voice. “We used to play by this tree when we were kids. This used to be my family home before our parents died and Coach took us in. The land was sold off, but I bought it back.”
“How did he die?”
I’m silent, crouching down and looking at his headstone, wiping some dirt from it. “He killed himself.”
Miranda sucks in a breath. “Grayson, I am so sorry.” Her voice has gone quiet. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I would never have come back here if I’d known.”
“It’s okay,” I rasp out. “It’s okay, Miranda.”
The wind moves through the pines behind us. My eyes stay on the stone as I recall how I dug the grave with my own hands all through the night.
“How long ago was it?” she asks softly.
“Four years now. His mat—wife passed away in an accident, and he wasn’t coping well.
I didn’t think he would—” I take a shuddering breath, and I can feel her body tense beside me.
“I was crashing at his place, and he sent me home. Said he wanted a break from me. His friend found him the next morning.”
Miranda kneels and wraps her arms around me. “I’m sorry, Grayson. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
The sudden gentleness is so out of character for her that it has me curling my hand around her arm. “I—I rarely talk about Gabriel. When our parents died, he swore he would never leave my side. It was foolish, a child’s promise, but I guess a part of me always believed it.”