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Chapter 293
Chapter 293
Chapter 293
Chapter 293 AXEL Emily spins away from me and rushes out through the door, as if she can actually get away from me. She’s angry and sad, frustrated and scared, anxious…a whole bunch of bad things that are causing a co ktail of explosive behavior within her. I huff an annoyed sigh and stuff down that sinking feeling in my gut, and follow after her. Unfortunately, having experienced my share of captivity over the long centuries of my life, I know a thing or two about the volatile emotions that come into play once you find yourself free again. It’s almost as terrifying as the imprisonment itself was, once you realize you can go anywhere or do anything. Then, there’s the rage. The acknowledgment of everything you’d been denied for every second of your capture, all that anger that you hold in it starts boiling up. With Emily, though, I suspect it’s more than just being held captive. She has a wild look in her eyes that speaks of desperation, of abuse. Of horrors that are unspeakable. I know my fair share of those too. She hates me right now and I’m not too proud of myself either. Rejecting Emily had been a rash decision. An instinctual one. I’ve been alone for so long and I’ve sworn off ties. or relationships that might make the people around me vulnerable. The moment I felt that draw, that inescapable need to touch, to claim, I knew I had to end it. Before something ever got started. Severing the bond hurt like a so ofabitch. I hate thinking that I caused her pain. The woman’s a victim. Emily doesn’t deserve to suffer more.
I scan the vast yards behind the mansion. I don’t see her and there are paths carved through the snow in all directions.
I shift quickly. I lope out across the yard, but after a minute, it becomes apparent that Emily managed to do what I considered dan near impossible. She’s disappeared on me. I don’t know which way she went, and I can’t easily catch any trace of her lingering scent…which makes no sense. I growl at the inconvenience of her, at the impossible position she’s putting me in. Aaron will have my a s in a sling if I can’t find her quickly. As I’d told Emily, wolves gossip in a pack like this, and aside from talking about the turbulent mess that had been Aaron’s relationship with Leah previously, they also talked about how Aaron punished James for failing in his duty to safeguard the pack’s Luna. And James is Aaron’s Beta. His brother in all but blood. Since I’ve got no such standing, there’s every possibility Aaron will do worse to me if I fail to keep track of his sister. I trot back and forth in an ever-widening arc across the yard and around the back half of the mansion, scenting and listening until eventually I pick up a trace of Emily’s fading scent. She must have been moving fast to barely leave any remnants of scent behind. And for any other wolf, they might not have been able to pick it up at all. But I’m no ordinary wolf. Also, even though I rejected her, Emily was my mate, and my wolf is more in-tune to everything about her. My wolf is thrilling at this chase, liking the idea of hunting down our mate, clearly not caring that I
rejected her, and we can never actually be anything to one another. I take up the trail and bound off in the direction she fled, annoyed that she’s got a good head start on me, and could get up to anything or go pretty much anywhere in the time it’s taken me to work out which direction she took. I head way out into the wilds of Rathborn pack lands, much further than I had to go yesterday to find her. I wonder what the hell she could even be doing out here all alone. If it’s simply the need to run and escape, then maybe her hold on her own sense-her ability to prevent herself going rogue- is more tenuous than we thought. When I find her, she’s trotting back toward me, casual as anything, as if she didn’t just run off and lead me on a merry chase. For a second, I think I smell fresh blood, but the coppery ta g of it is there and then gone in the next moment, so I don’t think too much about it as I shift and step into her path. “Shift back. Now,” I tell her in a short voice. Her beautiful, dark little wolf huffs, before transforming into the human girl. “What?” she demands impatiently, crossing her arms, as if I’m the difficult one in this scenario. I step closer, dwarfing her with my size and stature. “I’m only going to say this once more, Emily, so you better pay close attention. You do not run off on me, under any circumstances, or there will be consequences. Do you understand me?” “I don’t care if Aaron put you in charge of me,” she snaps back in frustration. “I don’t owe you anything, and you’re basically a stranger to me. A stranger who rejected our mating bond the second you realized we had one. If I need to run, I’ll run. You don’t own me. You have no claim on me!”
She’s right. I gave that right up. She goes to step past me, and I grab her arm, dragging her in closer to me. My wolf ripples under my skin. It wants us to claim her, whispering I’ll never have it so good. as I’ll have it with my mate, but I ruthlessly push my wolf and its traitorous desires down. “Aaron is your Alpha. You’ll respect him if nothing else. And he says you’re my responsibility. So keep on pushing me, darlin’ and see where that gets you.”
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