Page 25 of Broken Arranged Mate (Badlands Wolves #4)

It’s been a long time since I lived as a wolf for this long.

Before this, it was when I ran away from home, away from the Grayhide territory. The time that I spent in limbo before deciding to commit and go to Dorian, to ask for the chance to kill my father.

Now, though, I don’t run through the territory. Instead, I stay close to the house, in the scrub and brush, among the low-lying trees, occasionally out to the dunes, but always close enough that I could get to her in a second if I needed to.

Which means I can hear her screaming my name, the sound of her cries bouncing out the open windows in the house and over the landscape to me.

At that, I almost turn around and run to her, almost make the journey back.

But I can’t .

Because this morning, I woke up with Ash in my arms, and had a sudden, complete, and certain realization that knocked the air from my lungs, made my entire body feel numb.

Despite the fact that I’ve been denying it, I know that she’s my mate. It’s a biological system designed to further the pack, to encourage copulation and continue strong bloodlines.

But what I felt this morning was not the biological, basic urge of a mating bond.

Early this morning, not long after we’d fallen asleep, I woke up still inside her, knot nearly emptied once more, and pushed up onto my elbow, looking at her.

There was still some sand on her neck, and I laughed silently to myself, brushing it off, then twisted my fingers in her hair, pushing it off her neck. Slowly, unthinkingly, I’d leaned down, kissed her neck with impossible gentleness.

I didn’t want to wake her, even though the desire was growing in me again.

She was sleeping soundly—like the dead, in fact—and I knew she needed it.

So instead I stared at her, running my fingers over her smooth skin and floating on the strange, ultra-light joy in my chest, expanding and expanding like spray foam.

Now, I crouch low in the shade from a cactus and think it again, the same fear and dread catapulting through my body as I do: I am falling in love with her.

And the worst part is that I knew better.

I’d decided not to spend time with her, then allowed that.

Then decided I wouldn’t touch her under any circumstances, and my hands began to stray, finding any opportunity to drag over her skin.

And finally, I’d decided that even on our wedding night, I would not take her. Never.

I crossed every single boundary I set for myself, and it resulted in exactly what I knew it would. There is no room in my life to be in love with someone—my focus is supposed to be on the pack, on rebuilding the Grayhides. Repairing all the damage my father caused.

Being in love is not in the plan.

A healthy marriage is fine. I want the shifters in our packs to be united. But that’s an entirely different thing from me feeling like this.

If our enemies were to find out just how much she means to me, the growing bond between us, it would most certainly grow the target that’s already on her back.

And I can’t do that.

So, instead, I wrestle with my own body, forcing myself to stay away from her, not allowing myself to go up to the house, no matter how many times I want to. No matter how painful it is to stay away, the urges rolling through me with an animalistic force that brings me to my knees.

I want to go to her, but I know that I shouldn’t. I have to be strong for both of us, no matter how much it hurts.

***

When I sense that her heat is waning and think that I’ll be able to control myself, I come back into the house. It’s deathly quiet, each creak of the floor violently loud under my feet. I close the door behind me, suck in a breath, and prepare myself.

“Ash?”

There’s no response. I move into the house cautiously, almost like I think she’s going to leap from a corner and attack me. For a brief second, I wonder if she’s okay, but I can smell her scent, strong and sure. If she were injured, I would know.

“Ash?” I try again, and this time, the only response I get is the sound of a drill whirring to life. It makes me jump, and I turn the corner in the hallway, following the sound to a room at the end, where she’s crouched, a drill held in both of her hands, installing something in the door.

Ash’s dark hair is piled haphazardly on top of her head, like she gathered it and tied it there without a second thought.

Some of the silver strands have fallen loose and hang around her face.

There’s a streak of something—paint? primer?

—across her cheek, and I fight the urge to reach out and touch my fingers to it, brush it away.

She’s wearing an old pair of overalls splattered with what must be paint from previous projects. She wore these occasionally while we were fixing up the watchtower, but that feels like centuries ago, and entirely different lifetime from now.

Under the overalls is nothing but a sports bra, revealing her strong arms, smooth shoulders. I bite my tongue and suck in a shallow breath through my nose, but that doesn’t stop her scent from wrapping itself around me, tugging me in like a physical force.

I want her, I want her. But I need to keep my distance.

“What are you—?” I start, but I don’t need to finish the question. When I glance down, I see a shining blister package on the floor. I have no idea how she got it—maybe it was already here? She never left, and nobody came with a delivery.

It’s a locking door handle. And Ash is installing it on this door. When I look past her, I can see her things inside, set up at the end of the bed.

This is a good thing. This is what I want.

It’s also the most painful thing that has ever happened to me. The weaker part of me—maybe even my wolf—can’t stand the idea of sleeping apart from my mate for even another night. Not after having her before.

The wolf urges me to take her in my arms, beg her forgiveness, anything to get her body next to mine again, her hands skimming over my body, our lips together.

But I am not only my wolf. I am also the logical, level-headed alpha leader of the Grayhide pack, and I can’t allow the animal to make the calls.

So I turn on my heel and walk away before I do something stupid. I allow her to avoid me as I read files at the table. The sound of the drill echoes down the hallway occasionally, Ash muffled inside that bedroom, the lock resoundingly turned, and the door shut.

I say nothing when she walks past me to the garage, then returns with a piece of wood. I don’t even look at her when she stops in the kitchen and lifts up on her tiptoes to get a glass for water.

My body urges me to get up, grab it for her, mold my front to her back, and breathe her in, but I will not. I’ve already given in, been weak enough when it comes to this woman. I can—and will—show some self-restraint.

Besides, the icy attitude coming from her now tells me that even if I tried to apologize, she wouldn’t accept it. If I tried to touch her, she would push me away.

And that’s what’s best for both of us.

We move through the rest of the day like this, Ash burying herself in various projects—fixing the crooked front door, getting a stuck window to open fully, sitting on the back porch and sanding away the old paint, I’d assume with the goal of applying a new coat—and me, reviewing Grayhide files, trying to assemble the rest of my council.

Trying to come up with ways to resolve the issues in this pack.

To bridge the gap between the Amanzite we have and the Amanzite we need. To somehow convince the people of this pack that we have something to look forward to.

Later that night, Ash silently grabs a can of chicken noodle soup from the cabinet, pours it into a microwaveable bowl, and heats it, all while avoiding looking at me.

I stay quiet, looking down at the files in front of me, until a bowl slides into my vision.

A sleeve of crackers joins a second later.

I touch it, skim it with the tips of my fingers, wishing the warmth was from her body, instead. She sits down and slides her spoon into her own bowl, not looking at me as she takes her first bite.

Our first meal together as a married couple after the wedding, and I’ve fucked everything up. Ash grabs a cracker, crumbles it into her bowl, then says the first and only thing she’ll say to me for the next week.

Nodding her head toward the backyard through the window behind me, she murmurs, almost as though she could be talking to herself, “That dip in the yard is only getting bigger.”