Page 16

I had known, intellectually, that fucking Julia again was not going to solve all my problems. In fact, I was very aware that it might cause more problems, or at least exacerbate my existing ones.

Unfortunately, knowing this did not stop me.

At the very least, the incident assured me that she was well enough to make the journey to Ensign.

That was useful. It was also the best sex of my life—I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d shuddered and come apart over and over again, on my fingers and my cock and knot—but that was irrelevant.

Also irrelevant was the way my wolf had whined and howled and insisted that I sink my teeth into the tender flesh where her shoulder met her neck.

I’d managed to hold the instinct at bay, but only just. I might know better, but my wolf was still convinced that Julia was my mate, and he was nipping at my heels, demanding I mark her as mine.

I wasn’t going to do that. I was planning to take her to Ensign until I was certain that Arbor was no longer on our tail; we were going to find that damn witch; and then I would take her back to Lapine where she belonged.

We bid goodbye to Leo in the early afternoon, the day after our tryst, and I had the awful feeling that he knew exactly what had transpired between us after I’d chased off Cody.

Far from scratching the itch and getting her out of my system, sleeping with Julia had only worsened my wolf’s infatuation with her.

Even thinking about that smug Beta set my wolf’s teeth on edge, and it was probably for the best that we made ourselves scarce before I ripped his head off for looking at her wrong (or looking at her at all).

“You got enough food?” Leo asked, like a worried grandmother. I patted the stuffed backpack he’d given me only a few minutes previously.

“For an army, bro.”

“It’s a long crossing.” He was right about that.

The bridge between Arbor and Ensign was nearly ten miles long, and it took the average shifter about three hours to cross in human form.

It would be quicker to run as wolves, but also far more conspicuous—Arbor favored their wolf forms and tended to assume that other Packs did too.

Our human forms also benefited from Julia’s magic; if she could cloak our crossing, it would be harder for any lurking Arbor hunters to track us.

Either way, the whole endeavor was risky, but it was riskier to stay put where Arbor knew we were sitting ducks.

Argent might be rich, but their reputation wasn’t for combat—Arbor had never held them in high esteem, and while they might not risk a full-scale attack, they didn’t fear Leo or the Argent hunters enough to prevent them from attempting another kidnapping, or worse.

Even if they did successfully track us to Ensign, they wouldn’t dare set foot on that island.

I wasn’t enormously keen to spend time there, either—Xander was my friend, but the culture of Ensign was pretty far removed from that of Ferris or Lapine or Argent—but it was our best bet for now.

“Don’t kill each other on the way!” Leo called after us as we set off up the Ensign road.

“No promises!” Julia called back, waving enthusiastically. Her smile was bright, her black hair shining in the sunshine, and I had to stop myself staring at the length of her pale legs in denim shorts.

“You’ll have to kill me if you want one of those little strawberry cakes,” I told her. Leo’s mother was an incredible cook, though I’d never had much of a sweet tooth, her strawberry cakes had long been a favorite of mine.

I’d expected Julia to challenge me, to needle me about hogging all the food or say something scathing about how much male shifters ate, but she only gave a disinterested little hum.

As little as I wanted to admit it, she’d been subdued since yesterday.

When the high of our mutual climax had faded, I’d braced myself for another fight, but she’d only tugged her dress back into place and asked which of us should walk back to town first.

I should have been glad of the quiet as we trekked through town and then began the hike over Argent’s rolling hills north toward the Ensign Bridge, but rather than peaceful, the quiet felt oppressive and wrong.

When she’d been younger, Julia was an endless stream of babbling commentary on the weather and the surroundings and whatever thoughts popped into her mind.

Once, when she was eight and I was thirteen, I’d snapped at her to shut up, that her constant rambling was annoying; back then, it had been easy to cow her, and she’d snapped her mouth shut immediately, tears brimming in her big blue eyes.

I’d felt awful about it, but my father said that Alphas never apologized, so I didn’t.

Julia was probably owed a lot of apologies from me, but now wasn’t the time to bring that up. I really didn’t need to get into an argument on this trip, and as much as it perturbed me, the quiet was a blessing as far as stealth was concerned.

We timed the journey, hoping to reach the bridge in the late afternoon, when the shadows were long.

Sure enough, when the stone structure came into view, it was dappled with warm sunlight and the dark shadows of trees.

I held out a hand to stop Julia in her tracks—concerned yet relieved that she didn’t complain about it—so I could take a moment to scan the treeline.

It was still and quiet, with no unfamiliar scents in the air.

Either Arbor hadn’t tracked us here, or they were keeping their distance until we were on the neutral territory of the bridge itself.

In any case, time was of the essence. We jogged the last hundred yards to where the stone of the bridge met the Argent road, and Julia wasted no time.

As she closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, the shadows began to elongate, growing even darker and swirling around us until it seemed like the sun had set early.

When I looked back across the Argent hills, they remained bathed in warm light, appearing like another world.

“Ready?” I asked, and Julia opened her eyes.

Her expression was hard and determined, and she walked onto the bridge like she was walking to war.

The shadows followed her. With every step, our cloak of darkness moved with us, as though we were walking through water.

Ears pricked for any sound beyond the rush and crash of the water beneath us, noses twitching for the scent of any other wolf, we walked one mile, then two, then three, until I became used to the ever-present shadow that engulfed us.

It wasn’t until we were about three-quarters of the way across that I noticed Julia flagging. Her breathing was loud and labored, her steps heavy, and I thought she looked paler than usual, her usually plump pink lips drawn into a tight white line.

“You okay?” I whispered. She nodded, but only a few moments later, she tilted against the side of the bridge, sliding down the low wall until she was sitting on the road, her expression pained and tense. I had dropped to my knees before I consciously thought to do so.

“Julia, talk to me. What’s going on?”

“I’m just tired. I didn’t know that magic would take so much out of me, doing it for this long. I can keep going. I just need a minute.”

She clearly needed more than a minute. We’d been travelling in shadow for close to two hours, and we were still ahead of schedule, just. We could make up the time once she was rested. If we tried to keep going with her in this state, we’d never make it in time.

“Take a few minutes,” I told her. “You should have said something earlier. If we stay down here, you can let the shadow go for a little bit, yeah?”

She scowled but nodded.

“I guess, yeah.”

“Then let it go.”

With a great sigh of relief, Julia released the shadows cloaking us.

They retreated slowly back to their natural positions, and I suddenly realized why she must be so tired.

She hadn’t merely conjured shadows around us and brought them along for the ride across the bridge; as we moved, she let go of one shadow and took hold of a new one, like climbing a tree.

Only once she had grasped a new branch could she release the one she had been holding.

Julia was going to need more than a rest if she was going to make it to Ensign.

“Here, let’s see what Grandma Leo packed for us,” I said, setting the backpack down and undoing the drawstrings to reveal a treasure trove of snacks. I passed her a sandwich of thick-cut bread, stuffed with beef and cheese and pickles. “Eat all of that, please.”

“Yes, Mom,” she said, rolling her eyes as she took the paper-wrapped sandwich.

I didn’t miss the little hum of satisfaction she gave at the first bite, and my wolf preened—we were providing for her—as I sat down beside her, unwrapping a sandwich of my own.

Even the food on Argent was fancier: I’d never really had time for frivolous things like relish and pickles when bread and meat would suffice, but I couldn’t say I didn’t enjoy the slight tang they added.

We weren’t quite relaxed as we ate—both of us still on edge, ready to jump back up at any sign of movement or any sudden sound—but it took a little of the tension out of my muscles, and when we were done with sandwiches, I found myself digging in the bag again, emerging a moment later with the cardboard box I’d been looking for.

Inside were two slightly squashed but still beautiful strawberry cupcakes.

I handed one to Julia, shoving the other into my mouth and savoring the burst of creamy-sweet flavor on my tongue.

It was gone too soon, but that was the point of indulgence, I supposed.

It wasn’t supposed to last long. When I glanced over at Julia, she had frosting on her upper lip, staring down at her half-eaten cupcake like it was more magic than she would ever be, and it shouldn’t have been as cute as it was.

How was this the same girl who could shroud a mile of road in darkness?

I averted my eyes when she glanced my way, but not fast enough.

“What?” she asked, her guard creeping back up.

“Nothing,” I assured her, but I should have known she wouldn’t let me get away with that.

“Nothing?”

I could hardly tell her I was thinking she looked cute with frosting on her lip, so I said something else true instead.

“I was just thinking that less than a week ago, you were struggling to move a finger’s worth of shadow, and now you’re doing… this. It’s pretty incredible.”

Julia blinked at me, clearly taken aback.

“Oh,” she said. Rather than preening with well-earned pride, she seemed to shrink in on herself, uncomfortable with the praise. She met all my insults and criticism with sharp wit and fire, yet a simple compliment had unmoored her. Was she really so unused to kind words from me?

The simple answer was yes. In all the years we’d been in each other’s orbit, I had never once told her she was brave, clever, or beautiful.

Julia was all of those things and more; I just never imagined she’d want to hear that from me.

Positive or negative, Julia had made it abundantly clear that she didn’t care for my opinion.

That hadn’t always been the case, though.

I remembered her confession, hazy and slurred but undeniably honest, as I held her in my arms on a very different bridge.

At one point, Julia had wanted my praise, my attention, but I’d been such an unrelenting asshole to her that she’d eventually given up on seeking it, given up on me.

I should have been relieved by that. If she had given up on me once, she could do so again, abandoning this whole mates theory; yet, the thought of her pushing me away again sent an unpleasant pang through my chest.

“Julia—” I started, unsure how I was even going to continue. How did one make up for over a decade of mistreatment? She was looking at me, expectant, and I could think of nothing to say to her but,

“You know you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met, right?”

This time, she frowned. At least it was a more familiar expression.

“Um. No,” she said. Then, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just—”

“Did you hit your head?” she joked. I was glad she’d gotten a little of her moxie back, but I was trying, for once, to be nice.

“Julia—” I tried, but she was giggling now, and she barely heard me.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“I mean it,” I said, grasping her wrist. Instantly, I felt that undeniable pull, that spark that began in my chest and traveled quickly through every inch of my body, settling hot and urgent in my groin.

Her eyes widened, her single pupil dilating until there was only a thin halo of blue surrounding its blackness.

I felt her breath hitch, and I felt a thrill of satisfaction at the thought that she was just as affected by my touch as I was by hers.

“Ethan,” she breathed, and I couldn’t stop myself from leaning forward into her space.

Beneath her usual bittersweet scent, Julia’s lips smelled of strawberries.

I could feel her breath against my cheek, and I wanted so badly to close that space, even knowing that once I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop until I had her again.

Click, click, click. The sound of claws on stone pulled me back—I’d been so caught up in her scent that the new one had gone unacknowledged, and I whirled around to see a jet-black wolf emerging from the shadows.

He was so massive that he seemed to take up the whole width of the bridge, blending into the growing darkness.

When he opened his mouth, his teeth were long and sharp and white, capable of ripping me in half where I stood.

His tongue lashed out, licking a long stripe up the side of my face, and I sputtered in protest, smacking him on his wet nose.

“Hello, Xander.”