Page 4 of Midnight Bond (Wolves of Midnight #5)

Griff turned to head back downstairs with the suitcase, but I didn’t miss the amused smirk on his face at my words.

Whatever. They all could sense the tension between me and Jagger, but I didn’t feel like laughing about it.

The sooner I could put some distance between us, the better.

It wasn’t like me to be this cranky, especially over a guy.

Man, I really needed to get laid. Maybe I’d bump into one of my exes while I was in Albany. I’d dated all throughout high school and at least a few of them probably still lived in the area. So long as they were still single. I did not hit up married men.

It would be just my luck if they were all happily married, I grumbled to myself. Someone should really make a dating app for supernaturals.

By the time we made it downstairs, the rest of the household had filtered into the foyer to wish me farewell.

Except Jagger.

I’d intentionally chosen this time of day to leave when I knew he’d be out on his morning run. Despite my resolve to put space between us, I knew it would be harder to leave if he was standing there watching me. I didn’t know why. I just knew that it would.

“Here’s a ham sandwich for the road in case you get hungry, dear,” Nora’s mother-in-law said, handing me the food wrapped in cellophane while she held her squirming seven-month-old granddaughter. “I know how starved I get right before the full moon.”

At the reminder, heat flushed up my spine. One and a half days. I could act like a normal human being for the next thirty-six hours—give or take an hour or two.

“B! B!” a little voice exclaimed, and I quickly placed the sandwich in my purse so I could scoop up the nearly one-year-old boy toddling toward me.

He squealed as I spun him around, and that same ache I’d felt in my chest earlier returned.

Unable to resist, I breathed in Luca’s intoxicating baby scent before placing a kiss on his chubby cheek.

“I’ll be back soon, little man,” I told him, my voice noticeably tight with emotion. One of his little hands snagged my hoop earring, and Nora swooped in to disentangle his fingers before he could rip it off.

As I handed him over to her, she took one look at my pinched face and softly whispered, “Sure you want to do this?”

All too aware that everyone was watching me, including my alpha who could force me to stay with a single word, I swallowed the emotion and cheerily replied, “Of course. Just make sure you guys save me a piece of pumpkin pie. And don’t eat all the ice cream.”

From beside her brother, Vi made a small guilty noise.

“Really, babe? Again?” Griff groaned. When she fluttered her dark lashes at him, he rolled over like the golden retriever he was and added, “I’ll pick up some more ice cream this afternoon.”

“And pickles.”

He stared at his wife like she’d grown two heads.

She just shrugged and said, “I can’t control what this baby craves.”

When his gaze dropped to her distended stomach and lovingly caressed it, the itch to leave became unbearable.

“Okay, time to go,” I rushed to say, grabbing the suitcase from Griff’s shoulder. “Love you all. Don’t have too much fun without me.”

With my ovaries about to explode from all the gooey love and baby talk, I booked it toward the front door. Just as I reached for the handle, the door swung open, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

The instant I saw Jagger’s broad frame fill the doorway, dread filled me. But something else did too. Butterflies. It was like an explosion of wings in my stomach, and the sensation punched all the air from my lungs.

As he quickly took in the situation, I couldn’t help but let my own eyes wander down his front.

His light brown skin was slick with sweat, making his well-defined muscles stand out even more.

Both arms were covered in dark tattoos, the most prominent of them a big black snake coiled around his right forearm.

He was naked from the waist up, and the sight was almost more than my poor eyes could handle.

I looked further down, but that was a huge mistake. He was wearing black sweatpants, and they hung dangerously low on his hips. A dark trail of hair under his navel caught my eye, and I followed the path downward until—

“Where is she going?”

The demanding question was like a slap of reality to the face. My head snapped back, and I yanked my eyes up to glare at him.

“She is visiting her family. Now please step aside so I can leave.”

When he refused to budge, my glare turned menacing. God, why did he have to smell so good? It was really hard to look mad when my senses were drowning in his earthy cedarwood musk. The wolf within me stirred, urging me to breathe him in a little deeper.

Ignoring me completely, Jagger looked over my head and focused on his alpha. “Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

“Because where I go and what I do isn’t up to you,” I spoke for myself despite his rudeness—maybe a tad snidely.

His eyes finally slammed into mine. I almost took a step back, overwhelmed by the intensity. He was definitely more dominant than me, and at the moment, I hated it. Hated that he was wielding it like a weapon to put me in my place.

As the need to submit pulsed through me, I clenched my teeth, refusing to give in this time. I was leaving. I had to. And he wasn’t going to stop me.

Just when my gaze started to waver under the weight of his dominance, a voice from behind me rumbled, “Stand down, Jagger. Let her go.”

Jagger went still as stone. It didn’t even look like he was breathing. The only things that moved were his nostrils, which flared slightly at Kolton’s command.

After a tense moment, he said in a deathly quiet voice, “She’s not ready.”

“That isn’t your decision to make,” Kolton calmly replied, yet there was no mistaking his firm tone. He expected to be obeyed, not questioned.

A muscle feathered in Jagger’s chiseled jaw as he ground his teeth together. For a split second, it looked like he was going to challenge his alpha’s orders, but in the next instant, he slowly stepped out of the doorway to let me pass.

Too relieved to speak, I exited the house without a word, hurrying down the porch steps to reach my car already parked in the roundabout. Only after I’d placed my suitcase in the back and slid into the driver seat did I dare look toward the house.

Everyone was on the porch to watch me leave. Everyone but Jagger.

Feeling a tightness build in my chest, I waved goodbye and started the engine.

Then, before I could change my mind, I did something terrifying.

For the first time since becoming a werewolf . . .

I left my pack and struck out on my own.