Page 27

I keep running through the forest as fast as I can, listening to the leaves crunch under my big paws and weaving between boulders and big trees. Usually, running helps me relax, but not tonight. Calla is scared of me and doesn’t feel safe around me, so I worry that she will never want to see me again. The threat might not even have to hurt Calla. If this keeps up, I’ll break down on my own because of the rejection.
I head that way when I hear the steady sound of water flowing by a stream nearby. I jump in and wash the vampire’s blood off of me, then I keep running until I get to the pack house. I shift again, not caring that I’m naked. Werewolves are used to seeing us naked, so it’s not a big deal. If you keep ripping your clothes every time you move, they won’t last very long.
I quickly go up the stairs and put on the first pair of shorts I see. I lay down to try to fall asleep, but I just end up staring at the ceiling for what seems like hours but is probably only a few minutes. I should probably check on Calla. I haven’t seen her in a few days, and even though my pack warriors keep telling me where she is, I still haven’t seen her with my own eyes. I might just look in her window and
No. I can’t do that to her privacy. And I don’t want to go against what she asked me to do, which was to leave her alone. I just want to hold her, kiss her, and smell her again.
A loud knock on the door interrupts my thoughts. The knocks come back after a short time, but this time they are angry. Someone at the front door is not giving up. It’s probably one of the young pups who locked themselves out again without thinking. They’re the only ones who can come into my area, anyway.
After more knocks, I hear my pack mates talking in the mind link. They’re all too lazy to get up and let the dog in. I get up from my comfortable, still-ripped mattress and stomp down the stairs, even though I don’t want to. This young person will definitely hear from me about how to treat others with respect and how to get more training hours just to catch me in a bad mood.
I open the door and am ready to attack the intruder, but I stop myself. My beautiful partner, not a puppy, is standing in front of me with tears streaming down her face. And now I’m ready to kill someone again.
********
Calla’s point of view
I couldn’t stop crying after I had that terrible dream about Jaxon. The dream made me realize how much Jaxon means to me and how sad I would be if he died. I quickly get out of bed, still in my pajamas, and grab my mom’s car keys. I need to see Jaxon, and she doesn’t have to work tomorrow anyway. I don’t even mind that I have to go to the pack house to see him. I really need to see him before I die from this terrible heartache.
When I click on the address Skyler sent me the other day, the GPS automatically fills in the information. After about 20 minutes, I’m driving out of a group of trees and toward the mansion. I had been here before, but I wasn’t myself then. Not like I’m in my right mind now.
I turn off the engine and start running to the front door. I don’t know who will answer the door, but I’ll sleep outside until someone wakes up and lets me in. I couldn’t just lie in bed and do nothing, especially since I kept seeing the picture of Jaxon dead over and over again. His beautiful Jaxon eyes were lifeless as they stared at the ceiling, and he was so bloody. To prove that it was a dream, I need to see him.
I hope he doesn’t think I’m creepy for driving to his house at night. It was probably also not the safest thing to do, since I couldn’t see clearly because my eyes were always leaking tears. The tears won’t stop even now.
I knock on the door and then wait. I knock again after not hearing anything from inside. I wait, and with each passing second, I feel more and more defeated. Everyone must be sleeping. Forget about super hearing…
I knock one last time in a last-ditch effort. I can hear footsteps coming closer to the door this time. I hope the werewolf who answers the door will let me in… And won’t hurt me… This might not have been a good idea.
The door swings open suddenly, revealing an angry Jaxon. My Jaxon, who is always broody. He looks like he’s going to yell at me, but when he sees me shaking and crying, his angry eyes soften. His head tilts to the side, like a puppy’s head does when it’s confused. His actions make me feel a little better. Just being able to see him alive and in front of me is enough.
In a flash, I’m in Jaxon’s arms. He hugs me close and lifts me up so my feet don’t touch the ground anymore. He immediately puts his head in the crook of my neck and sniffs me. Normally, I would think this was strange and think about the last time I showered, but right now I’m just focused on hugging Jaxon back.
I cry into his chest, and my tears of relief soak his bare chest. As I try to get the energy to talk, my breathing is fast and shallow. “I’m s-s-sorry,” I say to him in a low voice, putting all of my feelings into my apology. I really am sorry that I ignored and avoided him just because he is a werewolf. He can’t change how he was born, just like I can’t.
“Shhh,” Jaxon says softly, rubbing my hair with his hand to calm me down. He locks the front door with one hand while still holding me. He lifts me up higher, and now my legs naturally wrap around his waist as he holds my b**t up. He has no trouble climbing the stairs while holding onto me. We finally get to what I think is his room, and he sits down on a bed that looks comfortable. The room is clean and has greens and browns in it. It’s not exactly how I imagined his room would look, but I’m not judging.
We just sit there holding each other for what seems like forever. The quiet isn’t weird or uncomfortable. It seems like everything is back to normal. I feel whole again. My tears stopped a long time ago, and after a while of silence, Jaxon was the first to speak up.
“Sorry, Calla.”
Does he feel bad? Why does he feel bad?
“You don’t have to say you’re sorry, Jaxon. I’m sorry. I judged you too quickly, and I’ll never be able to forgive myself for that. If I were you, I wouldn’t forgive me…”
Jaxon stops me from feeling sorry for myself. “There’s nothing to forgive you for, baby. I should be the one begging you to forgive me. I should have told you about all of this sooner. You shouldn’t have had to find out that I was a werewolf while you were in danger.”
“Yeah, there probably could have been better ways to tell me,” I say, and he smiles that award-winning smile that always makes me feel good.
“I can’t believe how scary that must have been for you. You were hurt, too. How are you doing? Is your concussion gone? You had a bad bump on your head that must still hurt.”
To get him to stop talking, I kiss him on the cheek. It looks like it worked because he looks at me with love and worry. “Stop worrying about me. I slept all weekend and it doesn’t hurt that much anymore. I’m fine, Jaxon.”
He looks at me like he wants to call me a liar, but instead he hugs me again. I could never get enough of his hugs.
“It’s late… Well, I guess it’s technically early since it’s after three in the morning,” Jaxon says, pointing to the clock on the nightstand that shows it’s 3:28 A.M. “Let’s go to sleep now and talk more in the morning.”
As soon as he says that, I tighten my grip on his shoulders. I’m still awake from the last nightmare, and I don’t want to go through another one. I thought I had run out of tears, but my eyes were filling up again. They run down my face in a messy way, and my sniffling comes back with a bang.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” Jaxon asks, clearly worried and confused about why I suddenly started crying. He wipes the tears away with his thumbs, and every time he touches my skin, it tingles.
“I-I just had an awful nightmare. That’s why I came here so late. I couldn’t go back to sleep, and I had to see you.” My last word comes out as more of a whimper as I pathetically cling onto Jaxon as if he were my lifeline.
“I’m sorry, love. What was the dream about? Maybe I can help?” he asks, being the great guy he is. I know it’s gross, but I wipe my nose with the back of my hand and keep telling him about the dream.
“It was horrible. We were supposed to meet at the coffee shop, but when you got there, someone stabbed you in the stomach with a silver knife and you died. In my arms!” I cry into my hands now, the memory still too fresh.
My shoulders shake a little, and a few moments later I realize that Jaxon is shaking me. “Calla? Listen to me, okay? I can’t die that way. It would take a lot more than a stab to my stomach to kill me. You have nothing to fear.” His hands rub my arms up and down, calming me down, and the tingles are still there on my bare skin. The touch of his skin on mine makes me feel even better. I will never understand the bond between mates…
I wipe my tears away and promise not to cry anymore because it seems to bother Jaxon more than it should. “But it was a silver knife! Doesn’t silver kill werewolves?”
Jaxon laughs at what I said, which seems to mean that he finds my question funny. “Silver hurts us a little, but to a strong Alpha like me, it’s like getting a sunburn. It’s like poking a beast with a flaming marshmallow.”
I laugh out of the blue because I didn’t expect Jaxon to say something funny like that. “That’s what I like to hear,” he says, and I blush when he looks at me. With just a few words, he can change my face to the darkest shade of pink. He looks down from my eyes to my nose and then to my lips. This is the look he would give me when he wanted to kiss me. Oh my God… Is he going to kiss me?
When he slowly leans his head in, I get the answer to my question. He kisses me back after I realize that Jaxon Rowan, the Alpha of a pack of werewolves, is kissing me, a human. We only pull our lips apart so he can hold my hips tighter and pull my body even closer to his. I can feel every dip in his body, and I can’t tell where his body ends and mine begins because there is no space between us.
We press our foreheads together and take in this moment, both of us having missed the other very much. “You know, I thought you would never talk to me again,” Jaxon whispers as he lovingly rubs his nose against mine.
“I could never do that. It only lasted three days before I caved and came to see you. I don’t think I could do that again.” My words are true, but I still don’t understand how I can feel so strongly about him in such a short amount of time. It seems like we’ve known each other forever, but it’s only been a few weeks.
“Why do I feel this way with you?”
Jaxon takes one of his hands off my waist and puts it around my cheek. He is so close to me that I can see the blue-Jaxon color swirling in his eyes, almost like it’s alive. “It’s the mate bond. We’re connected and our souls know it. We’ll always be drawn to each other. Not that I have a problem with that,” Jaxon says with a smile.
I look up at him with wide eyes and bite my lip. “So, since we’re soulmates, does that mean that we… that we—um… are you—” I stammer for a few more seconds, and Jaxon keeps giving me that stupid grin that lets me know he’s laughing at how shy I am.