Page 7

She ran. Again. Because I was too distracted arguing with Jayce to stop her.

I cursed, shoving the other Alpha aside and sprinting after Nayeli. She couldn't get far, but she'd been able to shake me off twice now. She was getting better at evading me, but we had to have a damn conversation before the night was over.

I didn't know what to do when I caught up with her. I knew the bond was to blame for my feelings, but I'd wanted her before the spell. Even if I'd rejected her years ago, the idea of someone else laying claim to Nayeli had always made me furious. And now, with the bond between us, there was no chance of anyone else having her. It’s why I’d almost torn Jayce’s throat out, even though there was no indication he’d touched her at all.

The pull of the damn bond was unrelenting, and the longer I went without touching her, the stronger the need to do so became. It was like a fire in my veins, making me desperate to find her. My wolf clawed at the surface, urging me to change and track her down.

I pushed myself harder, trying to keep up with Nayeli's pace. I had to catch her before she got too far. Before she disappeared again. I couldn't let that happen.

I followed the scent trail of her, which seemed to have intensified since the bond snapped into place. The closer I got to her, the stronger it was.

"Nayeli!" I called out, but there was no response. "Come back! We need to talk about this!"

"No, we really don't," she yelled back. I could hear the fear in her voice, but I ignored it. She'd made it to the road, which made her easier to find, but also made it so she could move faster. Dammit. If I wasn't careful, she was going to slip away again.

I picked up the pace, pushing myself to the limits as I ran after her. I was gaining on her, and I could tell she was starting to tire out. Good. Maybe she'd give up soon.

Part of me didn't want her to, though. Damn, it'd been a long time since I'd had a chase like this, a chance to let go of my strict control and simply run.

"That's right, Omega," I said under my breath, grinning as my legs pumped, "Make me work for it."

She was slowing down now, and I sped up, catching up with her quickly.

She glanced back at me and tried to speed up again, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her against me, her back flush to my chest. I took a few steps back from the road, bringing us back under the cover of the trees.

Nayeli let out a yelp of surprise and struggled against me, but I held fast, wrapping my arms around her to keep her in place.

"Let me go!" she demanded, twisting around and trying to push me away. But I held her tighter, refusing to let her escape again.

"Stop struggling," I growled. She just squirmed harder, which turned me on despite myself. Dammit. She wasn't making this easy for either of us. I needed to calm myself down, but she was so soft and curvy, pressed up against me like this.

"No!" she shouted, still fighting against my grip. She wrenched her arm out of my grasp and took a few bounding steps as if she was going to run again, but then Nayeli did something that I didn't expect.

Her steps stuttered, and she came to a stop, bending over at the waist and wrapping her arms around herself tightly. She cried out in pain, and sank to her knees, her dark, skull-printed dress covered in leaf litter.

"Nayeli?" I asked, confused and worried. I dropped to the ground beside her, my hands hovering over her as if I didn't know what to do with them. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head and curled in on herself further. "Just go," she said through gritted teeth. "I'm fine."

But I couldn't leave. I was connected to her now, and the idea of leaving her alone in pain made me feel sick. I tried to reach for her, to see if there was something I could do, but she flinched away from me.

"I said I'm fine!" she snapped, looking up at me with teary eyes.

"Nayeli," I said again, my voice rougher than I intended, coated in worry and the tail end of my lust. The thrill of the chase died inside me instantly, knowing that she was in pain. "What is it?"

She was acting like a caged animal, and when I reached out a hand to touch her, she flinched away. But not before I felt it—the chill of her skin, raised in goosebumps. She was freezing. It felt like she was sweating out a fever, wracked with chills.

"You're not okay," I insisted, "Forget that prick you were just talking to and what just happened in the treehouse. Talk to me."

Her teeth were chattering. "You think I'm going to talk to you after all the shit you put me through?" she asked. Her voice was soft, but there was an edge to it. A challenge.

I should have been gentler with her, but I just didn't have it in me. Nayeli put me on the offensive at all times. "Put you through? If I recall correctly, you're the one that cast that spell that bound us, princess."

Her face flushed in anger, but I could see the pain that was still laced in her eyes.

"That was a mistake," she hissed.

"We've established that," I retorted. "But that doesn't change the fact that we're stuck with each other now, and you're in pain. Or the fact that I'm in an alliance with your cousin, and he'll gut me in my sleep if he finds out I left you sick in the middle of nowhere."

She let out a groan of frustration, shaking her head. Her hair fell into her face as she looked down at the ground, and I had the sudden urge to reach out and brush it behind her ear.

"I can't be near you right now," she said quietly, "It's too much."

"Too much what?" I asked, reaching out to grab her arm.

She pulled away from me, looking up at me with wide, scared eyes.

I was okay to keep my hands off her, to give her some space to breathe, until her knees went weak again, and instinct took over.

I grabbed her by the waist, steadying her before she could fall, but when I brought my hands to her bare shoulders, the reaction was immediate.

The pain left her body in a rush, and she sighed like she could finally breathe again.

The relief in her eyes made me feel both better and worse.

Better, because I knew I was helping her, and worse, because she hated it.

She pushed away from me, and I let her go this time, watching as she stumbled a few feet away and put her hand to her temple.

"That helped you, didn't it?" I demanded. "When I touched you?"

She shook her head and hugged herself tighter. "I don't know."

I let out a frustrated huff, raking my hand through my hair. "Dammit, Nayeli. You're not making this easy for either of us. Can't you just give in and talk to me?”

She looked up at me, her expression angry, but I saw something else there. Desperation. "No! I don't even know why you followed me from the treehouse. I want to be alone."

"It's a good thing I did, considering you seem like you're falling apart unless my hands are on you." It was a wild thing to say, but I did get a secret little thrill knowing a simple touch from me could make her feel so good.

She looked away, cheeks flushed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Yeah, well, honestly, I’m not understanding much of what is going on right now.

You’re like a completely new person, Nayeli.

You apparently have magic, a secret hideout in the forest, and then you tell me you’ll be right back and instead, I find you in some random clearing talking to an Alpha we barely know anything about.

Now you’re hurting, and we’ve found something that will help you, but because it involves me, you don’t want it. Do I have all that correct?”

She looked like she wanted to argue, but how could she? I was right. But it was Nayeli, so of course, she tried anyway. “You don’t get to play concerned Alpha now, Scott. Where was that concern when our mating bond became obvious, and you walked away from me?”

She was frustrating the hell out of me. “You keep circling back to shit that happened in the past when we’ve got plenty of problems right here, right now. Let the mate shit go for a minute, Nayeli. First, we’ve got to deal with whatever is hurting you, and then we have to figure out this bond.”

She glared at me for a long moment, but then her arms slowly unwrapped from her body, and her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Running didn’t help. I really thought getting some distance would make the feeling fade, but it just made it worse.”

I jerked my head back to the road, just a handful of feet away. “Let’s talk and walk. I think we’re both parked at Samson’s, and we’ve got a bit of a walk to get back there.”

Nayeli sighed and nodded her head. "Fine. But only because I don't want to be out here all night."

We walked in silence for a few minutes before I finally spoke up.

"Tell me what you're feeling, and I'll do the same. We need to be on the same page moving forward.”

Nayeli looked up at me, surprised. "You're feeling effects from the spell too? Besides the bond, I mean."

"Yeah," I rubbed the back of my neck, wondering how much I should tell her.

It wasn't exactly something I wanted to share, but if we had any hope of her fixing her mistake, I probably needed to be honest. "Not like you are.

I'm not in pain, but being away from you is.

.." I sighed, shoving my hands into my pockets as I looked up at the stars.

"It's testing my self-control, Nayeli, and that's not something I'm used to.

When you were so far away, before I found you with Jayce, it was like I was being overrun by the Alpha instincts that I've worked for years to suppress.

This spell is majorly fucking with my behavioral stability. "

"What do you mean?"

I clenched my teeth, trying to keep calm. "I mean, I wanted to rip Jayce apart when I saw you together. And that's not me. Samson, maybe, but not me. I felt like an animal at that moment."

"Oh." She blinked, looking confused, but I could smell the spike in her scent as she considered what I was telling her. "Well, that's not good."