Page 17

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

JAKE

I awake to the flutter of Elena’s breath on my arm. I spent the night curled around my mate, breathing in her glorious scent. The first rays of sunlight glimmer over the buildings in the distance, though the sky is still a muted blue.

Staring down at the woman in my arms, I can hardly believe the last few days.

Lena is all I’ve dreamed about for six years, and here she fucking is. Not only am I lying naked in bed with the woman I love, but I took her virginity and gave her my mark.

The bite is still red and swollen, but the healing powers of my saliva are already at work just as surely as my venom is. The wound will heal in just a few days, but she’ll carry my scent for the rest of her life.

My body thrums with a restless energy, my skin itching with the need to shift. I’m wired and starving, which is common after mating. The wolf in me needs to run and hunt, but I don’t want Lena to wake up alone .

Moving carefully so I don’t disturb her, I pull myself out of bed and locate a pair of my jeans. I pull them on and slip out of the room, determined to find us some breakfast.

The hotel lobby is deserted the morning after the wedding. Everyone is sleeping off hangovers after the reception, but I follow the scent of bacon toward a room off the lobby.

I’m so focused on the hunt that I miss the acrid stench of a horribly familiar cologne.

“Well, well . . . if it isn’t the prize fighter?”

I whip around in the direction of the voice and see Derek sprawled across one of the leather sofas, still in his wedding attire.

His pants are ripped from his hasty shift, and all the buttons are missing from his shirt.

It hangs open in the front, revealing a pale hairy chest. An empty glass rests on the table in front of him, and the guy reeks of alcohol.

“Drinking alone, I see.” I don’t even feel bad about being a dick to him. Derek is lucky I let him live after the things he said to my mate.

He scents the air, and his expression turns sour. He can smell Elena on me, and my wolf preens a little.

“So. You finally fucked her.” Derek raises his empty glass and flashes an equally empty smile. “Congratulations. Someone should.”

I bristle a little at his use of the word “someone.” No one fucks Elena but me.

“That was some Grade A pussy, I’m sure,” Derek drawls. “But what happens when she wakes up?”

“The fuck are you talking about?” I growl. My wolf raises his hackles. I’m two seconds away from putting this guy’s head through a wall. I should just walk away .

“What happens if Elena does regain her full faculties?” Derek slurs, looking at me slightly cockeyed. “What then?”

I turn to leave, fed up with his bullshit. He’s just bitter that Elena dumped him.

“She’s going to want to continue her training,” Derek calls after me. “She wants to be a professional ballerina. She wants to be the best .”

“I know,” I grind out, stopping in my tracks. I have no idea why I’m still having a conversation with this asshole.

“She’s enrolled in one of the most competitive dance programs in the nation, and she still has trouble with her balance.”

“I know .”

Why is this guy trying to mansplain Elena to me? Part of me thinks he just likes the sound of his own voice, but there’s another part of me that’s worried he knows something I don’t.

“I’m just saying . . . Someday, she may not be limited by her brain injury anymore, and she might wake up and realize she’s tied herself to a piece of trash fighter who can’t give her the life she wants.”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut, but I force myself to stand tall. I just took his ex’s virginity and gave her six back-to-back orgasms. Why am I even still listening?

“I don’t have time for this,” I grit out. “I’m fucking hungry.”

I keep walking toward the banquet hall, but Derek’s stupid voice calls after me.

“Just because she wants you now doesn’t mean she’ll want you three years from now.

You are nothing , Carson. Everyone knows it.

I know it. Rafael knows it. Hell, you probably know it.

And one day, Elena’s going to realize that she’s tied herself to a man who’s going absolutely nowhere. ”

ELENA

The bed is cold when I wake up. And there’s too much space.

The other two times I shared a bed with Jake, his six-foot-four frame hogged most of the mattress, which is why this is so weird.

The feeling of aloneness creeps in slowly. Then it hits me all at once.

My eyes fly open, and I turn my head. Jake’s side of the bed is empty.

Drawing the covers up to my chest, I sit up and look around. The movement elicits a twinge of pain where Jake gave me his mark.

He’s not in the bathroom, and he’s not on the couch. His phone and wallet are gone, too.

That’s weird.

Wrapping the sheet around my torso, I inch out of bed and wince at the pleasant soreness between my legs. I can smell Jake on me — likely an effect of the mating bite. He said our scents would merge.

It’s strange to wake up smelling different but also familiar.

Looking out over the terrace, my gaze drifts to the blacktop where Jake’s Jeep was parked the night before. It’s gone. My eyes make a circuit of the parking lot and circle drive, but I don’t see it anywhere.

What the fuck? Did he leave ?

His black backpack is still slumped in the corner, but I can’t think of any reason why he would get in his Jeep and drive off the morning after we —

Pain unlike anything I’ve ever known slices through my gut as the realization hits me.

Stupid girl . I may have been a virgin before last night, but I’m not unfamiliar with how these things work. The guy fucks the girl and then bounces. Carmen’s had plenty of hump-and-dumps.

But last night wasn’t just sex. I gave him my virginity. He gave me his mark. The mating bite is a big deal among shifters — more serious even than marriage.

So why would Jake slip out of bed without a word, as though this was some shameful one-night stand?

He wouldn’t , I tell myself. Jake’s not like that .

But Jake did run all those years ago, and we didn’t speak for six years.

Righteous indignation flares hot in my gut, and I grab my phone off the bedside table.

I find Jake’s number and wait while it rings. An automated outgoing message picks up, and I jab my screen to end the call.

That doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself. Maybe he’s driving or . . . ignoring me.

Chewing on my bottom lip, I tap his name again. This time, the call goes straight to voicemail.

What — the — fuck ?

Tears burn in my throat, exploding halfway between a sob and a hiccup .

Stupid.

That’s what I am.

What kind of girl pines for a guy for six fucking years and then sleeps with him the first time he shows the slightest bit of interest?

I bet he didn’t even give me a true mating bite. It’s probably some shifter version of a hickey — his way of telling everyone at the wedding that he fucked the alpha’s little sister.

Shifters belong with other shifters. That’s what Raf always told me.

He meant that shifters should date shifters, but I always took it to mean that I’d never really be one of them. I was a human. Weak. Breakable. I’d always be on the outside looking in. But maybe I should have taken his words at face value.

Hot shameful tears spill over, but I hurriedly scrub them away. I’ve spent enough time crying over Jake. I’m not going to waste any more.

But then I hear a low beep, and the door to our room glides open. Jake’s huge hulking frame fills the doorway, two tall coffees wedged in the crook of his arm and a plain white sack in his hand.

He freezes when he sees me standing by the window with tears streaming down my cheeks.

“Lena?” His eyes crinkle in confusion and worry, and I burst into a fit of full-blown sobs.

“What’s wrong?” he growls, his tone low and menacing. He glances around as though trying to identify the source of my distress. Then he dumps the coffees and bag on the dresser and vaults over the bed .

He pulls me into his lap and brushes away my tears, searching my face with concern.

Seeing his reaction makes my chest clench with love and warmth, but that warmth is quickly doused by shame. Was it really me who thought that Jake had left, or was my sudden paranoia my brain playing tricks on me?

Mood swings are common after a traumatic brain injury. For months after the accident, I’d had crazy ups and downs. I’d be fine one moment and crying the next. Sometimes, I’d explode with rage over a tiny slight or shut myself in my room for days.

I thought I’d gotten a handle on that, but maybe I’m having a relapse.

“It’s stupid,” I whisper, mopping under my nose and wishing Jake had come bursting in just a few minutes sooner. “I-I thought you left.”

“I did leave,” he says. “I was starving, and you were asleep, so —” He gestures at the bag of food, which smells like bacon and chorizo. “They weren’t serving breakfast downstairs until nine, so I jetted out for some burritos.”

My stomach clenches. Jake didn’t abandon me. He ran out to get me a breakfast burrito.

A strangled laugh bubbles out of me, and I shake my head at my own stupidity. “I’m sorry,” I gurgle.

“What are you sorry for?”

“I’m sorry for d-doubting you and . . . acting crazy.”

Jake’s eyebrows knit together, and he traces a thumb down my jaw. “You aren’t acting crazy.”

“Yes, I am,” I say, staring down at my fingers, which are messing with a thread that’s come loose from the bedsheet. “I thought you’d left me. I mean, really left me.”

“Lena.” Jake’s voice isn’t annoyed or chiding.

It’s soft and pained. His rough hand comes up to cup my cheek, those blue eyes boring into mine.

“I would never leave you. Never . Do you understand?” He breaks into a broad grin that makes my chest ache.

“There’s no getting rid of me now. You’re my mate. ”

I smile back at him, but my heart’s not in it. He says that now , but it’s only been a few hours. What if this was me having a setback, rather than a run-of-the-mill overreaction?

“Lena . . .” Jake’s voice is a low growl. He’s been watching me intently this entire time, as if everything I’m thinking and feeling is written across my face.

“What if . . .” I keep pulling on the loose thread, wondering if the whole sheet will unravel if I tug in just the right spot. “What if I don’t ever get better?”

It’s such an effort to get the question out that my voice is barely a whisper.

“What if my injury . . .” I trail off. I’ve made it this far by thinking positively and refusing to accept the limitations doctors told me I might have. So it’s hard for me to come out and say what I need to tell him. “I just need you to know that I might not ever be one-hundred percent.”

“Lena,” says Jake, his brows pulling together as he strokes my face. “There’s nothing to fix.”

“I had a traumatic brain injury,” I mumble. “There was definitely some fixing to be done.”

“I know. I was there.”

Jake’s words take me by surprise, and I finally look him in the eye. “What do you mean you were there ?”

“I came to the hospital after the accident,” he says quietly. “I knew you weren’t awake yet, but I just . . . needed to be near you. ”

I blink. Something Derek said the night before comes floating back to me: I was too busy with work to sit vigil at your bedside like your precious Jake.

It hadn’t made any sense at the time, but somewhere in the recesses of my mind, a memory surfaces. Jake slumped at the foot of my bed while the machines beeped and hissed. For years, I’d thought it was just a dream, but . . .

“You were there?” I whisper, my eyes filling with fresh tears.

He nods, reaching down and gripping my hand. “Of course I was there.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What was there to say? ‘I’ve loved you your whole life. I’ve just been too chicken-shit to do anything about it’?”

My heart flutters. “I guess not,” I whisper. “That would have been weird. But you still could have told me.”

Jake snorts, still studying our intertwined fingers. “I know your body doesn’t always do what you want, Lena, but that doesn’t mean you’re broken.”

His eyes snap up to meet my gaze, and his face is etched with something like desperation. He needs me to understand. “You are perfect. And you are mine . Your struggles are mine. Your triumphs are mine. Your joy is my joy. Your pain is my pain. And nothing is ever going to change that.”