Page 6 of Forsaking His Mate

My wolf wants to defend me, to protect us both, and I hate that I can’t let her free.

“You have questions,” Hester states.

“About a hundred,” I admit, urging my wolf to calm down.

“Then ask them.”

I don’t know where to start. There are so many things Iwant to know.

“How were you able to talk to me in my vision? That’s never happened before.”

She keeps trekking through the trees and I struggle to keep pace with her long strides. “Because I’m a vision walker. So are you.”

I raise my brows. “A vision what?”

“You see snapshots of things that are going to happen right before they happen, don’t you?”

I think back to the forest and how I saw my father before he appeared to save my life. “I can also leave my body,” I admit.

I expect her to laugh at me, but she doesn’t. She nods her head in understanding.

“Astral projection,” she says. “The two are often linked.”

I stare at her profile, thinking I’ve never met anyone like me. I have no idea how old she is.

Her skin shows no signs of age and her hair doesn’t look like it has even a hint of gray, but she’s over thirty, at least.

I can smell her wolf half, but I can also smell something else, something that calls to me in a way I haven’t felt before. I feel connected to her and I don’t understand it. It’s as if I know her, even though we’ve never met.

“So… you can just walk into anyone’s mind?” I ask, curiosity making me bolder.

Her lips tug into curves at the edges, but she doesn’t pull her gaze from the road.

“Are you scared because I walked so easily into yours?” she says.

“No.” I frown. “Maybe. Is it dangerous?”

“Depends on who’s doing the walking.”

A shiver runs through me at the double-edgedmeaning in her words. Are there people who can hurt us that way?

I’m so focused on what she's saying that I stumble over a branch, lurching forward before I find my footing again. I do not have the grace of my shifter side.

I mumble a curse, wiping my hands on my jeans before I continue after her.

My sneakers are soaking wet, and my socks are too. I feel miserable and cold.

I hope there’s a hot shower and a warm meal wherever she’s leading me.

“Can I control who just decides to stroll through my mind?” I don’t like the idea of having someone invade my private space. It’s weird enough that she’s done it.

“With time and patience, yes.”

The trees thin out and we step off the leaf-covered ground and onto asphalt.

I’m grateful to get out of the mud. My clothes are ruined, caked in dirt that no amount of cleaning is going to remove.

The road winds through the forest, the trees cleared to lay the two lanes side by side. It disappears around a bend that is hidden by large trunks and canopies of leaves.

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