Page 18 of To Hunt A Wolf
I open my mouth to argue with him, but the bartender snatches it up and walks off before I can say a word. Tripp looks back at me with a self-satisfied smirk.
“Levi went too far this time,” I say, returning to the business at hand.
Besides, Tripp’s already hurt me enough that I don’t feel indebted to the guy for one soda.
“He’s not going back, Mac.”
“If that’s what he thinks, he can tell me himself.”
But Tripp doesn’t move.
“Get out of my way, Tripp.”
He looks at me, and I see something in his eye I don’t like. Something that suggests he cares. Once, I would have believed him. Tripp and I grew up next door to each other. When my mom wasn’t hauling me off to hunt criminals with her, I stayed at his house. We told each other our secrets. Helped each other learn to live in a pack that doesn’t tolerate weakness. Now, he has Levi for those things. And I’ve been left behind.
I attempt to shove past him, but he grabs my wrist. “Mac,” he says, his tone a warning. And somehow, an apology too, but I refuse to accept either one.
I wrench my arm from his grip and glare up at my former friend. “What are you, his bodyguard now?”
“He doesn’t need a bodyguard, you know that.” Tripp’s voice is kind, which only pisses me off more. “He doesn’t want to hurt you. Neither of us do—”
“A little late for that.”
“But he’s not going back.”
I start to argue with him. Or maybe give in to the urge to punch him and satisfy the rage that’s building in my veins. But the deep rumbling of an all too familiar voice stops me cold.
“Let her go, Tripp.”
Tripp steps back, and my gaze collides with a pair of honey-brown eyes that are depthless in their secrets—and their wickedness. His hair is disheveled, same as it always has been. A windblown look that only adds to the air of danger that surrounds him. God, he looks even better than I remember.
I hate him for it.
And for the way my entire body reacts to him standing before me.
A fresh jolt of adrenaline spears through me, sending my heart rate into overdrive. I have zero doubt he picks up on my racing pulse, especially considering we’re close enough to scent one another’s dominant intent.
His pupils dilate, and a muscle ticks in his hardened jaw. He’s tanned from what I assume is a lot of time outdoors. His muscles are lean though very evident through the thin t-shirt he wears. His strength isn’t from any gym but from years’ worth of hard labor and fighting his way through a pack who labeled him an outcast from the moment he was born into it.
We were similar that way.
Until we weren’t.
At fifteen, I was the youngest in the pack to ever find my fated mate. Levi was sixteen, and he’d already had his share of girlfriends, but in his heart, he was a Romantic, just like his parents. We dated for three years, and back then, that felt like a lifetime.
Even without the mating call, I would have fallen for Levi Wild. But our pack thrives on the rejection, and in the end, that’s exactly what Levi did to me. My senior year.
In front of our entire school.
“I reject you, Mac Quinn.”
He’d spoken the words with enough intimacy that I still feel the sting of them three years later. He ripped my heart out with those words, mostly because I never saw them coming. In private, he’d told me he loved me. That our pack was stupid and cruel for rejecting their true mates. He’d told me we’d be the first to break the cycle. Change things for everyone. We were Romantics, and we wore it proudly.
But in the end, he’d become the exact thing he’d pretended to hate.
He’d broken his promise.
And he’d broken me too.
