Page 11 of Bodyguard Wolf's Fated Mate
I waited longer than usual for the beam of light to cease searching for me without really knowing what it was searching for. My chief purpose was to get her home. My teeth showed my displeasure when I made it to the next roof.
Flex had mentioned something about the wolf and the human part working in tandem. I thought for sure he was delusional but now I was experiencing the same thing. Nobody said it was going to be easy.
Life was always tossing me grenades and expecting me to know what to do with them. This new power was hugely underrated. It wasn't just a mindless freak of nature. This was the evolution of our kind. It was everything we aspired to be.
Somebody had unlocked the secret to our DNA. They had awakened a prehistoric being from the past. It was more than the past. It was also our future. There was a sentient being inside the creature. It made decisions. It wasn't just violent by nature.
Killing it was going to take a lot more consideration. No longer could I abide by the rules when they didn't apply. Research was the key. What I needed was an authority on the subject. It was time to think instead of act on instinct alone.
There were still so many unanswered questions, but I didn't know where to begin.
This time I used the stairs after breaking the handle with sheer brute force. We got down to the street level a few hundred yards away from the cordoned-off area of the scene of the crime.
"I don't know what he was going on about, but it would be a good idea to have that information going forward. We need to talk when you wake up. Get some rest. I have this funny feeling, you are going to need all the strength you can get in the coming days," I referred to her birthday and the shedding of one skin for another.
Each full moon must've been agonizing. She was under a doctor's care. The pills might've been good in the short-term, but she would have grown a tolerance for them. The dosage would have been modified over the years.
Keeping the wolf in its cage wasn't a good idea. It needed the freedom to roam even if it was just in her dreams. It had awakened but wasn't fully aware. The scary part was yet to come.
I would have to be there to guide her, despite the growing attraction, courtesy of whatever power was building inside of her.
I walked through the valley of death. I feared no evil. The only exception was the beast incarnate. It was highly advanced but still primitive. We were destined to meet in battle. That was going to happen. There was no getting away from it.
She opened her eyes and looked at me with my hair blowing in the wind. "Are you my hero? Maybe you are damned. We both are and we don't even know it."
"I don't want you to worry about anything. I have you and I'm not going to let you go."
She touched my face and I grimaced from even the slightest contact. "If you have me, then who has you? We are both lucky to be alive. It wants me to grow. What the hell am I saying? I hear the words coming out of my mouth, but I don't recognize them. Everything is very confusing."
"I will try to explain when we get back home. Try to keep an open mind." I had a feeling the conversation wasn't going to go smoothly.
"I can't even keep my eyes open. Everything is out of focus. It's like a dream, but I know it's real even though it can't be. I just need some time to process this new information. Don't be mad at me. I can't live with your anger." Her eyelids fluttered in protest to closing them.
"You didn't know. Nobody can fault you for that. I could never be mad at you. We haven't known each other very long, but I feel so damn close to you," I said with a tiny little kiss to the top of her head.
Telling her the unvarnished truth days before the transformation on her birthday at the strike of midnight wasn't going to sit well with her. It was going to be a milestone to remember.
Two days wasn't a lot of time to prepare her for a life-changing event. The beast was still out there, and it now had a new target.
CHAPTER 6
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JASMINE
Faith in something bigger than me was something of a constant in my life. It was tested many times, but I persevered to find the light at the end of the tunnel.
My father could never vocalize his internal feelings. He threw himself into his work to forget about the pain and loss.
It didn't matter that he wasn't my father by blood. There wasn't anything he wouldn't do to keep me safe. Luke was by far a special man. He was there when I needed him the most. Nobody was going to accuse me of being blind to the reality.
It all felt perfectly natural to wake up and remember in vivid detail what had happened on the roof. The attack and his protection revealed they were not mutually exclusive.
Luke and that thing had a connection. In what way remained a mystery, but I was determined to find those answers and put them to rest.
I don't remember much about the beast except for brief flashes that came to me when I least expected them. Tossing and turning through the night wasn't exactly giving me the required slumber to face what was coming.
My father was expected back later in the afternoon. It wasn't like me to keep things from him, but this was hard for me to understand. Luke promised to explain. It was better to have all the information than to be blindsided by it later. This was always my father's mantra.
