Page 42 of The Alpha's Runaway Mate
That does it. Her head jerks back like I slapped her. “Wow,” she says flatly. “There it is. You finally said it.”
“Don’t twist my words.” I growl.
“You think being human makes me weak,” she cuts in, voice sharp enough to bleed. “You think I can’t handle myself because I don’t sprout claws or growl when I’m pissed. You’re just like the rest of them.”
“I’m nothing like them.”
“Then stop acting like it!” she fires back. “Stop trying to decide what’s safe for me, or where I can go, or who I can be around. I’ve been surviving monsters long before you, Nolan. You don’t get to cage me and call it love.”
She yanks the door open, the screen banging hard against the wall.
“Jess…” I take a step forward, but she’s already gone.
The sound of her truck door slamming is a full-body blow. My bear rages inside me, pacing, ready to tear through the forest after her. But I force myself still. If I chase her now, I’ll just prove her right.
Still, the idea of her out there alone makes my pulse pound.
I pull my phone from my pocket and open the app I swore I’d never need. The little blue dot glows steady, heading down the main road. At least she’s still got her phone and I can track her that way. It’s a line I shouldn’t have crossed, but it’s the only thing keeping me from losing my mind. She’ll never know. If she did, she’d probably pack her things and disappear for good.
Let her breathe,I tell myself.She’ll come back.
The rain outside thickens, thunder rolling over the ridge. Fuck that’s all I need right now, her driving around in that piece of shit truck in the middle of a rainstorm. Trouble on top of trouble. About fifteen minutes later I hear another engine. The rumble grows until it’s right outside.
Kolt and Xander stroll in without knocking, tracking mud across the floor like always. Xander whistles, looking around. “What’d you do, scare her off already?”
“Not now,” I growl.
Kolt smirks. “Rough morning?”
“You could say that.”
Xander pops the top off a beer from my fridge like he owns the place. “You only sound that pissed when someone’s bleeding.”
“Why are you here?” I cut him off before my patience snaps.
Kolt’s grin drops. “We’ve got news.”
My chest goes tight. “What kind of news?”
“Declan.”
The name freezes everything in me. “What about him?”
Xander glances at Kolt, then back to me. “He showed up at my place early this morning.”
I straighten, heart pounding. “Alive?”
“Yeah,” Xander says. “Barely. Looked like hell. Filthy, bleeding, shaking like he’d gone a few rounds with a freight train.”
“Where is he?”
“In my guest room. Cleaned up, ate, crashed hard. Out cold.”
I curse under my breath. “Did he say anything?”
“Not much,” Xander admits. “Kept repeating that he didn’t mean to cross the boundary, that he ‘couldn’t stop it.’ Whatever that means.”
Kolt folds his arms. “His scent’s wrong. It’s him, but there’s something else clinging to it. Same magic from the ridge. Faint, but there.”
