Page 2 of The Return
The rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet, which gave me time to think. Jonas used to say it was a bad thing, because my mind went places it ought not. In this instance, he was right. If I saw him again, how would I handle it? I wanted to rush to him, throw myself in his arms, and plead for him to tell me why he walked out on me. The other part wanted to haul off and drive a fist into his geeky face, because how dare he leave and not contact me, and didn’t he know what was going through my head and… and….
I sighed. I would never hit anyone, but especially not Jonas.
The truth was, I’d mostly moved on. Or at least I thought I had. He left, end of story. Not much more to write there. I’d thrown myself into my schoolwork, got a scholarship, and went to college, where I didn’t exactly excel, but I got by. When I finished school, I thought about moving to California or New York and making a fresh start of my life. That lasted until the day I came back to Harken’s Corners, Delaware. I drove through the town I’d grown up in and saw dozens of people I’d known when I lived there. The population wasn’t much more than 1,400, but they were mostly a close-knit group, help-your-neighbor kind of people. I’d never seen such a varied populace, yet they’d stand shoulder to shoulder with you if times were tough.
About two years after we’d moved here—I think I was, like, ten at the time—the house of the Cheever family burned to the ground. They lost everything. After the fire department left, the townspeople descended en masse. Most of them were clearing away the rubble, knocking down the remainder of the frame, and hauling the junk away. Some of them were consoling Amanda Cheever, whose husband had died in the fire.
Before the week was over, not only could you not tell there’d been a fire, but there was already a new building going up in its place. No one asked for money, and nearly everyone helped out. Even me and my parents were there, doing what we could. Mom cooked food to feed the hungry crew, Dad could swing a mean hammer, and I…. Well, okay, I followed Jonas around, doing whatever he said needed to get done, but at least I helped.
“You did good,” Jonas had told me, gripping my shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “I know you’ve got no clue about our town, but that didn’t stop you or your parents from lending a hand where you could. I—we—appreciate you.”
The words, foreign-sounding from the mouth of a child, still made me feel ten feet tall. It was after that that Jonas became my best friend in the world.
And now he was back.
JONAS
The first thingI wanted to do when I got out of the SUV was track Corey down, pin him against the nearest wall, and bury my face in his neck. Then I wanted to bite him. Then fuck him. Then bite him again. Rinse, lather, and repeat until neither of us could stand. Then I’d let him sleep for a few hours, wrapped in my embrace, before we started the whole process all over. By the time I was done with him, there would be no doubt who owned Corey Mills.
I’d waited for this day, dreamed of it. From the time my parents and I moved away, my mind, my heart, and more importantly, my cock were all in agreement about returning home to claim what was mine. Only my father, our Alpha at the time, stopped me. And that was a close thing.
The day I found out Adam had hurt Corey, I’d gone into a rage. Someone dared to lay a hand on Corey? Worse, a fucking pack member did it! I left Corey’s place and broke several laws getting to Adam’s house. When he answered my knock, I grabbed him by his throat and slammed him against the wall.
“What. The. Fuck. Did. You. Do?” I’d demanded, enunciating each word.
He tried to brush my hands away, only to find out that I was no longer the scared wimp I had been. With the flood of testosterone and adrenaline, the changes in my body had begun. “Oh, come off it. You’re not still hung up on him, are you? Get over it, man. I don’t understand why your father even let them stay in our territory. We should have run them out the moment they got here. If Annabelle hadn’t fucked up—”
The first punch shattered his nose and brought a healthy dose of fear with it.
“My father, our Alpha, said that they could stay,” I growled. “After they helped us with the Cheever house, he made it clear they had special permission to be here and that we were to make every effort to avoid letting them know what we were. Are you challenging my father?”
“W-well, no, but—”
I leaned in close, letting him see how my scent was changing. I wanted him to know what I was becoming. At that moment, I would have been thrilled if he pissed his pants. “Choose your words carefully, Adam. Any hint of disrespect toward my father will be taken seriously.”
A quick huffed breath, but it was good to note that Adam, now a whipped pup, no longer met my gaze. “He’s a human, for God’s sake.”
“He’smyhuman,” I reminded him with a fist to his stomach. “I made my claim on him years ago, and my father recognizes it. So now you’re not only disrespecting my father, but you’re speaking ill of my future mate.”
The more Adam spoke, the angrier I got. Corey was mine, and I needed only to wait to come of age to claim him. My father had been uncertain at first, until he saw the two of us together. Then he noted how Corey tempered my teenage hormones. I wasn’t out in the woods rutting with every she-wolf in the pack. Instead, I watched Corey, dreaming of the day I’d be allowed to take him as mine.
“He is yours, isn’t he?” my father had said, a resigned smile on his face.
I nodded, unable to take my eyes off Corey as he ducked down an alleyway, doing his best to avoid Adam and his goon squad. We waited until he made it safely to his house before my dad sighed.
“I’ll have to talk to him again, let him know to leave Corey alone.”
“Why? The last dozen times didn’t help.”
He smiled. “You really care for him. That’s good to see. When I was your age, I was in the woods every night, tracking down a willing female. The lust overrode common sense, but it’s the way of the wolf.”
“Not my wolf,” I informed him. “My wolf wants only one thing, and everyone else is a pale imitation.”
“I know, Jonas. I may not understand it, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind. Most wolves go their whole lives without finding the one person who fits them. You? Lucky son of a bitch—Don’t tell your mother I said that. She hates that phrase!—not only to have yours move into town, but also to get someone I could not see you fit with any better.”
“Your father should have let us hunt them all down,” Adam snarled, dragging me back to our conversation. His eyes were still down, but he was challenging me through words. “Doubt yourboywould have provided any sport, but at least we could claim him at the end.”
The fury building within me burst out. I grabbed Adam’s hair and slammed our heads together. He was dazed, but I got even angrier. He was talking about sex—rape—against my mate. By our laws, that alone entitled me to kill him.
