Page 9 of The Return
He was gaping like a fish when I stood and collected our cups. Yes, I was being petty, but he was gone from my life for years, without a fucking word. I needed him to understand how I felt.
What surprised me? How fast he could move, especially for such a big guy. He grabbed my shoulders and pushed me back against the building. The cups tumbled from my hands and smashed on the concrete, the remaining coffee in mine moving slowly toward the cracks.
“What the fuck?” I ground out.
“You will listen to me,” Jonas demanded, his voice unlike any I’d ever heard before. It was like a mix of wolf and man. And damn, it was hot.
“You said an hour, and that—”
He buried his face in my neck, and prickles skittered across my body as goose bumps rose. “Why do you always smell so good?” he murmured into my collarbone. “It always drove me fucking crazy to be so close, to have that smell wrap around me, and not be able to do anything about it.”
What the what? “Huh?”
“If you had any clue what you smell like…. It’s why I stole your shirt the day I left, before my father sent me away. If I didn’t have it, I would probably have gone insane.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“I need to bite you. I need to make you mine. No other wolf or person can have you, ever.”
My head was floating. I was so out of my depth here. “What are you saying?”
“You’remymate, Corey. Mine! That’s why people stopped coming to the shop when I got back to town. While I was gone, they were supposed to keep an eye on you. Protect you. As soon as I came back, all that changed. You are mine, Corey. Only fucking mine.”
It was then I felt it. A warmth on my neck, leaving a track as it trailed down into my shirt.
“Are you… crying?”
“It wasn’t fair. I wanted to be a good mate. I wanted to fucking worship you, just like you deserve. Then fucking Adam had to go and start the change and—” He stiffened.
“What are you talking about? What does Adam have to do with any of this?”
He clutched me tighter. It was just this side of uncomfortable.
“Wolves usually have their first shift in their late teens to early twenties, when their bodies can handle the strain,” he whispered in my ear. “As kids, our hormones are all over the place, and our bodies are priming to undergo the first transformation. It wasn’t supposed to happen to me for a few years yet, but fucking Adam had to go and hurt you. He touched my mate, and I was going to kill him. When you told me what he’d done, my adrenaline spiked, and that probably started my body preparing for the first change. By the time I got to his house, my anger needed an outlet, and he was going to be it.”
So Jonas had beaten Adam. I wasn’t sure how I should feel about this. My friend was a nonviolent geek, not some beast-monster type thing.
“I would have killed him, Core. I was so fucking close to it. My dad stopped me, but even that was a near thing. I was out of control, and he knew it. That’s why he sent me away and why he said I couldn’t see you. If I had, there was no telling what I would have done. I’m sorry I was gone for so long. You don’t know what it’s like for me. Mates are a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and I found you when I was a kid. You were what tempered the wolf, because if you hadn’t, I’d have shifted when I was like ten and we got into an argument over which Pokémon was strongest.”
During this entire exchange, not once did he loosen his grip. I was locked in his arms, held against his enormous body, breathing in his musk. And goddamn it, I couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.
“It was years, Jonas. You were gone for years.”
“I was that out of control. My dad said he’d never seen anything like it. And… and he told me that if I hadn’t stood down, he might have had to kill me to protect the pack.”
“What the fuck?” I shouted, jerking out of his grip. “You’re telling me your father would have—”
“Only as a last resort,” he hastened to add, clutching me again. “I would have killed Adam, and I’m not sure my bloodlust could have been tamped down after that. I would have looked at every person as a potential threat to my mate—you—and slaughtered them all to keep you safe. It’s why he took me away. It was to keep them—you—safe from me. A wolf without control is a threat to pack and human alike.”
My stomach flipped.
“Please,” Jonas pleaded, putting me down and stepping back. “Don’t be scared of me. Be angry, whatever. Just… please, don’t send me away.” He held his hands out, his palms up. He wouldn’t meet my gaze. Worst of all, I could see him shaking.
“Jonas—”
His head lifted, and I saw the tears I’d felt earlier. “You’re my mate, Corey. I’ll do anything to make things right between us.”
And I believed him. I had never considered any other reason he’d had to go beyond something I’d done. Never thought it was possible that he could hurt anyone. My Jonas, the one I’d fallen in love with all those years ago, wouldn’t harm a fly. This one? The man who stood before me and admitted he could have killed someone? It was still my Jonas, no matter what.
