Page 3 of Unbreakable Bond
“Is it a good thing or a bad thing that this person is coming back into thepack?”
Bad thing for her? Good thing for him? Was that what he was gettingat?
“When he said he was coming home, that he wanted to talk, I thought it was the best news I’d ever heard, but then he got here and…” Michael trailed off, staring out across the water, lost in his thoughts and shefrowned.
He? Not she? Zoey felt a small bit of relief at that but it quickly faded when she realized how stricken her best friend looked. Just as he had looked when he came rushing into the party earlier. Half-worried and half-scared, which were both foreign enough on Michael’s face to worryher.
“Hey, are youokay?”
He turned to face her then and she realized how close they were standing. A deep breath would have her breasts brushing his chest. She had to crane her neck to look up at him from this angle. She wasn’t short but he was far too tall for them to stand together like this comfortably. Strange that she’d never noticed their height difference until just thatmoment.
“You ever wish our lives weren’t so complicated? No pack. No rules. Wish we could just do whatever it was we wanted, take what we wanted and not have to worry about the consequences?” He snorted, “I wasn’t even supposed to be Alpha, not of the Moirae pack, and maybe that’s what changed everything, changedfate.”
She blinked, trying to place the look in his eyes. She didn’t recognize it. She’d never seen him look at her like this before, talk to her with this edge of desperation in his tone. She had the sudden uneasy feeling that she was missing something important, that he hadn’t told her something important, and the hair on the back of her neck stoodup.
“Michael? What’s goingon?”
He reached out and gently stroked her jaw, “I wish things were different. For so long, I’ve known it was you, that you were the key to all of it. I thought if I could just figure out what my connection to you meant that I’d be able to fix this thing between us, because fate messed up not putting us together. You know thatright?”
She leaned into his touch. She wanted to sink into him. She wanted to grab him and never let go. This moment, this was the one that she’d been waiting on for what felt like alifetime.
Michael touching her again, touching her with all of the powerful emotion that she’d always known was there between them. Michael telling her that he wished things were different and that they could be together. But even as she stepped closer, watched his eyes stroke over her face, and even as she licked her lips, certain he was going to kiss her, she felt like she was missing something. Something important. Something about his words wasoff.
It was almost as if he was telling her goodbye. He was memorizing her face as if he’d never see it again. He was going to kiss her, one last time, but thenwhat?
“Yeah, Iknow.”
His thumb stroked softly over her cheek and his voice was low and pained when he spoke again, “I figured it out, but it wasn’t what wethought.”
Her mind and her body went to war. Her mouth wanted to open, wanted to ask one of the dozen questions racing through it. Figured what out? What was it? What was he talking about? Her body wanted to shut her brain down and just accept whatever this strange moment was. Whether it was hello or goodbye or something else entirely, she didn’tcare.
She wanted it to last forever because she was certain the moment on the other side of this one was going to changeeverything.
“Michael?”
“I’m going to find a way to fix it Zo. You have to trust me. I’m going to fixit.”
She didn’t understand what he was talking about. She nodded anyway. It didn’t matter what the question was. She trusted Michael. She always had. She opened her mouth to tell him that but she never got a word out because a loud growl stopped hershort.
“Mine!”
The roar of the male voice was vicious and close enough to rattle her eardrums. She jumped. Michael’s hand fell away. He winced, almost as if he was in pain, and an apologetic look crossed his face. Then, before she could even blink, he wasgone.
She screamed as something huge collided with Michael and took him to the ground. Zoey staggered back, more out of shock than fear, because as she watched her brain finally caught up to what was happening. It wasn’t a thing that had come flying out of the darkness to attack Michael, it was awho.
