Chapter 146
GRAYSON
I could feel her from here.
She’s close.
Jessica is close to where we are.
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Pierce was wind–breaking beside me, lungs steaming, but neither of us had spoken since we caught her heat- stink at the stream.
I was barely holding shift. My gums were bleeding from clenching it back.
We hadn’t spoken since she veered off the main trail, and we didn’t need to.
Her scent was everywhere–smeared in the undergrowth, high in the bark, raw and streaking across stone.
The sun cracked above the ridge, slow and ugly, and I wanted to rip it down. Daylight meant time was up. She’d know. She’d see us. She’d bolt again.
Who is she running from? That keeps on circling in my mind. Now that Theo is gone, what more is making her run away from all of these?
I stopped moving, shoulders jerking like the shift wanted to snap back but my body didn’t know what it needed–man, beast, both–I couldn’t hold either.
My chest heaved. My lungs weren’t taking the air right. It stank of dirt, rot, pine sap, old blood, her.
Her. Her. Her.
My vision blurred at the edges, not from crying, not from grief–my wolf doesn’t cry–but from something
worse.
Jess. Jess. Fuck.
My jaw unhinged on her name, my throat too raw for words, too broken for anything but sound, and I threw it into the dark like it could reach her.
One long, blistered howl that tore from the pit of my chest and kept going. Through the trees. Through the dirt. Through the ache that wouldn’t shut up under my ribs.
I missed her.
Where are you.
Where the fuck are you.
I tipped my head back and howled again, this one sharper, uglier, blistered with rage. My paws skidded on the
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Chapter 146
wet rock as I lunged forward.
“Grayson!”
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“What the hell are you doing?” Pierce shouted, pushing me to stop me from howling.
“I can smell her…”
“What?”
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I shifted closer, dragging my boots over moss, fingers splitting into claws before I even knew I was shifting, before I realized I was growling low through my teeth like her scent was punching straight into my spine and gutting me from the inside.
“Grayson wait-”
Trees broke open as I lunged past Pierce, shoulder scraping bark, claws shredding roots, the wet dirt swallowing sound as I crashed low, then lower, then froze because I saw her.
Moonlight made her glow, shoulders slick and turned, thighs sunk in lakewater, lips parted, breath shivering, and Riot behind her, hands on her hips, mouth on her throat, growling low like she was already his.
“Grayson.”
A hand snapped against my chest and I almost tore it off.
I could feel Pierce breathing hard behind me, trying to grab my arm, trying to yank me back like he didn’t smell it too, like he wasn’t about to drop to his knees from how fucking strong she was hitting.
“Don’t,” I said, voice wrecked and too far gone to be human, because the last thing I needed was him speaking her heat out loud, making it real, dragging it into the air like we weren’t already both sinking into it.
“We need to go,” Pierce was whispering, tugging again, voice breaking, “Grayson, she’s not–she doesn’t know what she’s-”
Pierce tried again, fingers on my wrist this time, pulling like I was something leashed.
I turned on him.
He flinched.
“Touch me again, and I’ll feed you your fucking hand.”
Pierce was talking again. Begging, Saying something about how she would hate me, how Riot would kill me, how the pack would-
I didn’t hear the rest. I was rising. Stalking forward. Breathing her in.
If she wanted to be fucked like an omega in heat, if she wanted to beg for a mutt’s teeth, then let her see what it looked like when her alpha burned.
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“Having fun?”
Her eyes snapped to mine.
Wide.
White–rimmed.
“Grayson!”
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Fuck. I’m so angry at her right now but as soon as I felt her warmth everything melted in me. Here I am, Grayson Westwood crying at her for being alive.
She threw her arms around me and I let her. My fists were still curled, still shaking, but I didn’t shove her off. Couldn’t. Her chest hit mine and my breath shattered. My ribs gave out before my pride did. My head dropped into her neck like I hadn’t been breathing since she left.
“You’re okay,” I choked. Didn’t mean to say it. It spilled out of me anyway, soaked and shaking and wrecked. “You’re fucking okay.”
Her hands fisted my shirt, pulling me down, burying her face into my chest like she knew I needed it more than she did.
“I thought–I thought I lost you,” I muttered, and my voice broke halfway through, catching on teeth, shame, the way her scent still had another male’s heat curled around it. “I thought I lost you…”
She didn’t answer right away.
Jessica doesn’t have to.
I pressed my mouth to her hair and squeezed my eyes shut and let myself collapse the rest of the way, my knees giving out slow, dragging us both down to the ground.
She followed without a word, straddling my lap, arms locking around my neck like a noose I didn’t want to escape from.
“I couldn’t feel you,” I whispered, the words scraping my throat raw. “Not through the bond. Not even a flicker. You were gone, Jess, you were just–gone, and I couldn’t–I didn’t know what the fuck to do.”
Her palm slid up, trembling, cupping my jaw like she was scared I’d disappear too. She tipped my face toward hers, eyes searching mine.
Wide. Dark, Open.
Her thumbs brushed beneath my eyes and I realized I was crying again, slow and silent, tears tracking down the corners of my mouth as my lips trembled. I didn’t even try to stop them.
I didn’t care.
Knowing she’s alive and here with me right now makes me so fucking happy I’ll cry every damn tears that I have.
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Chapter 146
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“I’m here,” she whispered against my mouth.
And fuck, that almost undid me all over again. My breath shook with the need to bite down, to claim her again, to mark over every place that wasn’t mine, to bury myself in the scent of her until there was nothing
left but us.
But instead, I feel content. I just held her and cried and let her be alive in my arms.
Because it’s her.
It’s always been her.
Jess, with her wolf that never flinched from mine, with her mouth that always met my name like it meant something holy, with her hands that knew how to anchor me even when I wanted to fall apart.
Jess, who pulled me from the pack’s bullshit, from the bloodline weight, from every part of myself I didn’t think anyone could want, and called it hers.
Jess, who fucking chose me–over every stronger wolf, every easier path. Who saw all my broken parts and curled her fingers around them like they were worth something.
And I almost lost her.
My chest still felt cracked open, like some part of me hadn’t stopped bleeding since I found her again.
She was alive.
Right here.
Wrapped around me.
I brushed her hair back with shaking fingers, touched her face like it might break under my palm, and watched her eyes flutter open like she was waking up just for me.
My girl.
My mate.
My reason.
1 would’ve killed a thousand wolves to get her back. I would’ve torn the world in half if she hadn’t opened her
eyes.
And even now, with her safe and breathing and real in my lap. I still didn’t know how to let her be okay.
“I love you,” I said, before I could stop it. My voice cracked in the middle, raw and ugly, but I didn’t care. “You hear me, Jess? I love you. I always fucking have. I don’t care what they did. I don’t care what you had to do to survive. I just–1 need you. I need you more than I know how to say!
She blinked up at me, silent, her hand still pressed to my cheek. And for a second, I swore I saw it–the shift in her eyes, the way her lips parted, the way her whole body leaned in like it heard something in me it’d been
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Chapter 146
waiting for.
I kissed her again.
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With Jessica, I always feel full.
Full of every night I dreamed of her. Every howl I let loose for her. Every ache I buried in the dirt when I couldn’t reach her. I kissed her like I was starving and she was the only thing that ever fed me right.
And when she kissed me back, slow and soft and real, I didn’t need to mark her.
She was already mine.
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Chapter 147
