Paul Rodriguez Now I was the one fidgeting in my seat.
My heart was pounding a million miles per minute and I whipped my head around the theater.
Where is he? Tcan feel him. God, why can I actually feel his presence?
A part of me wanted to brush it off as paranoia, but deep down, I knew it was more than just anxiety. The mate bond. I could feel it. Thrumming beneath the surface, like my entire b*dy was yearning for him.
As my eyes swept around the dark room, I couldn’t find him anywhere. The crowded theater was full of laughing families and cuddled-up couples but there was no Alpha King in sight. “Hey, you okay?” Aiden suddenly whispered next to me. Given that I’d suddenly taken to squirming around like a mad woman, I couldn’t be surprised that he was concerned.
Oh, God. Aiden.
If Griffin is really here, he’ll kill him.
Immediately, my mind flashed to a certain decapitated head. If he was willing to behead his father, I couldn’t imagine what he’d do to someone like Aiden.
Someone who currently looks like he’s on a date with me.
Tneed to get out of here – and alone. If Griffin is here and going to make his presence known, Aiden can’t be around for it.
“Um, I’m not feeling so hot anymore,” I told him, clutching my head, “I really feel a migraine coming on, I get these sometimes. I should get home before it gets worse.” I!
I started to stand up but Aiden grabbed my arm.
“Hey, wait,” he said, “You shouldn’t walk home alone. I’ll go with you.” “No!” I said it louder than I intended to and a couple of people nearby turned to look at us. More quietly, I added, “No, it’s okay. You should stay and enjoy the movie. I won’t walk, ‘ll call my mom.”
That was a lie of course. If Griffin really was here and waiting in the shadows, I wasn’t going to involve anyone else.
And if I’m somehow just making this all up in my head and freaking out over nothing, the fresh air will probably do me some good.
Aiden looked hesitant to let me go. Even in the dark, his concerned blue eyes seemed to gleam.
“[‘m okay, really,” I said, “I”m sorry our night had to be cut short. Had I known I was getting a migraine, I would’ve never come.”
More like – had I known my possessive Alpha mate was going to show up, 1 would’ve never come.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
Inodded and he slowly sat back down. “I’ll be fine, I promise,” I told him and I managed to muster a smile.
He finally nodded. “If you say so. Guess we’ll have to do a raincheck on movie night then.”
Yeah, assuming Griffin doesn’t drag me back to Canada.) “Of course, we will.” Probably not.
With a long breath, I strode out of the theater, my eyes searching every dark crevice for an indicator of Griffin. But there was none. Unless he’d mastered the art of invisibility since I’d seen him last, he didn’t appear to be in the theater.
So why can I still feel him?
Outside of the theater, my eyes took a minute to adjust to the harsh fluorescent lighting of the hallway. Besides the lone ticket attendant sitting at the counter and the popcorn littered on the floor, even the hallway was abandoned.
I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my cardigan and made my way to the exit. “Have a good night!” The ticket attendant called after me but I was too nervous and amped up to even pretend to be polite back.
The air outside was just as brisk as it had been an hour ago. Although the theater was located downtown, only a sidewalk and a two-lane road lay between me and a heavily forested area.
Thad hardly noticed it before. It didn’t look out of place with Yorba Linda’s cozy atmosphere. But now, all I could think about was how easy it would be for Griffin to hide in them. Was he there now? Gleaming eyes and sharp teeth, ready to grab me at a moment’s notice?
The thought sent my heart in overdrive and I picked up the pace. God, I need to get home, pack, and get out of here.
What am I going to tell mom and Steve? They’re having their own date night out tonight, they won’t even be home.
can’t leave without saying goodbye. I’ll have to text or leave a voicemail. I don’t have time to wait for them. I pulled out my phone and began drafting a rushed text to my mother.
Hey mom. Something came up and I gotta leave town for a little while. I’ll be back sometime but I’m not sure when. It’s about that trouble I was involved in. I’ll be okay, I just don’t want you to worry. Thank you for taking me in. I love you.
My fingers were trembling so hard that I couldn’t hit the keys right. My message came out looking like gibberish at least two times before I managed to get it right. It was far from the goodbye that my mother (or me) deserved after seven years apart, but it would have to do for now. Just until I get out of town, somewhere that Griffin wouldn’t find me. And I meant the part about returning. Although I wasn’t sure when, I knew this wouldn’t be my last meeting with my mom. We’d see each other again.
Just as my thumb hovered over the ‘send’ button, my b*dy smacked into a muscled wall.
My phone fell from my hands, shattering on the ground. Walls don’t have muscles, Clark.
“Hello, little fox.” My stomach dropped.
I looked up, meeting dark, expressive eyes.
“The world consists of predators and prey. You are either hunting or running.”
Unknown
Lused to volunteer at the animal shelter with Uncle Steve when I was seven or eight. Most of my time there is a blur, but I remember how we captured feral cats so they could be spayed or neutered at the shelter.
We’d buy those live traps, stick a little cat food inside, and wait for the next hungry stray to wander by. I remember how those feral cats would look when they stumbled upon the trap.
First, they’d wander into the trap cautiously and sniff out the food. There would be a split second where their animal eyes would light up, and you could tell they thought they’d just found the cat-version of the lottery.
But just as they began digging in, the trap would swing shut. The cats always knew they were trapped immediately. They would paw at the door and hiss when you got too close. But they knew they were caught.
The terror in their eyes used to bother me as a kid – even if Steve was always quick to remind me that we were helping these cats. Sometimes I would wonder what it felt like to be that afraid, to know there was no escape.
But as I stared up at Griffin, I felt exactly like one of those feral cats. I’d wandered into a trap without realizing it, and just for a moment, I had believed I’d gotten away with it unscathed. I had believed that I could live a life away from werewolves and mates and crowns.
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