But before I could go off on him, Fiona dragged me out the door to our waiting SUV and pulled me into the back seat.
“Is this some kind of setup?” I turned to Fiona and snapped the second the door was hastily shut behind us.
“Okay, look, it’s not a bad thing, I swear to God. Goddess?” She shook her head. “My point is, you’re both miserable, and we’ve all been tiptoeing around both of you, and it’s ridiculous. Me and the other girls might have been talking last night, and Elodie volunteered to hang back, so…”
I groaned, dropping my head back against the back of the seat. “So, you all decided to what, Parent Trap us like unsupervised children?”
“More or less. Please don’t hate me. It was ninety-seven percent Leigh’s idea, and she’s scary pregnant right now.”
I couldn’t disagree there. Leigh had her own gravitational pull at this point, and she was shamelessly using it to get her way, as was the feminine tradition.
Before I could respond, though, the men climbed into the front seats, and we were on the road.
There was a conspicuous silence in the car as we made the drive south, but no one seemed eager to break it with idle chitchat. Eventually, Reed flipped on a jazz radio station, and the crooning of saxophones kept us company.
Eventually, we pulled up at a very touristy-looking visitor center, and I resisted a groan. This place was thrumming with people, and I could already tell this would be a fruitless day of tramping through-admittedly beautiful-woods in uncomfortable silence.
My anger at Luce was still simmering below the surface, and I slammed the SUV door just a little too hard. He arched an eyebrow at me but said nothing-his favorite party trick. His most infuriating party trick.
Reed rubbed his hands together, then pulled out a red marker and the paper atlas he’d been using to track our travels. “Okay, there are two main areas here, and I think we can safely split and cover the whole area today. Fi and I are going west, and I’d like you two to cover the eastern side of the park. It’s going to be a little harder to get off the beaten track here, but as soon as you find a quiet area, get off the tourist trails and see what you find.”
He glanced up, only to find stony stares in response. Their little trap had been effective enough thus far, but did they really expect Lucien and me to spend the entire day alone in the woods together without a buffer after two weeks of polite indifference and not start an international incident?
“Okay, then. When do you want us back here?” Lucien asked in an agreeable tone, shocking the socks off me. I snapped my gaze his way, but he looked completely unbothered.
“Let’s do a check-in midafternoon. Say, three?”
Lucien nodded, accepting the bag of supplies from Fiona with a polite nod.
I was so sick of him being polite. Where was my virginity-stealing asshole who pushed things too far and didn’t apologize to anyone for being exactly himself?
But I kept that question to myself as we branched off, stomping ahead onto the western trail in pointed silence. If he could ignore me, I could ignore him. It was as juvenile as could be, but frankly, if I said something to him right now, I’d regret it later.
Maybe.
Maybe I’d enjoy telling him off.
We did as Reed suggested, hiking along the marked trail for a while, until we naturally paced ourselves out of sight of any other hikers. Finding a good spot in the brush, we used a little bit of shifter speed to gain enough distance to be out of sight from anyone continuing along the main path.
That was when the quiet truly set in. There were nearly no forest sounds except the wind, because the small creatures all knew there were predators in the forest today. They could sense our wolves, even if the humans couldn’t.
Underbrush tugged relentlessly at my pants and shoelaces, nearly tripping me a half dozen times before a moss-covered branch succeeded in sending me tumbling. I would have face-planted into a bush if Lucien hadn’t grabbed me around the waist, stopping me midfall.
“Whoa, there. Do you want me to go first for a while?” He set me back on my feet and backed up as if the simple touch had burned him, though you’d never know it by his casual tone.
“Sure, why don’t you go first, right over the nearest cliff.” I was fuming, we were well and truly alone, and I was done hiding my feelings.
He blinked at me in shock, and I resisted the urge to scream out my frustration.
“Whatever. Fine. I’m staying in front, though.” I turned and managed two furious stomps away before he snagged me by the arm, effortlessly turning me back his way.
“Please don’t be mad at me.” The expression he wore was sincere, but nearly a minute passed as I waited for more, which didn’t come.
“That’s it? You take my virginity, you have one attack-which I help you with, again-and then ice me out for weeks, and all you have to say for yourself is please don’t be mad? Well, good news for you, bucko, I’m not mad. I’m fucking furious! We are mates. This isn’t a faucet you can just turn on and off whenever it suits you! I deserve better than that, and if you’re over me, at least have the balls to say so! To my face, preferably.” I crossed my arms, staring him down and daring him to say something, anything. I was spoiling for a fight, and we weren’t leaving these stupid woods without one.
“You’re right. You’re absolutely fucking right, and I’m sorry. You deserve so much better.” He wearily rubbed a hand over his face, and I lost some of my bluster.
When the tight smile and pretense fell away, he looked exhausted.
But I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook yet, not after he pushed me away again, when I’d thought we were finally past the bullshit. So I waited, holding on to the very last scraps of my patience.
“I would understand if you wanted to walk away.”
A stab of regret nailed me square in the chest, and I knew without a doubt it was his.
“You know what? No. If you want to be done with this relationship, you’re going to have to look me in the eye and say the words. Say it. Right here, right now.” I stepped forward, eating up all the space between us, our chests brushing as we breathed.
“I can’t do that, hellcat.” A single stroke of his fingertips over my hair, light as gossamer and a thousand times as devastating as anything he’d ever said to me, as he caressed the ends of my hair. “I don’t have the strength to set you free. But if I hold on to you…” He shook his head sadly, and I saw the moment he closed himself back off, shutting me out, but this time, I wasn’t having it.
“You know, for an alpha, you sure are a coward. What are you so damn afraid of? I’m not taking another step until you tell me everything. Because, Lucien, Goddess help me, I’m at the end of my rope here. I- I love you. I am actively in love with you. And I can’t just flip a switch like you can. So tell me. What is so horrible that you’d push me away this time?” My chest was heaving-with anger, with short, panting breaths, with the unfairness of it all-but I couldn’t stop it.
“I’m scared I’m going to hurt you.”
There was no shout, no thunder, no heat behind the words. Only deep, rending sadness that threatened to steal my breath from my lungs and leave me permanently desolate.
“What does that mean? Help me understand.” I resisted the urge to reach forward, to lace our fingers together as if we were lovers. Right now, we weren’t. Right now, we were on the edge of something, and frankly, I still wasn’t sure if we were going to sail into the sunset or crash on the rocks, and my shaking hands showed it.
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