Chica. I have thing to figure out and plan, so I’m going upstairs.’ I use Meadow’s pet name, our eyes meet as damp emotional smiles are passed, in that one instance, I know a love that I’ve needed for the past eight years, a true friend, and it kills me that I only found it to leave it behind. I’m going to miss those blue eyes, and that sassy spunk of my beautiful wild femme sister.
I pull myself to my feet, head determined, and surprisingly free of tears, despite her breaking her heart and crying floods as she watches me move. She stays immobile, like she’s stuck on the grass unable to do anything else for now.
It hurts more than anything in the world, not too dissimilar a pain to having Colton reject me, but there’s something inside of me pushing on and keeping me calm. I can’t sit here and wait for the inevitable and then cry when it all goes how I expect it to. I need to take control of my own life and do what I always intended. I had a plan! A chosen path before I imprinted.
To leave Radstone and the Santos behind, and make it on my own. If the fates wanted me to be mated and stay, they wouldn’t have made me his. They knew this would happen, they know everything, and yet they chose to throw dynamite in the fishing pond and sat back as chaos ensued.
“Tell him I don’t want to see him for a few days if he asks. That I need headspace. That I don’t want to train. I’ll leave sometime within that, so you don’t know. Give me a couple of days after I don’t show for meals at the mess before you tell him I’m gone. I have to make sure my scent is faded before he finds out.”
I don’t want anyone tracking me, especially not him, and as our scent fades fast, I need at least twenty-four hours to get far away from here before he finds out I’m gone.
Of course, I’m terrified. I mean, over the last days I’ve become marginally better at turning at will, my fitness improving, but I haven’t perfected anything, haven’t gotten to grips with my gifts or how to use them. I’m going out there with no experience, or skills to keep me safe, but I have to. It’s safer than what I can feel is coming.
I grew up taking care of myself and knowing the basics to get by. My father taught me to camp, to hunt in human form, and cook, even if I was a little kid I still remember. He taught me how to make fires, and how to fish, it was his favorite pastime. Going rural as a human and living on the land, it was something he just liked to do with jasper and me, daddy time with his children. I can’t have forgotten all of that.
Now I have the added bonus of being able to turn. I can hunt for food that way, eat as a wolf, nourish my body with things a human couldn’t digest, like raw meat. I can sleep anywhere I find shelter, because we don’t feel the cold, we don’t get sick from the elements, or die of exposure. I can keep moving until I find somewhere to stop. I don’t mind being alone, I’ve felt that way for ten years, until Colton. I’m not afraid to be isolated from others and doing it by myself.
If I have to venture into the human world to get a job or somewhere to settle, then I’m sure it can’t be that hard. I’m hardly a vulnerable weak girl with no way to take care of herself. Even in human form, I have my senses, my strength, and speed, and I have my inner wolf to protect me. I can heal when I get sick or injured. I just need to find my courage and go.
Time will do nothing in this situation anymore, and as much as leaving him will kill me, it will also set me free. It will set us both so. Him to focus on his responsibility and lead his people, and me, to hope that our bond will fade or die in time, that I may never forget him, but that I may learn how to live without him.
Despite what I said to Meadow about needing a couple of days, I don’t. I already made up my mind that I leave at dusk, I just couldn’t tell her that. I need to move before dark, as no one wants to be out there while our enemy can move around. I have a gap of time, to run far and find shelter, before the sun fully sets and I’m done wasting time with this.
Running
I pick at my tray of food in the mess hall, pushing my salad around, completely distracted. Counting down the minutes before I can head upstairs, already on edge, unable to think about anything else despite telling myself I’m only making it worse. My nerves are already shot.
Meadow is keeping her distance, sat down the far end of the long table because she knows she won’t be able to hold it in if we sit close. She isn’t really doing a great job of acting natural either and I can almost taste her tension waving this way. I catch her eyes on me a couple of times, but she looks away quickly, as though we’ve had some sort of lover’s tiff and I wish she would stop before someone picks up on it. I think she’s the reason I’m on such high alert because she’s adding to my stress levels.
The rest of the sub pack are dotted around me, although still grouped in an obvious unit. I’m stuck between the twins, who decided they were flanking me in here today and they are arguing about who got more coleslaw with their potato jackets while reaching over me in a bid to steal one another’s food. Radar watching them silently across the table, like an amused parent who is not inclined to intervene, until I can’t take it anymore.
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