Page 8 of Bond & Protect

He glances towards the bathroom. “Is that why the stranger is staying at the safe house?”

I just about resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Yeah, well, we don’t quite know what to do with Mila at the moment. Everything is a bit… up in the air.”

“What do you mean? She seems pretty cool to me. What I know of her, anyway.”

A strange knot of jealousy twists up in my guts. I know I don’t have the right to feel this way, but my fists curl up by my side regardless. My heart thunders so painfully against my rib cage that I fear it might break free. It’s seriously hard to contain myself.

“Mila is new to town, and her story about why she’s here is vague.” I offer him a one-shouldered shrug. “And she was found on the night you went ‘missing’ with wolf blood on her.”

Amos’s lips turn down into a frown. “Whose blood?”

“We were worried that it was yours, if I’m honest with you, Amos, which is why everyone has been going crazy, looking for you. But now… well, we don’t know.”

It starts to dawn on him now how serious this all actually is. Watching the recognition flicker across his face relieves me because it means I don’t need to keep explaining. Elias only has the information from the tales that his great-grandfather used to tell him, and everyone else is pretty much in the same position. We have to sift through the fact and the fiction.

“So, what now?” Amos asks me curiously. “What do we do?”

“You need to go and see Elias,” I remind him cautiously. “You have a lot of making up to do. I guess he will then tell you where he wants you. I’m sure he has plans for ya.”

Amos doesn’t look like this is what he wants to do, but he knows I’m right. He nods slowly and backs away from me before finally shifting back into his wolf form. As the dark fur bursts free from his body and he turns away to run, I shake my head to myself, bemused.

Yes, it’s annoying, but I’m just grateful that Amos is okay. Although, this opens up a lot more questions that we’ll have to figure out sooner rather than later. Who was hurt? What are these monsters going to look like? How will we defeat them?

I’m glad I’m not the alpha. I don’t envy Elias in this situation at all. He must be all torn up inside, trying his hardest not to make the wrong decision because many lives are at risk.

I don’t know what she’s singing, but I can hear Mila tunefully enjoying herself in the heat of the shower. I’m glad something can make her feel better here. It sucks that she’s stuck in this situation, even though I’m a big part of the reason she’s here.

I’m changing my mind now, though. I don’t think Mila is the criminal now. Especially not since she’s had time with Amos and nothing bad has happened to him. Instead, I’m starting to believe she has no idea what happened to her. She was telling the truth all along.

“Oh! My goodness, I’m sorry.” Redness burns all the way through Mila as she practically skips back into the bedroom with just a small towel wrapped around her. My mouth immediately runs dry at the sight of water droplets all over her beautiful skin. I can really examine her lovely body now, which only makes me ache for her more. “I thought I was alone.”

We stare at one another for a beat too long, both of us unable to move. The yearning is so powerful, so intense that I can’t think straight. I have a sizzling heat burning all the way through me as well. I so desperately want to rip that towel away from her so I can see the little parts of her gorgeous body that are still a mystery to me.

“I will just… just go and get dressed,” Mila stammers, proving that she’s struggling to rip away from me just as much as I am her. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

I can’t breathe again until she’s gone. Once I’m alone in the room, I sink onto the bed and stew in the intense fizzle all over again. This is why I’m a virgin… because no one has ever made me feel this way before. It isn’t something I usually tell people, but it felt right to let Mila know that me and her are the same because she does make me feel right.

This is chemistry, right? This is what it’s supposed to be like. I remember my mother telling me the adage that ‘when you know, you know’, and I have to admit that I feel like I know. Although I never expected to want to mate with a human this badly. I always kinda assumed it would be another wolf, just because that’s the sort of love my parents had.

But I suppose love comes in all shapes and sizes, doesn’t it? What’s right for one person isn’t always right for everyone else. If this really does feel right, then maybe I should just… I don’t know, go for it? However much that idea scares the living shit out of me. I might put on a good show, but romance is something I have no experience with whatsoever. I’m actually a mess.

God, this is embarrassing. Much as I keep thinking about Mila’s words––that we share a special bond and that we should be one another’s firsts––I can’t stop thinking about what the others would say if they could see the mush that she’s made my brain.

I’m known for being hard and tough, for only using the logical side of my brain, so having these romantic thoughts of a mating call coming from a human… it’s just crazy. I shake my head, trying to rid myself of any thoughts, but Mila remains firmly stuck there.

“Sorry about that,” Mila gushes as she races back into the room, now with an oversized tee shirt and tight-fitting leggings on. “Is everything okay, Sydney? Where is the wolf?”

“That was Amos,” I tell her wryly. “The wolf that we’ve been searching for. Turns out he hasn’t been murdered after all, so we can stop panicking about that.”

Mila’s eyes pop wide with surprise. “Oh my goodness! So, you’ve found him? Surely, I don’t need to remain here, right? If no one was murdered, then I can’t be accused…”

I shake my head instantly. “You were still found covered in wolf’s blood, so you can’t be let loose just yet. Plus, you don’t want to be in danger, do you?”

“You really think I’m in danger? From whatever is in this Rift?”

All I can do is shrug. “I don’t know. We might all be in danger. We don’t fully know what we’re dealing with here, so we have to be careful.”

A strange expression crosses her face. I can’t quite read what thoughts are cascading through her mind, but she definitely seems troubled. Elias let me know that she moved here to escape some personal troubles in the city, so I can only imagine that she isn’t happy not to have a peaceful life.

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