Page 28 of Exiled Mate

“You can’t be here,” I whisper to her. I tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear, and she leans into my hand.

“Where else would I be?”

“Terra, if the alpha finds out you’re here?—”

“I’m not on pack lands. I’m not harboring a fugitive,” she says quietly.

The fact that she’s willing to do this makes my chest ache. “You and your mom. We can’t risk Thorne’s ire.”

“So let’s go somewhere he can’t bother us,” she says. Her eyes search mine.

I shake my head slowly. “Terra, we can’t. I don’t know… where would we even go?”

The smile that curls across her lips is so sexy, but she shakes her head.

“I don’t care where we go. We can be our own pack and petition the Supernatural Bureau for refugee status or something. We can join another pack. We can settle down and just try to keep our heads low in the human world. I don’t care, Rylan. I just want you,” she whispers.

I shut my eyes. “Terra…”

“I just want you, Ry. Please. Forever.”

“I want you, too.”

It’s the truth. I know it’s safer for me to run. I know it would keep her safe, but her words from when we first reunited flash into my mind.

I want to be brave for Terra. And the brave thing to do isn’t to run. It’s to stand and fight.

“It’s not going to be easy, love,” I whisper.

“I know, Rylan. I love you, and I don’t want it to be easy.”

“You deserve easy, babe.”

“I deserve you,” she insists.

And fuck if that doesn’t hurt more than any fight I’ve walked out of in the last two years.

“You don’t. Hell, I don’t deserve you. You’re better than me, Terra.”

“Don’t care,” she says. “I love you. It’s always been you, Ry. It will always be you.” Her voice is thick.

I wrap her in my arms, sweeping her into a huge hug. She squeaks with surprise, and I hold her close.

“I love you,” I whisper into her hair.

Terra’s little cry is heartbreaking, but in a way that feels more like fixing than it does anything else.

We stay there for a minute, then she pulls back. “I talked to Thorne. After you left.”

My heart thumps. “What did he say?”

“He needs evidence, Ry. He needs evidence to see that Chet is the one who fucked it up. He thinks that since he and Chet have the same background, he knows what Chet would do, but he has no idea. He only sees himself in that… he doesn’t see the truth.”

My eyes widen. “Evidence?”

“Yeah. Something we can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

There’s only one way to do this. “We have to catch him,” I whisper.

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