Page 19 of Predator

The conversation shifts after that. We talk about everything and nothing, though Lucas steers it away from his Beta, and I throw up the brakes whenever he suggests that shifting takes practice and that he has faith in me.

For the next hour, though, I only have one thought in my mind. If the curse is broken… does that mean that the blood ward snapped, too?

I don’t know, but for my own peace of mind, I’m going to obsess over it until I find out.

I’m also prepared for Lucas to shut me down the moment I mentioned the rope bridge, and while he tries, it’s the hurt in his voice as he asks, “To the train station? What did I do wrong, sucre, that you’re so desperate to leave me?”

Holy shit. Is that what he thinks?

I rise up, going to my knees as I take his hand in mine. “I don’t want to leave you, babe.” I pause for a second, then blurt out: “Can I?”

That is quite possibly the worst thing I could’ve said.

“We’re bonded. There’s no taking that back?—”

“I don’t want to!” I say hurriedly. Tough when I’ve got my damn foot in my mouth after that last question. “Sorry, I’m so sorry. I just thought… you’re right. We’re bonded. I don’t think that means I can leave you.”

Lucas swallows roughly. “Only if you want the feral to return and chase you.”

The idea of him being so desperate for me that he’s become that thing again just to come after me… shit. That shouldn’t be as hot to me as it is.

“Wherever you go,” he adds, his voice becoming a rasped promise, “I’ll go. I love you, Fallon. And I will always follow you.”

That’s just what I needed to hear.

“Then follow me to the train station.”

Do I honestly believe that, if I insisted on leaving Winter Creek, that Lucas would follow me to New York?

Actually, I do. He meant what he said. If I wanted to leave, I honestly believe that he’d be right behind me.

Just like he is now.

It did take a little more explanation before he joined me in getting dressed before guiding me through the woods and over to the train station. Once he understood it’s just about seeing if the blood ward is gone—that if, worse comes to worse, I do need to leave the town, I could… he agrees to accompany me so long as we head home to the pack house together after we check.

And, okay, it does take me pointing out that the odds of the train miraculously rolling through to whisk me away while we’re there are slim to none to get him to stop glowering into the dim light of early evening.

“You’re right. The train usually rolls through during the full moon and the new moon,” he says.

“I know,” I tell him. “I remember you saying that.”

“And that’s if Marie doesn’t stop it with her magic.”

Ah. So that’s what he meant when he said that Marie controls the train as much as she controls most of Winter Creek. At the time he told me about that, I was torn between thinking that Lucas was trying to convince me to stay and believing my grandmother used her status as the head of Bordeaux Designs to run the town.

But of course it’s magic. Of freaking course.

Whatever. Let her hole up in the coven house. So long as she doesn’t bother me, I’ll do the same, and since the two of us make the trip onto neutral territory without anyone catching the Lucas’s wolf’s attention, I forget about the witches as I take my mate by the hand and encourage him to follow me up the stairs.

He lets me, though he suddenly becomes a lot heavier as soon as we reach the rope bridge stretched over the raging Winter Creek.

I turn to look over my shoulder, not entirely surprised that his glower has faded into a blank expression that gives nothing away.

I don’t need it to. His reluctance to see me set sandal on the the first wooden slat tells me all it has to.

Resting my palms on his chest, feeling the thrum of his racing heart beneath my hands, I say, “Lucas. Big guy. Baby.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Baby?”

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