Page 35 of Unforgivable Fate

“No. Don’t do that.” Griffin reached out with his free hand and grabbed hers when she started to turn away. “We’re not going far and you look beautiful. You don’t need to change. Promise.”

She raised an eyebrow, “We’re not going far, huh?”

“Just to a little clearing I found when I got lost walking back from town on my own the other day.”

Nova laughed, “I didn’t think wolves ever got lost.”

“It’s a common misconception.” He slid his fingers through hers and tugged gently, pulling her with him as he stepped off the porch and onto the trail that led into the woods. “Most shifters say wolves can’t get lost because we have an innate sense of direction, which we do, but that only helps if you know the terrain. Since most packs are insular and generation after generation are born and raised on the same land, it makes sense that those wolves would never get lost because they’d know their territory like the back of their hand. For wolves like me though, wolves that aren’t tied to their birth pack, that bounce around looking for a place to call home, it’s a lot easier to get turned around on land you don’t know.”

Nova was so caught up listening to him that it took her a moment to realize that he was holding her hand. He’d twined their fingers together as if it was the most natural thing in the world and she hadn’t even noticed because it did feel natural. When she wasn’t overthinking everything about their bond and the past traumas that they shared, it was easy to just be with him. It was easy to get lost in how they fit when she wasn’t focusing on why they shouldn’t.

She resisted the urge to pull her hand away and put some distance between them. Her brain still wanted to fight the connection she felt to this man but everything else inside her wanted him despite all the warnings. It wasn’t just her wolf either. She couldn’t write it off as animal instinct when she was enjoying walking with him, listening to him talk, simply holding his hand and those were all very human things that had nothing to do with her wolf.

Her body wanted him of course. She could feel the heat from where their skin touched practically searing up her arm and making her blood boil with desire. He was handsome, she’d never denied that, but he also carried himself with purpose which she found she liked.

He could have lowered his head and kept his eyes down when he came into the Crescent Pack. After what his brother had done, Nova was certain there were members of the pack who thought that’s exactly how he should behave. But despite her wariness when it came to his connection to Maddox, she didn’t blame Griffin for what his brother had done and she didn’t think it was fair for anyone to ask him to carry guilt for something that was no more his fault than the family he’d born into.

He was a strong wolf. He’d experienced a devastating loss of his own and he’d made it out the other side. She’d laughed at the idea of their shared trauma bonding them when he had mentioned it but after thinking on it more, she thought he was right. Fate had put them together for a reason and being hurt by Maddox was something they had in common, a place to start in building their own relationship.

“Nova?”

“Hmm?” she hummed, still distracted with her thoughts.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” She glanced up and smiled at him. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“About making another run for it?” He raised an eyebrow and she laughed.

“No. Actually the opposite.”

Griffin tilted his head, “What’s the opposite of running? Staying? I thought you’d already decided you weren’t going to leave Noir and your family behind?”

“I’d decided to stay in Noir. You’re right.” She bit her lip and pushed the rest of what she was thinking out, “I was thinking that maybe I didn’t just stay for my family or even the pack. Maybe I stayed for you too. Maybe I can stay with you?”

His smile was slow, as if he wasn’t sure he could believe his ears, “You mean it?”

“I think I do.” She confirmed. “I think, as angry as I was with fate when I realized who you were, that maybe I was a little rash in giving up on her. She put us together. She made us mates and that means if I have even a chance of being happy with you, then I have to try, right?”

“Nova.” Griffin stepped closer to her and she only realized then that they’d stopped walking. He raised his free hand to her cheek gently and met her gaze. “I’ll make you happy. I swear I will. Finding my mate and making a good life for us is all I’ve ever wanted. It’s why I could never settle in any of those other packs, because I knew, something inside me knew, that you weren’t there.”

“Griffin.” She leaned into his touch, his sweet words sinking in past all of her defenses.

He smiled as he bent his head towards hers, “I like the way you say my name.”

“Griffin.” She repeated on a whisper, making him chuckle even as he brushed their lips together.

It was like their first kiss. Soft and tender, but Nova didn’t feel his hesitancy with her this time. He wasn’t going slow for her sake now. He was simply kissing her with no intention of pushing further, of giving in to the heat that smoldered like kindling between them. He kissed her as if they had forever together and maybe that was the point.

They did.

He pulled back after he’d kissed her long enough to leave her dizzy and stroked his thumb over her cheekbone, “Come on, the place I wanted to show you is just a little bit further.”

Nova grinned, letting him take her hand and pull her after him. She somehow wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t forgotten all about their date in favor of taking her home and claiming her right then and there. She’d told him that she wanted to be with him and the heat between them was becoming nearly unbearable but still he wanted his date with her. It was then that she realized his strength of will, his strength of character, was far greater than she’d given him credit for.

After all the visions she’d been forced to endure of her friends and family and packmates being inundated with the first flash of the mating heat, after watching Darius and then Maya both attempt to put off their claiming, she had thought she understood what she was getting herself into. She had been wrong. The mating heat was so much worse than she’d ever imagined.

Her skin constantly felt tight. Her body ached with the need to be claimed and filled. Trying to scratch that particular itch had only left her worse off than before and she swore half the time she spent sweating lately had nothing to do with the sultry Louisiana humidity. As if that wasn’t bad enough, her wolf was constantly threatening to break free of her skin and hunt their mate down.

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