Page 22 of Moon Fated

“I’ve been curious about you for a long time.”

She huffed a laugh. “Bull shit. I lived twenty minutes up the road for two years, and you never came to my doorstep.”

This was quickly veering off the tracks, but what had I expected? To show up here and have her throw her panties at me? Yeah. Kind of. I was an alpha. I wasn’t used to wolves shutting me down. “You know I couldn’t?—”

“You can’t be at my door now! What’s the difference?”

My wolf pressed so close to the surface, I wondered if she could see my eyes glowing. Evelyn’s breathing quickened. She put out a hand and steadied herself against the wall. My eyes narrowed. I could sense her wolf there, but something was holding her back. My wolf whined, begging for a better glimpse.

“I think you know what the difference is.” It was a risk, but Evelyn wasn’t giving me anything to work with. If my wolf was acting like a bat out of hell, she had to be feeling something from hers. I hoped.

When I was a pup, I thought mating bonds snapped into place and you had no choice whether you complied. Now I wasn’t so naive. The mating bond was an invitation from the universe—one she didn’t have to take. I had to prove myself, and I only had a week, sometimes less, to do it. After that, the pull she felt toward me would lessen.

For me? It would never stop. This was my one and only.

Evelyn didn't step aside to let me in, but she didn’t tell me to leave, either. That was something. "Can we talk?" My question hung between us, an offering and a plea. I watched as the wildness in her own gaze—a reflection of her inner wolf—flickered with indecision.

“I’m here for four days, Rowan. Then I’m going back to Seattle. I’m only here to help my friend.”

My wolf growled, and I lowered my eyes so she wouldn’t catch the anger that flashed there. I mentally stroked a hand down his smoky back. Be patient.

I wouldn’t admit it to Evelyn, but she was right about one thing. I had heard the gossip about her and Kitimat’s alpha. I was curious. But I didn’t need her to spell it out for me. If Nathan had treated her the way everyone thought he had, it made perfect sense that she wouldn’t trust me, regardless of our history.

I cleared my throat. “Right. That’s what I wanted to talk about. After what you said to Justin?—”

“This isn’t any of your business.” Evelyn put a hand back on the door, moving to push me out. That made my hackles rise.

“It’s all of my business. My pack is making sacrifices to help Kitimat and the other northern packs that are missing wolves. Not that you would know, but we’re a small pack as?—”

“Not that I would know?” Her grip tightened on the door, her eyes flashing.

My nostrils flared. “That wasn’t a judgment. Just a fact.”

Evelyn leaned closer, and her scent made me heady. “You’re blocking my door, and I’d like to get some sleep. Not a judgment. Just a fact.”

“Do you think you can make me move?” As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Walls slammed down behind her eyes, and her expression hardened. “I’m sorry. It was a joke. I’ll leave.”

She paused, and the haunted look in her eyes nearly brought me to my knees. I wanted to tell her I wasn’t him, that I would never be him. I wanted to sprint away from her door and never stop running until I found Nathan Black and tore his head from his shoulders. Instead, I said, “If you want me to.”

My wolf stood at attention, so focused I didn’t think a scrap of fresh deer meat could tear his eyes from her.

Evelyn turned her back, and my stomach sank like the boulders I used to toss in the river. She was rejecting us. She was rejecting me. The pain of that realization tore at my insides as I pushed off the door, ready to take my walk of shame to the parking lot and let it close behind me.

“I found this.” Evelyn’s voice was soft.

I looked up, not trusting myself to speak. She held something in her hands. Something sharp. She walked slowly back toward me and held it out. I took it from her and began inspecting it, still trying to clear the hunk of granite sitting on my chest.

I tried to focus on the intricate carvings in the dagger’s handle, but my vision blurred. She wasn’t saying no. Not yet, at least. Had she understood what I was trying to say? Did she know that we were fated? If she did, she obviously wasn’t impressed.

“You think this has to do with the disappearances?” I asked.

She nodded, still not meeting my eyes. “Blake and I talked with the elders. They said a witch in the woods might have more answers.”

So that’s what she was doing in the trees. “Lyra.”

“You know her?”

“Of her.”

---