Page 11 of The Hunt

“Yeah, they really are attempting to take this out of our hands, aren’t they?”

“I guess we could say they’re acting in our best interests,” Jaxson said.

She couldn’t help laughing.

Jaxson looked good without a shirt on.

It didn’t take long for their breakfast to cook, and by the time she took a bite out of the sausage, she was starving, and it was getting hotter with every passing second.

They finished their food without a word, and then had some gulps of water.Calliope leaned back and titled her head toward the burning sun.

“Do you think we should stay here?”she asked.

“No, I think we need to keep moving.It will help us.”

She nodded and got to her feet.There was now a second backpack, and she picked it up and followed behind Jaxson.

“It feels wrong to be leaving this camp.We’ve got everything set up for us to make some food and possibly get some good sleep.”

“Yeah, and an easy place for us to get attacked,” Jaxson said.“Remember, there are still dangers around.”

“Yeah, but what if they are only part of our manifestation?What if we actually get along and nothing bad happens?”Calliope asked.She sounded a little too hopeful, even to herself, and it made her wrinkle her nose.

“I want to agree with you, but you and I both know the challenges the pack will send us.No one has ever fooled The Hunt, gotten out, and then not been mated.Do you feel like mating me?”Jaxson asked.

She pressed her lips together, because the true answer was a hard one.Yes, she wanted to be mated to him, and at the same time, no.He’d been a dick to her.Admittedly, not all the time, but that was beside the point.There was a time he had been her best friend, and she adored him.Actually, there had been a point where she had loved him.

They had grown apart, as kids often did.Now, there was no love, there was no ...feeling.There didn’t need to be.He had moved on, realizing she was human, and he had more important things to do.

And she, well, she had moved on to making her life work, knowing she was not a wolf.She and Jaxson were not the same, and never would be.

Sure, it had hurt.And part of her still loved him.But that part was long buried.She didn’t want anything bad to happen to him, but she knew he didn’t want to be mated to her.She was just a human.

“We keep moving,” Calliope said, trying to change the subject rather than answer him.They were not ready for this, or at least she wasn’t ready.She didn’t know if she would ever be ready.

Jaxson looked so sad, but she couldn’t just put the last few years aside.He had said some horrible things, and she had retaliated.She never said anything bad about him being a wolf, or different.She just called him an asshole, or dumb, or a loser.Sometimes, she only said that in her head.

Pushing those thoughts out of her mind, she started to walk.This time, it was up to Jaxson to follow, only she got so far and had to stop.She glanced behind her and saw that Jaxson hadn’t moved.

“Come on, we’ve got to go.You’re right and we need to make this work.”

****

Jaxson was ready tomate with Calliope.

Most of the night, he had watched her, feeling her sink deeper into sleep.Kissing the top of her head hadn’t been a mistake.The truth was, he wanted to kiss those full, kissable lips.To slide his tongue across and inside her mouth, to deepen the kiss.To taste her.He wanted to strip the clothes from her body and make love to every inch of her.

There were so many things he wanted to do to her, but what was he doing instead?Oh, that’s right, he was watching her walk ahead of him.

She didn’t want to mate him, and he understood it.The last few years, he had been a dick to her, before they turned eighteen, before the mating.That was when he’d been a dick to her as well.When she suddenly became a girl, he just couldn’t seem to handle it.Which pissed him off.It shouldn’t bother him that she was a girl.Right now, it didn’t, but back then, it had changed so much, and he didn’t know what to think or feel.His feelings were all over the place.

He needed to get his shit together, and staring down the length of her back, he couldn’t help but admire the curves of her juicy ass.The tight round globes that were making him ache to be with her.Jaxson felt an overwhelming need to touch her.

All too soon, she stopped and put her hands on her waist.

“It feels like we’ve been walking for hours,” Calliope said.

The shirt she wore was soaking wet.It was hot.He struggled as well.He wanted to take his jeans off and just soak up the sunshine.

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