Page 108 of Wolf's Reckoning
I unmasked my alpha scent, and the room breathed in a collective breath. I wanted them to know I hadn’t used my Will on them—I hadn’t manipulated them—but I also wanted them to feel it.
I was their alpha, and they could accept it or leave.
I turned my attention deeper into the forest, where it seemed my three guards were having difficulty containing my mate.
Chapter 26
Rowen
I didn’t botherwith shoes. Didn’t bother with a coat. The damn house was too warm anyway—too full of his scent, his presence, his claim. I just needed air. Trees. Space. Something that wasn’t this suffocating heat crawling under my skin like wildfire.
Two steps down the stairs, and I felt it.
Eyes.
“Don’t,” I warned before I even saw them.
The guards stepped from the shadows near the front entrance like obedient ghosts. Three males. Not pack, not truly. Stonefang shifters sent by him to ensure I didn’t tear off into the woods and embarrass us both.
“I’m going out,” I said, brushing past them.
One of them stepped in front of me, the one who Wolfe had told tostand downearlier. “The alpha said?—”
“I don’t give a shit what your alpha said,” I snapped. “I’m not a prisoner. And unless you’re about to physically stop me, I suggest you move.”
He hesitated. The wrong move.
The low growl that came out of me wasn’t polite. Wasn’t civil. It was feral. I didn’t even recognize my own voice anymore.
“You going to challenge me?” I asked sweetly. “Right here, right now, on the front steps of your alpha’s house?”
He looked at one of the others and then stepped back.
I walked out.
The warm air wrapped around me, but it wasn’t what I needed. Nothing was. My skin itched, my blood simmered, and my wolf was restless in a way that made me want to tear out of my own body. Granted, this heat wasn’t as painful as others, and I was reluctant to think it was because I was Wolfe’sfated mate. I wasn’t convinced the primal part of me gave a shit who was the male to sate my need, just that there was a need that needed sating. I also knew that was bullshit. There would only be one male who could sate my need.
Thinking about it hurt my head. Not thinking about it made me focus on the constant pull of my body that seemed to besearchingfor him.
I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew I couldn’t stay still. Couldn’t stay inside. Not when everything about that house smelled like Wolfe. Not when the bond was pulling so tight I swore I could feel his heartbeat in my chest.
Somewhere between the edge of the forest and the clearing where we held the bonfire rites, I stopped. Wind tangled in my hair, the scent of pine and ash barely cutting through the haze of him.
Stupid, stupid girl.
What was I doing? Running through the Hollow with nothing but rage and heat in my bones like I was still seventeenand thought freedom was something you could steal under moonlight.
A twig snapped behind me. Slow and deliberate, letting me know he was there.
“I told them not to stop you,” Wolfe said, quietly, steadily. “Figured if you were reckless enough to run, you were stubborn enough to need to be chased.”
I turned slowly. “Is that why you followed?”
“No,” he said. “I followed because I knew where you were headed.”
“You don’t know anything about me anymore.”
He stepped closer. Just one step. Enough that I felt the bond shiver between us. “I know you’re in heat,” he said, almost gently. “And I know you’re scared.”
