Page 17 of The Beast's Betrayed Mate
“You ran,” he murmured. “I caught you. I’m just claiming my prize.”
The words weren’t his, except they were. The animal urges and his own comingling in a dizzying newness. There was honesty in it, but also something foreign. And he wasn’t sure what to do with it. The wolf was him; he was it, but there was also a degree of separation still. A morsel of unacceptance within him that this was who he was now. What he was. That there was no going back.
“I’m not… your prize,” Olive murmured in his ear before she put a knee against his groin. Not harshly, but demonstratively. Telling him to back the fuck off.
He didn’t want to.
But she clearly did.
So, he took a step back, holding his hands up.
She didn’t hesitate before she slapped him across the cheek. Hard.
The connection stung like a motherfucker.
“Ow,” he complained, one of his hands covering the spot.
“Don’t fuck with me,” she warned. “All I’ve done today is try and help you, and what’ve you done? Turned into a wolf and now this? Fuck you.”
She pushed passed him and began to march down the alley.
He glanced after her, still rubbing the spot she’d hit, feeling the defeat fill him.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’ve no excuse except for the whole wolf thing. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. Maybe… I’ve always been…”
He trailed off, but she had paused her step and now turned back to face him.
“Always been what?” she asked.
“A dick,” he offered.
“That’s putting it very mildly,” she remarked.
He didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want to leave it like this. She was right, all she had done was be there for him in ways that not many people had been over the past few years. What was he doing chasing her down like she was a slab of raw meat?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I mean it. I can’t… promise it won’t happen again. I don’t know how to control it. It’s been all… urges.”
“Jesus Christ,” she said. “You’d better man up and fucking choose to control it, then, because that whole urges thing has been the male excuse since the dawn of time.”
“You’re right,” he repeated. “How about I let you take the lead? You choose.”
“Oh, so now it’s my problem?” she asked, eyebrows raised. “My responsibility what you choose to do with your urges?”
“No, no,” he shook his head. “Fuck. I don’t know what to do, alright? I just don’t want you to walk out of here thinking I’m the same dickhole I was back in college.”
“The same?” she retorted. “Try bigger.”
“Okay, fine, bigger,” he agreed. “I’m very naked here,” he added, hoping for some levity.
It succeeded as she retorted, “Yes, I had noticed.” A smile split her face, and he gave her a look, beginning to feel at ease again, thinking she wouldn’t simply walk away. Not after everything they’d been through in the past twelve hours.
She took off her jacket and threw it at him.
“Stay three yards behind me at all times and do not touch me,” she said, turning and heading out of the alley again.
He wrapped the jacket around his waist and followed, wondering why it really felt as though it would be easier to follow her orders than his own feeble attempts at self-restraint. Whenever he tried to tell his wolf what to do, it seemed it consciously and very firmly rebelled.
He fastened his eyes on her back, trying not to let self-consciousness claim him as they entered the sidewalk, and he felt an entirely new type of staring following him down it. Thankfully they weren’t too many blocks from his apartment.
