Page 28 of In Your Eyes
I had to stay away from him. It was the only solution. And I tried. I tried really hard. But I was exhausted; I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept for more than a couple of hours, and the need to see Korban again, to smell Korban again, to touch Korban again, was insistent, unrelenting, and bone-deep. So after about a day, I broke. My excuse was that he hadn’t eaten.
The council members had delivered him to us the previous morning, and the sun had already set. The workshop had a toilet and a sink. I hadn’t bound his hands, so he had access to water. And though he could survive longer without food, with the energy he had exerted shifting, he was sure to be hungry. Very hungry.
Pacing back and forth across my kitchen, I tried to decide if I could trust myself to bring him something to eat and quickly leave. I had already dismissed the idea of killing him, knowing I wouldn’t be able to do it myself and wouldn’t tolerate anybody else doing it. Korban wasn’t the one who killed my father, and I wouldn’t allow his life to be taken in retribution for an act that wasn’t his own. I had blamed him far too many times for my own shortcomings.
Unfortunately, I had demanded the Miancarem Alpha as a tribute, loudly and repeatedly, and then bragged about it to my pack. Setting him free would surely be seen as a sign of tremendous weakness, which would reflect badly on my entire pack. So I wouldn’t kill him, but I couldn’t set him free.
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think straight. And I had a prisoner—a prisoner—in my yard.
With a growl of frustration, I dragged my fingers through my hair, stomped over to the refrigerator, and yanked out sandwich fixings. I slammed everything onto the counter and started what was surely the angriest sandwich preparation of all time. A few minutes later, I stuffed a couple of sandwiches, an apple, an orange, and a bag of chips into a plastic bag, grabbed the key out of the bowl, and walked outside.
My anger turned to caution as I neared the workshop. Strangely, I wasn’t worried about Korban attacking me, even though I was alone and he wasn’t bound. Instead, I was concerned about the clawing need inside myself. I knew that feeling well—it was my body wanting to shift, my wolf wanting to come out. Logic took a backseat to instincts in that form, and my instincts were wrong. No way could I trust myself around Korban that way.
Stopping in my tracks, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I had to calm down and stay that way. I had to keep myself under control.
When I thought I was ready, I finished the short walk to the workshop, moving slowly so I could focus on breathing, on keeping my mind clear, on staying in my human form. I slipped the bag handles over my wrist and raised the key to the lock. With another deep breath, I felt settled and ready. I unlocked the padlock, opened the door, walked inside, and lost my hold on all that hard-fought sanity.
He was naked, which, if I had thought it through, I should have expected. He had shifted under me when I’d…. He had shifted under me. That meant his clothes had been destroyed.
His back was to me, his legs spread, and he was bent over, standing in front of the sink and using fabric—possibly a piece of his shirt—to scrub his legs. Everything I saw came at me in fast, sharp flashes.
His pale, smooth skin.
His lean, corded muscles.
His strong, furry thighs.
His round, full ass.
His wrinkled sac.
His flaccid dick.
I gasped, which drew his attention.
He straightened and turned around. “Samuel,” he said as he looked at me. “I’m glad you’re here. I want to—”
Everything happened too quickly, or maybe I was thinking too slowly, but whatever the reason, I didn’t manage to avoid his gaze, and when his blue eyes locked with mine, my control snapped. I heard the bag I was holding fall to the floor. I heard the door slam behind me when I lost my grip on it. I heard a cry and realized it was me. I felt my perspective change as fur covered my body and I landed on four legs.
Somewhere along the way, Korban’s eyes widened and then he shifted. His reaction was probably instinct, his wolf preparing to defend himself from a shifter bracing for a fight. He should have been able to defend himself from me; he was bigger, stronger, and saner. Maybe he was weak from hunger, or maybe he thought I had reinforcements outside the door, or maybe he was taken off guard by the type of assault I waged. Whatever the reason, within minutes, I found myself in the same position I’d been in the previous day—in my wolf form, tied to Korban Keller, with my teeth buried in his skin.
I wanted to release him from the pain I was sure I was causing, but I couldn’t. With my mating knot swollen inside him, I had effectively trapped him. Raising my head, I howled in sorrow.
I hated what I’d done to him, hated that I hadn’t been able to stop myself from doing it again, hated myself. As soon as I was able, I scrambled away until I bumped against the door. After shifting into my human form, once again with no trouble, I scrambled for my clothes. They weren’t wearable.
“Samuel,” Korban said, getting my attention.
I snapped my head up. “I’m sorry.” Clutching my clothes to my chest, I backed out of the workshop. “I’m so sorry.”
“Wait!”
He thought he could talk to me, thought some sort of logic would save him from his fate, but he was wrong. My brain had stopped functioning, and my body had traded one ailment—the inability to control my shift—for a much worse condition. If I stayed in that room with Korban, I’d hurt him again, I was certain of it.
I slammed the door and heard a jingling sound. My keys. I reached down, grabbed them, fumbled with the lock, and then ran back to my house, intent on getting away from Korban as fast as possible.
The night before I had been focused on myself, on what was wrong with me. I’d wasted time in the shower, wasted time thinking, wasted time pacing. No more.
My father used to tell me a man’s character could be measured by what he does when he thinks nobody is looking. When nobody was looking, I turned into a monster. I couldn’t stop hurting Korban and give him his life back, so I’d end my own.
