Page 15 of Fractured Mates
“Where are we going?” I consider suggesting we should shift, but I don’t trust my hussy of a wolf alone with this man. Something tells me she’d gladly roll over for him.
Or maybe he’d enjoy being on bottom, she quips. You never know.
I choke on air, imagining this particular specimen on his back for any woman.
As I get my breathing back under control, Kyler glances back at me, a crease between his brows. “A cabin just another mile or so ahead.”
“Do you really think that’s far enough?” I press, knowing this pack better than he does. “They’re going to know it was me.”
He stops and waits for me to get closer. “How do you figure?”
“It’s my family house, and from what you so impolitely pointed out earlier, they seemed to be waiting for me.” Yeah, that’s a whole other shit sandwich I need to sort out.
My stomach grumbles louder than it ever has at the mere thought of food.
Kyler raises a brow and glances down before looking back at my face. “When was the last time you ate?”
I glance at my phone and shrug. “About two hours ago.”
Both eyebrows go halfway up his forehead this time. “Right. Well, the cabin has food. We’ll be fine there for the night.”
His mere insistence that he just knows things is another reason that I don’t want to trust him. He isn’t from here. He doesn’t know my pack.
They’re not yours and you don’t know them, either, my wolf reminds me, more gently than her earlier words.
I know, but?—
No buts, Sophie, she says as we keep walking farther into the woods and away from the pack. This isn’t our home. I agreed with coming back because you need closure, but that doesn’t mean I want to risk our lives for it.
As she says the words, I want to agree with her. Yet I know there’s still a small part of me that hoped we’d return and my parents would tell me how sorry they were for letting me go and how much they missed me all these years. That my little sister would still be five years old and things could somehow pick up where they left off before Thane ruined everything.
Stupid. I’m a grown-ass woman. I don’t need my parents’ approval. I should have never come here.
Yes, you should have, my wolf says. You need to believe the words you’re saying, and you don’t. Until you see that you’re not the problem here, that you didn’t run away to make things easier on everyone else, you’re never going to figure out who you truly are.
A tightness forms in my chest, and my throat burns with emotions I don’t like. Or possibly just don’t understand.
“We’re almost there,” Kyler says, allowing me a distraction that I gladly take.
“How do you know about this place?” I ask, making sure to keep an appropriate distance between us.
‘Appropriate’ would be stripped naked and letting him take us against one of these trees.
I gladly ignore my wolf’s crude thought as Kyler answers, looking over at me with his steely gaze.
“It’s my job to know.”
His response is clipped. I’m more than confused, because just a few moments ago, he was intrigued by my ravenous appetite. Now, his stare is fixed ahead and he doesn’t seem keen on continuing with small talk.
I told you we can’t trust him, I say to my wolf.
His wolf might sense something, and he doesn’t want to be distracted with something not worth his while.
Wow. Way to give me a confidence boost.
As if you need it.
Again, she’s not wrong. I might have family issues, but I know my worth. At least on my own. I’m a wolf shifter who isn’t to be fucked with. I wouldn’t have survived mostly by myself for as long as I have otherwise, even while being able to say I belong to the East Texas pack.