I’m safe now. In his arms, everything is right. I can stay here and he’ll take care of me.

My wolf echoes the sentiment. She falls under the thrall more easily, bending her neck as she mewls.

My palms slide up his chest. The vibration of his wolf’s inviting rumble feels nice. So does winding my arms around his neck to get closer.

His scent becomes richer, the spiced cedar so intense it’s bursting on my tongue and making my stomach dip. I drag my nose along his collar bone, licking his corded neck.

“Avery.” He groans it, hiking me closer by a handful of my ass.

I lift a leg, wrapping it around his powerful thigh, pressing on tiptoe to get more of his glorious scent in my lungs. It’s not enough.

I want—I want⁠—

Wait. No. This is the bond. The one he didn’t want with me.

It’s making me need to jump him right now, mate with him to make everything better now that he’s apologized and stop being such a colossal alpha asshole.

“Are you okay?” he murmurs.

Not even a little bit. “I think so. Or, I will be. I just need⁠—”

“Yes?” he rasps.

When I push free of his embrace, he releases me willingly, though his handsome features are twisted in torment. I back up and he matches me step for step.

My lips slide together. Turning around is difficult, but once I do some of the strange haze clears. My wolf barks at me, tugging to get me back in our mate’s arms. I rub my puffy eyes and pick a random direction to walk.

Yes, shift, my wolf urges, her body wriggling as she lowers her front end playfully. Shift and chase.

One glance at Caden over my shoulder and I know that wouldn’t be a smart move. Vivid swirls of gold ring his blue irises. We’re both feeling the effects of the bond’s magic. If I shift now, she’ll let his wolf catch her.

An image of him rutting me with my ass up and my head down, hair wound around his fist as he drives into me until my pussy’s stretched full with his knot pops into my head to entice me.

My steps falter as hot desire rushes through me. I don’t know if it’s my wolf’s doing or the bond’s influence making both of us forget the rejection.

I need to plunge myself in the cooling water at the private spring I like, but I don’t want him finding out about it. I change directions and head for the nearest stream instead.

The longer I walk, the more I feel like myself again, and with it comes the world the bond muted.

“Where are you going?” Caden finally asks.

“To clear my head. You can go.”

“No,” he responds stubbornly. “You do whatever you’d like. I’m staying right where I am.”

I toss a warning growl over my shoulder. It only makes him snort and shadow me closer.

“I’m not your mate, remember? You have no right or need to watch over me.”

“No, but I’m still your alpha,” he counters from right behind me. “It’s my duty.”

He’s so close I feel the warmth of his breath at my ear and the vibration of his chest rumbling in protest.

“Don’t placate me. It’s bullshit.”

I stop and he bumps into me. My throat is too raw when I swallow.

We’ve entered a clearing full of fireflies. It’s far too late in the year for them, yet sometimes there are pockets of nature where I find them gathered, dancing for the sleeping druids. They’re beautiful, bobbing and looping through the air, glowing at intervals.

I tip my head back, closing my eyes when his nose brushes my hair and his hands hover at my hips without taking hold of me. I should step away, I need to. He’s not my mate.

“Why are you doing this?” It comes out on a hitched breath.

“Doing what? This?” His fingertips skim my sides and his lips drag across my temple. “I can’t help it. Your scent right now is so—It’s driving me insane. I have to.”

I shake my head. “Why won’t you stay away? You need to let this mangled bond fully sever.”

The fierce growl that tears from him makes my heart clench.

It takes far too much willpower to put distance between us again. I can’t handle this.

“Did you only apologize because you feel bad about rejecting me?” I round on him, wounded heart in my throat. “You can’t have it both ways, Caden. You threw away fate’s gift, and you know what? I reject you right back because⁠—”

Before I give any reasons, he’s on me again. He tugs my body against his with a jagged noise, trapping my hands between us.

“No.”

It’s not clear if he’s answering my question or refusing my rejection.

He kneads my waist, piercing eyes flashing gold again as they bore into mine, flickering back and forth. I lick my lips and his focus drops to my mouth. My fingers splay on his chest.

His head dips, my body alight before his ghosted exhale over my throat makes me shiver. My body tingles with awareness of every inch of him pressed against me. He rubs his nose beneath my ear, then traces it down. My fingers curl in his shirt.

He’s scenting me. Exploring my neck to map every inch. Leaving his musk all over me, and in turn making sure he smells like me.

Every brush of his stubbled jaw across my sensitive skin elicits tingles of pleasure that race up and down my spine. An ache builds between my thighs that won’t be sated by pressing them together.

I want the rigid length of his cock that’s pressed into my belly. A tiny noise escapes me and I flush at how needy it is. He chuckles, a deep, delicious rasp against the shell of my ear.

I swallow thickly. “Caden.”

His teeth graze my skin, right over the juncture between my neck and shoulder—the spot where a mating bite mark would be if he claimed me.

“Caden,” I breathe.

A gasp catches in my throat when his tongue darts out to taste the same spot he scraped with his teeth.

He moves back. This time I’m the one clinging to him in protest. His gaze roves over me with a sensual smile.

“You asked why I won’t leave you alone.”

I blink, dazed and flushed all over. “Right.”

“I’m…having trouble staying away from you,” he admits. “My wolf has a mind of his own when it comes to you, but I can’t deny that I’m pulled to you, too. I don’t know how to stop it. I’m not sure I want it to.”

I touch my neck. The spot where he had his fangs teasing my shoulder throbs in time with the aroused pulse in my core.

“You scented me. That’s—It’s for family clans. Your closest packmates.” My stomach feels like the fireflies are dancing inside it. “Lovers.”

His eyes darken, burnished gold swirling with blue. He takes my chin and lifts it.

“I’m making sure every male knows to keep their distance from you.”

18AVERY

Caden’s admission remains fresh in my head. I’ve turned it over a hundred times at least between last night and this morning.

I believe it’s just the bond making him act like he needs to be around me, maybe even giving him mate-vision so it can entice us to complete the connection. It has to be the reason it no longer so much as twinges to cause me any pain, because it senses a chance to mend what the rejection broke.

Why else would he be compelled to sit outside my window every night in his fur or chop enough wood at dawn to fill my woodshed this morning?

Even if he no longer hates me, I have no idea where that leaves us. His apology in the woods doesn’t mean he’s changed his mind about us being mates because he didn’t kiss me in the clearing, or make any other move to claim me as his mate. Scenting me out of the sense of possessiveness his wolf has towards me doesn’t make me his.

Do I want to be his? My pulse staggers.

The kitchen grinds to a halt when I enter for breakfast. I freeze in the doorway, then duck my head and find something to do.

“Back to work. Food doesn’t prepare itself,” Alma barks after a long pause.

Taryn slings an arm over my shoulder and is completely obvious when she sniffs me. “You smell like⁠—”