She swallowed hard, her heart picking up speed, though she wasn’t sure if it was in anticipation of seeing him again or in anger that he’d followed her.
Gripping a weed by the root, she looked up from beneath the bush. The sunbeams formed a halo around him, darkening his beautiful features. With her free hand, Divina attempted to block the sun and get a better look at him. A part of her needed to see him again. A part of her missed him. A part of her longed for him. She didn’t understand it. She was mad at him. He had forced whatever this thing was upon her without her permission. Yet she was happy to see him. She shoved that feeling down quickly.
“I’d like to talk to you,” he said.
She released the weed, leaving it unplucked, and slowly got to her feet. Her freshly cleaned jeans had dark circles at the knees from mulch. Pulling her gloves from her hands, she regarded Aric’s pained expression.
“How did you find me?” she asked. She needed to focus on the anger that swirled in her gut. She needed to remember what he took from her, that it was his fault she felt the ache in her chest. Narrowing her eyes at him, she couldn’t let him slide for what he did. He’d violated her. Though she didn’t understand what had happened, she understood that he had done it without asking her, and the consequences were lifelong.
Scrubbing a hand along the back of his neck, he looked away. “We’re mates,” he said before returning his hazel eyes to meet hers. “I’ll always find a way to you.” The tenderness in his voice shot through her heart like cupid’s arrow.
Heat flourished from her chest and spread into her face. Rage flashed through Divina. Good, she needed that. She needed to hold on to that.
Mates. Something he’d bestowed upon her without permission.
Glaring at him, she hissed, “Wonderful. A stalker. I thought I got rid of one of those.”
A wounded expression crossed his face and dashed the flash of gold in his eyes. His lip curled before he scrubbed his hand over his face as if to wipe it all away. Once his hand dropped, he appeared soft again. “I don’t want to stalk you.” He shifted uncomfortably. “It was wrong of me to claim you without you understanding my world or what it would mean. I only want to make it right. I want to explain it all, like I should have before.”
With her jaw clenched, Divina’s brows knitted together as she eyed him skeptically. She found it hard to maintain the antagonism when he admitted what he did wrong. She questioned his sincerity, then had to admit she didn’t know him well enough to tell. The longing for him genuinely confused her in light of all the manipulation she had endured.
“Why does it hurt?” she asked bluntly. Without truly understanding how the mating thing worked, she concentrated on the ache she had been feeling. She needed to stay focused and not fall for any influence he might wield as a result of either the mating or the ache. Divina had succumbed to enough faux guidance in her life when it came to supernatural beings. She made a conscious effort not to fall for it again.
According to Sonia, the reason it hurt was because Divina and Aric were apart. Divina just wasn’t sure why. If his apology was sincere, he would explain.
Aric slumped forward, his wavy brown locks half hiding his guilty expression. Once more his hand went to the back of his neck. “Because we’re apart,” he offered simply.
Divina shifted her weight from one foot to the other, pursing her lips at the same explanation Sonia used. There needed to be more. “I figured that part out,” she snapped at him in exasperation. She needed to keep up the tough exterior and not let him know she was wavering and considering forgiveness. “Why?”
Aric took a deep breath, puffing his chest out. Blowing it out, Aric kept his gaze down. He refused to meet her eyes.
Good. He needed to feel bad. He needed to understand that what he had done was not okay.
“I claimed you,” he said. “It made this bond.” When he met her gaze, Divina was slapped in the face with the hurt in his expression. Having expected a smugness or something—anything—else, she felt thrown off balance. She couldn’t deny his sincerity; his eyes were too expressive. “It’s new, the bond, and it wants to be stronger. Think of it like an elastic band. The farther apart we are, the more stretched it is.” He gestured back and forth between them. “And the more pain we both feel.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
He bowed his head, as though the full weight of the consequences of what he’d done hit him, and he sagged.
“I’m a shifter,” he admitted, but she knew that. “There’s an animal within me, and he’s impulsive. It’s no excuse. I should have more control over him. With you”—he looked up with large sorrowful eyes—“I’m both weak and strong. I was weak to claim you without telling you all that it meant or considering how it would impact you. My wolf…me… I—” He swallowed. “I owe you better. If I could do it again, I wouldn’t claim you unless you wanted me to. I would never hurt you on purpose. I only half believed in the mate ache. I thought ’cause you weren’t wolf, you wouldn’t feel it. I’d give anything to take it back.”
He held her gaze for a few moments before he hung his head.
His defeated, slumped posture felt wrong. With his large and powerful frame, the dejected stance didn’t fit. His athletic build boasted muscles where Divina hadn’t previously known they existed. Aric was a man meant for dominance, yet there he was, apologizing and attempting to make amends.
She wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t sure what to feel.
“I never want to hurt you. That’s why I’m here.” Aric’s voice cracked.
Divina’s emotions warred within her: pissed off that he’d caused this mess between them in the first place, but at the same time hurt because he didn’t ask her permission. Struggling to understand herself and her reactions, she focused on anger—that emotion she understood. He had just done what he wanted, she reminded herself. Though she didn’t like seeing the pain in his eyes, she couldn’t rationally justify the need to end his suffering. She barely knew the guy, but her emotions reacted to him as though they had known each other for decades. Her heart yearned for his smile, to feel his joy, and to end his despair.
“The closer we are, the less the pain will be,” he said when she didn’t respond. “I know what I did was wrong.”
“Fuck yeah, it was!” she growled back at him. Divina stepped closer to the bushes, closer to him. “I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you, or wolves. I barely know anything about myself. Now I have to deal with this…this…this pain when we aren’t together? How long will this rubber band thing last?”
Aric opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Closing it, he looked down the road behind him. Divina followed his gaze. Not seeing what had his attention had her curious. Returning to face her, Aric stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Until the bond breaks.”
“How does it break?” she asked, eyeing him warily.
“One of us dies,” he said softly.
Divina blinked. She couldn’t have heard him right. Surely he hadn’t said only death would end the pain. “I’m sorry, what?”
Unable to look her in the face, Aric hung his head low. He kicked at a rock. “When one of us dies, the bond will break.”
She shook her head, her blood boiling with rage. Red tinged her vision. “Motherfucker!” Reaching over the hedge, she swung at him. Alarmed, he brought his arms up to block her fist as he stepped back. She missed him. He’d used his inhuman speed to dodge her punch. “I have to live my life in goddamn pain because you fucking bit me?” She glared at him.
“I don’t want you to. As much as it will kill me to watch you live your life without me, I will,” he insisted. “I’ll stay near. We have to be near each other. Then you won’t feel it. I have to be a few feet from you, but I promise you, I won’t interfere if you don’t want me in that way.”
With her face hot and surely flushed, Divina continued to glower at him. He had taken away her choice, her freedom. A one-night stand had created a lifetime of pain
for her. Shaking her head, she pointed an accusatory finger. “So you’re just going to tag along with my life?”
“If it’s what you want, yes,” he admitted solemnly.
Divina regarded him with a stiff upper lip. Though she was still mad, she couldn’t help but believe him about letting her live her life while he watched. Something in his resolve told her he meant it.
Did she want that, him shadowing her for life? Looking him over again, she considered it. The man was undeniably handsome and made more so by the vulnerability he now displayed. Offering to uproot his life to relieve her pain, to be near her but not have her, hurt her heart with empathy. It felt wrong to ask that of him.
It didn’t make sense. He had violated her. He’d bitten her, claimed her, without her permission. However, she wasn’t fully against it. Drawn to him in a way she couldn’t explain, she didn’t want to admit that if he’d given her the choice, she probably would’ve agreed. She hadn’t run away from him; she’d run away from the prophecy and how forced upon her it felt. If he were separate from the prophecy, or there was no prophecy, things might have been different. She had been drawn to him the night he showed up naked at her vardo, her heart longing for him before the bite. From the moment she saw him, she had burned for him. None of it made any sense to her.
Frustrated with herself, Divina threw herself back down onto her knees, yanking at the offending weeds as surrogates for her confusing emotions. Aric peered over the hedge at her. She didn’t look up at him. She didn’t know the man. How could she feel so strongly for him?
“Divina?” he asked cautiously.
“I don’t know what I want,” she said honestly.
“I’ll wait for you,” he said.
Pausing, she turned her face up to him. Once more the sun shone around him. The halo effect was almost too much for her. Why did he have to be so goddamn beautiful?
CHAPTER 14
It wasn’t the full truth. However, it was as much of the truth as Aric believed Divina could handle. He had told her the bond would break when one of them died, and he hadn’t lied—that’s how it would be for her. For Aric, if he were to outlive her, it would never break. It was a thought he didn’t want to entertain, let alone live. So he left it out.
There was another option, but tempting as it was to offer, she wasn’t ready for it. The other solution to the pain—her reciprocating his claim—was laughable. Doing that would entail them getting a lot closer, intimate again, and she didn’t look like a biter. So Aric omitted that as well, for now.
Instead he followed Bruce’s advice. He gave her space while staying close enough to keep the pain away. He didn’t push. No matter how much his wolf urged him, Aric held back. He had forced the mating on her; the least he could do was offer her space. Bruce had assured Aric that if they were mates, Divina would eventually come around. With the extended life span of shifters, Aric had nothing but time. It didn’t feel that way, but Bruce said he did.
His wolf did his damnedest to let Aric know the animal half of him was not on board with Bruce’s wait-and-see plan. The human, rational part of Aric, understood Divina needed time and space. While Aric could give her time, he’d also do his best to give her as much space as the bond would allow. He could handle the pain. He’d find a way to handle his wolf’s protests. He didn’t want her to experience any pain, and especially not because of him. He’d done enough of that already.
Watching her weed in silence after their talk, he kept the questions buzzing around in his head to himself. He wanted to know her. He wanted to know everything: how she grew up, where she grew up, how she ended up in New Orleans, what brought her to the house in which she stayed. Aric rationalized he had a lifetime to find all that out, even if it was through simple observation while she lived her life. He shouldn’t push. Divina needed to process. Whenever a new question popped into his head, he reminded himself of that fact. He lingered on the other side of the chain-link fence, making a never-ending mental list of inquiries.
His initial plan was to knock on the door and talk to her, but when he’d attempted to enter the gate earlier, the witch’s wards had kept him out. He shook his head at the realization that he had watched her do it the previous day.
At first, this had angered Aric and his wolf. The woman had a lot of nerve to prevent Aric from accessing his mate. What if something happened to her inside that house and he couldn’t get to her because of the wards? Then Divina exited the house, still wearing that T-shirt that stank of another male. The tension in his muscles eased as relief washed over him. The sight of his mate reassured him and his wolf that she was safe.
The wards forced him and his wolf to keep the space Divina needed. Half of him wished like hell they’d come down, but the other half thanked them for being in place. He’d made a promise to her, and it would be a struggle. These wards kept him true to his word.
The wolf within Aric had stopped howling, stopped crying. That didn’t mean he was complacent, however. The beast paced, then swiped at Aric in aggravation. The inner wolf wasn’t happy with waiting. Act first, think later. Wait and see was not his wolf’s style.
Watching Divina as she worked, Aric admired her features. With the way her hair shined, it reflected the sun, and he couldn’t help but smile. Beads of sweat formed along her dark hairline as she tugged and tossed the plants she deemed offensive. Her bronzed skin, which he knew to be soft, noticeably darkened with the exposure to the sun. Her pale blue eyes focused sharply on her task. Everything about her—her looks, her focus, her fire, her need to have things on her terms—drew him to her, even though his wolf had a shit fit every time she showed it.
He could do this. He could watch her from afar if that was what she wanted. It wouldn’t be easy, but it could be done.
The hardest thing would be to watch her with someone else. That oversize T-shirt reminded him of that. The scent of another male, though faint on the shirt, irked him. Each time a breeze wafted the scent toward his nose, his wolf bristled. Not to mention the large shirt hid her curves, ones Aric wished to explore once more. If he could shred that shirt off her body, he’d be a happy wolf.
“Did you do it for the prophecy?” Divina asked when she had reached the end of her weeding, waking him from his shirt-ripping fantasy.
Sitting on the opposite side of the fence, he ran his fingers through the lawn, watching her without an answer. The prophecy was bullshit.
Divina knelt beside an overturned garbage can lid piled with weeds. Dirt smudged her cheek from where she had wiped away sweat earlier. It made him smile.
“No,” he finally answered. “The prophecy means nothing to me.” He pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. “Even if I did, the wolf in it—and I’m not saying I’m that wolf—is only a pawn anyway.”
Divina leaned back on her hands. She sighed heavily and turned her face up to the bright sun. With cheeks pink from being out in the sun without protection, her eyes popped that much more when she looked at Aric.
“Then why?” she pressed.
Aric’s wolf whimpered guiltily inside him. Looking away, he tugged at a blade of grass. “I’m half wolf.” He wanted to explain it as best he could. “There is a wolf inside me at all times, and he has wants and desires. He’s an impulsive, feral beast. Sometimes I can push him back. Sometimes I can reason with him. Other times he wins.” He sighed with a frown, his answer disappointing him. Sullen eyes cast to the ground, he wanted to give her better than what he had.
Divina waited for more. Aric didn’t offer any.
The pull of a mate for a wolf was hard to explain to a human. Others had, and he probably should have done more research before he came here. There were a lot of things Aric should have done. Damn impulsive creature.
Divina furrowed her brow when he didn’t continue. “I don’t understand.”
He sighed heavily. “We’re mates, but that’s not because I bit you. It’s what caused my wolf to claim you, to bite you in the first place.”
“How do you know that?”
“My wolf knows,” Aric offered, then realized that wasn’t nearly enough. “It’s hard to explain.” He ran a hand through his hair and chewed on the inside of his cheek, trying to come up with the right words. “When we met, did you feel something? Like a pull or a want?”
Divina’s attention shifted to the ground. Nibbling on her plump bottom lip, as though debating something, she finally said, “I don’t know. I mean, I hit you with a log.”
Remembering, he chuckled. “That you did. You have no idea how proud that made me.”
“You were proud I hit you? I could have killed you.”
Aric smiled at her with amusement. “I doubt it. I mean, you hit me pretty hard, but I’m a wolf. We aren’t easy to kill. It made me proud because you defended yourself against a perceived attacker. You didn’t just wait for me to come to you. You sought me out and took matters into your own hands. It showed your strength and fearlessness.”
A blush crept into Divina’s cheeks, and she looked away again as though embarrassed. Aric marveled at her humility. “I was terrified. I don’t see many naked men in the woods,” she admitted.
He wanted to touch her, to be closer to her. He cursed the wards protecting her. They protected her from him. His wolf growled and circled within Aric.
“That means you haven’t been around many wolves,” he said with a bit of satisfaction. “But anyway, what I’m trying to say is that night…that night, you called to my wolf. My wolf went to you without my knowing. I’m pretty sure he followed your scent. There’s a pull.” Aric waved between his chest and hers. “It’s really hard to explain, but it’s this intense feeling guiding the wolf, and me, to you. It got stronger with the bite, and the more…” He paused, unsure if he should continue.
Divina’s eyes clung to him. “The more…?” she pressed.
Aric cleared his throat. “The more time we spend together, the stronger the bond will be. The stronger the elastic band will be. We’ll eventually be able to feel each other’s emotions. It’s kind of like a psychic thing.”
The Wolf of the Prophecy Page 10