by C. R. Jane
Eventually I drifted off, on that couch, my exhaustion one that was soul deep and my dreams filled with a nonstop reel of me running through the darkness looking for Wilder, and never finding him.
I came to when a pair of strong arms picked me up and began to carry me inside. I flinched before inhaling the comforting, familiar scent of Daxon.
"What are you doing out here, baby?" he grumbled tiredly. My eyes flickered open and I stared into Daxon's exhausted looking face. Looking over my shoulder, I could see the sky starting to lighten, meaning that Daxon had been out all night.
It took a second for everything to come rushing back, and when it did, it felt like I was dying all over again.
"Wilder," I moaned the words, and Daxon stared down at me worriedly, carrying me to the couch in the living room and gently setting me down.
He frowned, looking around the house like he expected Wilder to suddenly walk out. "Where is that bastard, anyway?"
"He's gone," I answered in a hollow voice.
"He was supposed to be here all night with you. That was the only reason that I even said yes to helping find the McCarthy boys." Daxon was furious, and I was actually glad that Wilder wasn't here right at that moment because he would have attacked him for sure.
Daxon's words sank in. "Wait, did you find their sons? Did the killer get them?" Fear sliced through my pain, but Daxon quickly shook his head before my panic went out of control.
"The brothers got stuck in the quarry. It just took so long because neither of them were supposed to be in the quarry in the first place, so no one knew to look there." He pulled me close to him and ran his fingers through my hair soothingly. "Baby, it's alright. I should have phrased that differently." Daxon pulled me a bit farther from his body and grabbed my chin gently. "You still haven't said where Wilder is."
"I don't know where he is," I answered softly, tears filling my eyes as the truth rolled over me for the millionth time since he'd left. "He got a letter that his mother had died...and then he started talking about how every woman in his life leaves him. And then he said he had to say goodbye. I don't even know how it all happened."
I pulled my arms from where I'd had them around him and buried my face in my hands, heavy sobs erupting out of me. Daxon rubbed my back soothingly. "He'll be back, sweetheart. As much as I wish he won't be, and he really is done, he'll be back. He loves you too much to leave for good."
"You didn't see him, you didn't hear the words he said. He was done, Daxon. I broke him."
The words sounded very melodramatic as I said them, but I believed them. It felt like there was a golden thread that had been connecting Wilder and Daxon and I, that I hadn't even realized was there. But when it was severed...there was no missing that.
I'd thought long and hard about what I was feeling all last night, wondering how it could hurt so badly when he wasn't my fated mate, when I hadn't accepted his bite at all. The answer was pretty obvious once I'd thought about it. I'd never truly loved Alistair; I'd never had a chance to. I'd been in love with the idea of him, and when he rejected me, it was my wolf that was truly hurt. It was the promise of him that destroyed me. He hadn't actually broken my heart, because there had never been a chance for him to have it in the first place.
I was destroyed by Wilder's rejection because I'd actually loved him. We'd had time and room to build something, something so pure and beautiful that the loss of it would stay with me forever.
I examined Daxon's beautiful face. He was looking at me so earnestly, like he couldn't stand the sight of my tears. Somehow I'd fallen in love with them both, and even though I'd known that for a while now, the depth of it was just sinking in.
I hadn't wanted to fall in love with them. But it had happened as easily as breathing. Slowly at first, and then all at once until it wasn't a choice anymore. It was a need.
I never knew what love was, not really. I had no memories of my father and mother's love...or at least the fake mother and father I'd had. I'd never had real interactions with pack members to see what their relationships were like. What I'd thought was love had been twisted and wrong, so ugly that the moon goddess herself must have averted her gaze from it.
But what I'd built with Wilder and Daxon was going to be beautiful. It had a million roadblocks, and I'd been willing to overcome them all.
I just couldn't do the one thing that both of them wanted from me: pick one of them.
Daxon held me close in the broken silence. "He's a bloody fool, Rune," he finally whispered. "Only a fool would willingly lose a girl as perfect as you."
"I'm tired, Daxon," I whispered to him reluctantly. "Sometimes it feels like the whole universe has conspired against me, that I'll never just be allowed a moment of peace. I haven't even had a chance to start and try and figure out who my real parents were with everything that's been going on." My voice broke, and I had to take a deep breath before I could speak again. "I feel like I can't breathe with him gone. And here I am, crying in your arms for another man when you're everything I could ever want."
I pulled away from him and moved off his lap onto the couch. I tucked my knees against my chin, rocking back and forth slowly.
"Rune," Daxon said gruffly. It was a struggle to meet his eyes because I was so afraid of what I would see. Would this be where he left too? I wanted desperately to be this strong, powerful woman...a strong powerful wolf, but it was so fucking hard. I'd been put through fire, and what should have made me fierce and unbreakable had instead left gaping cracks in my psyche that I wasn't sure I could ever fix.
"I love you, Rune," Daxon said softly, taking my hand and holding it against his chest so I could feel his heart beat against it. "My heart is yours for as long as you want it, and it will still be yours even after that. I have a million fucking scars wrapped like barbed wire around my heart, and somehow you've drawn stars around them all, filled in my jagged edges with something I'll do anything not to lose. He'll come back, Rune, because he's not a fool. You don't get a taste of perfection and then give it up."
A hiccuped sigh slipped out of me as I tried to get ahold of myself.
"And if he doesn't, I swear to you, you'll never lose me. And if somehow something takes me away from you, I swear to do everything in my power to always come back."
Maybe a better woman would have said something in return and then asked to be alone so that she could continue to mourn her lost love.
But I wasn't a better woman. And I took what Daxon offered me with everything I had. I leaned in to kiss him fervently, and he kissed me back desperately, like we only had tonight instead of forever.
Our kisses soon became more. Clothes were slipped off and our bodies soon moved together. Soft sighs and silent declarations. Daxon soothed my soul with his touch, and it should have been enough.
A better woman would have been happy to just have Daxon in her arms.
Instead I wished with everything in me that Wilder had been there too.
A better woman I was not.
I danced through the trees, my paws padding almost silently through the decaying leaves and the soft, cold ground as I ran. I left silver, glittery footsteps behind me as I went, and the cold breeze soon made them disappear. This was how I should be living every day, wild and free to be whatever I wanted. I owned this world. No one could stop me.
Wait, this wasn't right. My consciousness perked up suddenly, my wolf growling at me to go back to sleep, or wherever it was I'd been while she'd taken over and gone on this run. I struggled to think about where I'd been before this. I'd been at the coffee shop with Miyu, right? With Wilder gone to wherever it was he'd disappeared to, Daxon had a million pack responsibilities. He'd dropped me off to spend the day with Miyu...and then what?
It was all blank after that.
My legs pushed forward, my wolf refusing to relinquish control. She was heading somewhere purposefully, her breath pushing steadily and easily out as she ran quickly through the woods, as if drawn by something. I pushed against her,
trying to figure out how to shift back, but it didn't work. Although a part of me knew I needed to get back to the safety of town, something inside of me told me that I was safe. That my wolf would make sure nothing happened to me.
The forest began to thin out up ahead, and I saw that we were coming up to a clearing. There were voices up ahead, so my wolf slowed down until she was practically creeping, her body close to the ground as she went to investigate.
Except the voices became more familiar to me the closer we got to the clearing. My wolf clearly recognized Wilder's voice as well because she wasn't sneaking around anymore, she was flat out sprinting towards his voice as fast as she could.
We burst into the clearing and then came to a sudden stop. Wilder was standing there with Daria, his arms wrapped around her desperately, kissing her passionately like she was everything to him. Like I was sure he'd once kissed me.
My wolf dropped to the ground like she'd been shot, and I immediately shifted, laying there in the mud naked like the forgotten cast off that I was. They were so wrapped in each other's embrace that it took a full minute for them to notice me there after they finally ended their kiss.
A whine ripped from my chest. I'd thought I was dying when he'd left and said it was over, but this...something got lost inside of me, a coldness moving in and absorbing everything around it.
Wilder gazed at me impassively while Daria smiled like she'd won everything.
I jumped up from the ground, filthy and naked, feeling utterly betrayed. Maybe I should have asked for answers. But Wilder didn't seem inclined to want to say anything.
So instead I ran away, shifting back again as I did so, my human heart unable to bear what had just happened.
Wilder didn't come after me. And maybe that was all the answer I needed.
18
Rune
I don't remember the trip back to Daxon's house. Everything was a blur, a mess of images with Wilder and Daria's kiss interspersed as a highlight through them all. I shifted and stumbled up the stairs to Daxon's front door, truly unsure what I was supposed to do now. Once inside, I walked immediately to the bathroom numbly, turning on the shower to a temperature that was scalding and then getting in, letting the water's heat bite at my skin and take the edge off the pain.
I didn't cry, the tears wouldn't come. The coldness was still there despite how hot the shower had been, spreading rapidly.
I stood in the shower until the water turned cold.
My body felt beaten down, ruined as I got out of the shower and into a pair of sweats. Drying my hair, I walked out to the living room to curl up on the couch when something that sounded like a muffled scream came from somewhere in the house.
Frowning, I walked down the hallway, listening for the noise again. I heard what sounded like Daxon laughing, and I continued forward until I realized that the sounds were coming from behind the door at the back of the hall that led to the basement. I faintly remembered him saying something about not going in the basement, but I think at the time I'd thought he was making a joke. Daxon had a weird sense of humor like that.
But he was definitely down there, when he was supposed to be still out doing pack duties. Now that I was shifted back, I remembered that I was supposed to stay at Miyu's until he came to get me. I still had no idea how I'd ended up running in the woods as my wolf, but I definitely remembered Daxon staying out late.
Doubt flushed through my mind. Was he cheating on me too? Was he downstairs in some kind of sex den with a girl? I hadn't doubted him before, but I'd never doubted Wilder either.
Was everything in my life a lie?
I stumbled down the hallway to the door, and reached out to grab the handle.
It was locked.
Of course it was locked.
The sound of someone moaning came through the door again and I lost it. I ripped open the door somehow and practically threw myself down the steep wooden steps.
And then I came to a screeching halt once I got to the bottom and peered into the room.
A shirtless Daxon was standing over a man who'd been chained to a long metal table.
There was blood everywhere, like some kind of horror movie.
Daxon had been hunched over whoever he had chained to that table, holding a pair of pliers near the guy's mouth.
He dropped the pliers when I got to the bottom of the stairs, and I realized the only reason he hadn't heard me before was that he was wearing headphones, rock music blasting out of them loud enough to rouse the dead.
"Rune," he said cautiously, but my attention wasn't on him, it was on the man behind him.
It was Rae. A low moan sounded from him right at that moment, and I faintly realized that he was missing his tongue. Daxon must have cut it off.
Shock was hitting me quickly as I backed away slowly, as if in a trance, right as Daxon began to approach me, still holding the pliers.
I'd known Daxon had been changing, that there was a sense of violence laced through his makeup that I hadn't noticed before.
But this was so much more.
Daxon was the killer, or if not the killer who'd been haunting the woods, he was something else...maybe something worse.
"Let me explain," he murmured soothingly, like it was possible to have some kind of good explanation for having the love of my best friend's life on a torture table.
Without another thought, my wolf emerged.
And I attacked.
Wild Love
Book 4
Real Wolves Bite. Continue the Wild series…
Get your copy of Wild Love today!
WILD SERIES
Wild Moon
Wild Heart
Wild Girl
Wild Love
Bonus Scene
Join C.R. Jane’s and Mila Young’s newsletters to receive a bonus scene of Daxon meeting Rune from his POV!!
DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY HERE
Bound
They came to Earth. They destroyed my life, took those closest to me, and now they’re set on making me their own.
Ella Monroe has only one goal in life. To survive. Trapped in a world that’s been taken over, Ella is reminded daily of everything that she has lost because of the Vepar. What was supposed to be a fun night out to celebrate her birthday turns into a nightmare encounter at a Vepar club when she catches the eye of three terrifyingly alluring men.
Powerful and terrifyingly seductive, the three Vepar make clear they will stop at nothing to possess her. Unable to escape, Ella is plunged into their dangerous and secretive world, where everything is more than it seems. Ella doesn’t know what the future holds as their prisoner, but one thing is for sure. Their obsession knows no bounds…
Start Reading Bound Today
Copyright
Bound by C. R. Jane and Mila Young
Copyright © 2019 by C. R. Jane and Mila Young
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review, and except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
For permissions contact:
[email protected]
[email protected]
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
One
They came in the night. There were no gunshots fired. No one’s last breath was given for their kingdom or country. It was just over. And they were in charge. They told us that our governments had no choice...that they did what was best for us by giving in. As I watched the President and the First Lady be frog marched out the front gates of the White House by a group of their armed guards, the President and his wife with just one bag in
each of their hands, it was clear to see that life as we knew it would never be the same again.
Years later, I would think back on that moment and wonder if that was the first time I had seen them. If they somehow sensed even then that I was out there and that I was something that they would want...something they would obsess over. I wondered if there was anything I could have done, any way that I could have run to ensure a different outcome.
It didn’t do any good for me to think about what-ifs. The simple fact of the matter was that I was never given a choice. I belonged to them. I always would.
Liar!
“I didn’t steal the money,” I whispered to Greg to avoid the customers in the diner from hearing our conversation. Biting back the fury that danced through me, I curled my hands and stuffed them into the pockets of my skirt, concealing them. How dare he accuse me of theft after I’d worked here for the past year and covered every necessary shift, stayed until midnight to close up most nights, and even cooked the damn food when we were short on staff. I stared at my boss in disbelief. He may only be five foot three and sporting a shaved haircut to cover his receding hairline, but he reminded me of a bulldog with his squished nose, chubby cheeks, and downturned mouth. His brown eyes squinted in an accusatory manner.
“You were responsible for the register,” he barked, not caring that he was raising his voice.
My cheeks burned, and I opened my mouth to respond, but no words formed. I was the only waitress on hand today because Sandy called in sick, again, and was most likely having a full day of orgasms with her new boyfriend. Lucky her. The cooks couldn’t have touched the cash since they never came up front. So that left me...