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Shifters need nature. So do witches. The town is full of it, and it’s contained to, with the mystical markers of whose territory is what undeniable. One step onto pack land and my fur ruffles. If I inch too close to the witch-owned tracts, my spine itches. And if I settle down on neutral territory, I have the urge to mark it.
Whenever I need a break from being in the pack house and am after a bit of privacy, I return to the small clearing that I staked out after I first arrived in town. It has everything. A small rock shelter for my wolf to sleep under, hidden enough from view that I can let my guard. It’s within trotting distance of the waterfalls firmly on the pack’s land, but it was worth my scent lingering to splash in the lake that has so much meaning to Tristan.
Is that petty? Probably. The first time I found it, I was knocked on my furry rump when I noticed just how much Tristan’s unique scent overlaid the area. He must spend a lot of his time by the small lake in order for his markings to be so prominent.
And if I couldn’t keep from wondering if that was the lake he went to to wash off my scent after we met… well, maybe it made me feel a little better to leave a little more of it behind.
I still don’t get what the hell was going through his head then; three months later, and I doubt I’ll ever figure out the way he ticks. The thing is… he knew I was here. I mean, duh. He never got my name, but he knew there was another wolf in Winter Creek… and he never told his pack. Not Lucas. Not Fallon. Not anyone. He kept me such a secret that Fallon was convinced the first time I met him was when we escaped the Coven House.
Yeah. Not quite. And while part of me takes that as further rejection, just more proof that he wanted to pretend I wasn’t around, the other part wonders if he had a different reason.
Was he, in his own way, protecting me? Or am I still so delusional, I’m searching for something, anything to justify my continued pull toward him?
I need space. Fuck it. I need to think. I’d done a lot of that earlier by the creek, but after my latest run-in with Tristan, I’m even more confused than I was.
Possessive growls I can handle. I’m a shifter. So is he. We growl without even realizing it half the time. But the way he tried to call me by my full name? The look in his eyes that I haven’t seen since the late afternoon where we collided before he all but pushed me away?
Something’s different. Something’s changed. Out of nowhere, Tristan is actually acting like a bonded male… and if I need any other further proof that he’s taken my lack of rejecting him as an invitation to get a second chance with me, it’s in how he’s basically right on my ass right now.
Considering Tristan is tracking me step for step instead of heading in the opposite direction, he must’ve decided that, if I wouldn’t tell him where I was going, he’d follow and find out for himself.
I’m sure, if I called the Beta out on it, he’d pull the same BS about being out on patrol. That with Fallon and Lucas off of pack land, it’s just the two of us, and we should be prepared.
Maybe if I hadn’t seen the way he was eyeballing my tits, I’d believe that.
Oh, wait. No I wouldn’t.
Okay, then. Tristan wants to track a she-wolf onto her own personal territory?
Let’s see if he can keep up.
As if I didn’t need any dose of reality and another slap in the face that Tristan doesn’t actually think of me as his mate, I get it anyway when he falls back.
In this, wolf shifters are like their wild counterparts. When there’s prey, they chase—and they ambush. That goes double when a wily male is trying to prove himself to his prospective mate. When there’s a hint of a bond—even if one of us is blocking it for some reason—and undeniable attraction, there’s an expectation between intended mates: if I catch you, I fuck you.
Not like I thought I’d be getting laid today just because Tristan couldn’t control his own lust at seeing me naked. It’s a natural reaction between shifters who have that attraction instead of just being regular old packmates. He got hot, I got wet, but that didn’t mean anything was going to happen between us… until he started to chase me and a teeny tiny part of me thought: maybe.
Really, Jeannie? Really?
How much more fucking rejection do you want to take before you give up?
There’s stubborn and then there’s stupid. Tristan Crowder makes me stupid, and it pisses me off.
The worst part is that he did keep up with me at first, but it wasn’t long before the painful pricking against my skin fades enough to be noticeable. I’d rather the pain that meant he was acting like a mated shifter, chasing his female, than the discomfort disappearing because he got far enough away for me to feel it.
Even then I tried to come up with excuses for him.
He was in his human form when I left him. He’s still healing the damage to his leg from the silver knife that Remy Gauthier stabbed him with. Maybe… maybe that’s why he couldn’t match my pace.
The first time I met Tristan, he didn’t have a limp. It’s healed a little over the months to the point that you have to look to see that he’s favoring his bad leg, but we’re shifters. Silver is really the only thing that does damage to us, but we’re shifters. If it doesn’t kill us, we can heal it.
Unless…
No. I’m not shouldering the blame for that. If he can’t heal because he’s purposely using all of his energy to block our bond instead of putting himself back into tip-top shape, that’s not my fault—or my responsibility.
That doesn’t mean it didn’t infuriate me to hear Gauthier brag repeatedly how he knifed the Beta of the Winter Creek Pack during the time I was his ‘captive’ in the Coven House. Dumb witch had no idea that Tristan was my fated mate or that I was a shifter, but that prick loved to hear himself talk and he hated the wolves.
He wanted Fallon. He hurt Tristan.
