Chapter 56 56
AESON'S POV
THIRTY MINUTES EARLIER
I walked into the house, the weight of a particularly grating morning pressing on my shoulders. Business with the mining consortium had been a tedious dance of threats and concessions. My skin felt too tight, my thoughts a dull buzz. Beneath it all, my wolf, Tyson, was a restless, jumping presence in my chest, a constant, low-grade agitation I’d learned to ignore over the years.
I poured a glass of water in the kitchen, the cool liquid doing nothing to settle the internal disquiet.
Then it happened.
Not a gradual feeling.
A single, sharp, internal word that echoed in the silence of my own skull, stopping me dead in the middle of the vast living room.
‘MATE!’
The glass froze halfway to my lips. Something in my core, something long buried and rusted shut, sparked to life with a painful, electric jolt.
“What did you just say, Ty?” I thought, the words were a silent, furious demand.
He didn’t just think it back. He jumped, a surge of raw, primal energy that made my bones ache. ‘Our mate.’
I was astounded. A cold disbelief washed over me.
“What mate?” The thought was a scoff in my mind. “We lost her. Years ago. She’s gone. That bond is dust.” The old, familiar numbness was my armor. I clung to it.
‘No.’ His thought was a guttural growl, more feeling than word. ‘I can sense her. Better now. She’s close.’
“It can’t be, Tyson.” I tried to shut him down, to rebuild the walls. This was madness. A phantom pain from a severed limb.
‘Our mate is calling to us!’ His insistence was a physical pressure. ‘I think… she’s in danger.’
My brows creased.
Danger.
That word, paired with his unprecedented certainty, sliced through my resistance. As much as I wanted to ignore him, to drown him out with logic and whiskey, I couldn’t.
That strange, persistent pull I’d been feeling for a while, the one I’d dismissed as irritation, as curiosity—suddenly had a name, and it was a name that carried a weight I’d sworn never to feel again.
It had me moving before I fully decided to. I was out the front door, down the steps, a silent, focused fury. The Gamma at the post straightened, but I was already past him, heading for my car.
“If this is a trick of yours,” Ty, I thought as I slammed the door and started the engine, “you are bound for an eternity of misery right alongside me.”
He didn’t answer. He just pushed, a relentless compass in my chest. I drove out of the pack gates, the city blurring past. A few minutes out, he jerked my attention sharply.
‘She’s in the woods! To the east!’
I pulled the car over onto a secluded service road, tires crunching on gravel. I got out, the afternoon sun bright and wrong for the turmoil inside. I looked down the empty road, then into the dense, shadowed line of trees bordering it. The pull was a tangible thing now, a thread tugging me toward the greenery.
With a grimace, I pulled a plain black hoodie from the back seat and yanked it on, pulling the hood low over my face. If this was a wild goose chase, I’d deal with Tyson later. If it wasn’t… I didn’t want to be seen.
I left the car and melted into the woods, moving with a speed and silence that belonged more to my wolf than to me.
Instantly, the world changed. The scent of pine and damp earth was overwhelming, but beneath it… there. Faint, but unmistakable. Her scent. Jasmine, and that unique, frustratingly alluring undercurrent that was just annoyingly familiar. It spiked something primal in me, a protective instinct so fierce it stole my breath.
My eyes, sharpening further with Tyson’s influence, scanned the dappled shadows. My ears caught the distinct, hurried rhythm of running feet—not animal, human. A frantic, fearful pace.
I looked toward the sound and moved, taking shortcuts through thickets, my body a shadow among shadows. I stopped behind a dense cluster of ferns, my breathing controlled and silent.
To my right, I heard a shrill, taunting male voice. I turned my head just enough to see him—a young wolf, cocky posture, smirking as he advanced on something—on someone—blocked from my view by a tree.
‘Mate!’ Tyson snarled inside me, a sound of pure fury. :Save her! NOW!’
I shifted my position by a fraction and saw her.
Arielle. Backed against another tree, those sea-colored eyes were wide not with tears, but with a furious, defiant fear. Her chest was heaving.
That girl? The thought was a cold splash of reality. Arielle?
‘She’s our second chance mate!’ Tyson howled, the sound echoing in the private space of my mind. He was jubilant, ecstatic. ‘Wooo! The Moon Goddess hasn’t forsaken us!’
No. The denial was instant, absolute. Impossible. This was a cruel joke. The daughter of the woman who had been my first, my ruin, my… No.
The universe wasn’t that twisted.
I watched, frozen for a second by the sheer insanity of it. But then the boy took another step toward her, his intention clear in his predatory stance.
A burning, white-hot coal of pure rage ignited in my gut. It wasn’t a thought; it was an instinct older than time.
I moved in a flash, stepping out from the cover of the trees, my voice a low, deadened threat that cut through the forest's quiet.
“Take a step closer to her,” I said, the words hardening the air around us, “and you’re dead.”
I kept my face turned, hidden in the hood’s deep shadow. The last thing I wanted was for her to see me, to connect the terrifying stranger in the woods with the Alpha she obviously doesn't find all-appealing.
She snapped those bold aqua eyes toward me, and for a second, the fear was replaced by sheer, stunned shock. Then, as the confrontation unfolded, as I dealt with the jerk who dared threaten what wasn’t his.
What was mine (the thought slipped in, unbidden), I saw the disdain in her gaze—not for me, but for him. Good.
I made quick work of him, the fight was barely worthy of the name. The moment he fled, I felt her eyes on me, curious, seeking. I couldn’t let her look. I couldn’t risk it.
I tilted my head, a silent warning for her to stay back. Then, my pet crow Shin, ever observant, gave a sharp, distracting caw from a high branch. Her gaze flicked upward for a precious second.
It was all I needed. With Tyson’s speed, I was gone, a phantom dissolving into the deeper woods before she could look back.