Chapter 149 LAST OF ME AND ZADE

Chapter 149 LAST OF ME AND ZADE
CHAPTER 149

LAST OF ME AND ZADE

DORIAN

I frowned at his back as he walked out of Dorian's office corridor without explaining himself.

"Where are you taking me?" I questioned.

"For a ride." He did not slow down.

"Why would I need a ride?"

He pushed through the side door and held it open for me with the unbothered patience of someone who had already decided how this was going to go. "A lot has happened this week. You need to take your mind off things. Get some air." He paused and his face that in a very genuine smile. "And I missed you. I want to spend time with you."

I looked at him.

There was something in his face that was trying to be casual and not fully succeeding… the specific expression Zade wore when he had decided something was going to happen and was presenting it as a suggestion to avoid an argument.

"I don't understand why you suddenly care about my wellbeing," I narrowed my gaze at him and folded my hands underneath my chest..

He grinned widely. "Do you want to stand here and debate it or do you want to go?"

I exhaled and glared at him. This is useless. He knows it. I knew it but seeing the determined look on zade face, hez ready to stand here today and have me argue it out. And I'dto be the one to bail out

“Fine. I missed you too. Let's go." I hissed out in annoyance.

He ruffled my hair immediately. “I'll take that as you confessing your undying love for me, Charlie puppy.”

"Zade—" I glared at him.

"Helmet on, Charlie puppy. Hop on."

We rode for twenty minutes before I stopped trying to figure out where we were going and just let the wind do what it did… take everything that had been sitting compressed in my chest and spread it out thin enough that it stopped pressing so hard.

The pack territory gave way to forest roads I did not recognise, narrower than the main routes, the trees close on both sides and the light coming through them in uneven strips.

My arms were around Zade's waist and my helmet visor was up and the air smelled like pine and damp earth and nothing that had happened in the past two weeks.

He turned off the road onto a trail that was barely a trail and I tightened my grip and he laughed.

We stopped in a clearing.

It's wide, grassy, the trees forming a rough circle around it. This was old pack territory by the feel of it. It'd the specific quality of ground that had been run on by wolves for generations. Lustra stirred happily in my chest, which she almost never did without prompting.

Zade got off the bike and pulled his helmet off and looked around with the satisfied expression of someone who had been here before and was waiting to come back.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"Pack boundary training ground. It's the old one. Nobody uses it anymore." He looked at me. "We used to come here. Dad brought us once. You were too young to remember."

I looked around at the clearing. The trees, the light, the specific stillness of a space that had been left alone for a long time.

I did not remember it. But something in my wolf did.

He challenged me to hide and seek before I could object to the concept.

"We are adults," I shot him a pointed look.

"So?" He arched a questioning eyebrow at me.

"Adults do not play hide and seek in a forest." I spat out dryly.

He was already walking backward into the tree line with his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face. "Count to thirty."

"Zade—"

"Slowly. I know how you count." He laughed.

I stood in the middle of the clearing with my arms folded and watched him disappear between two trees and then I counted to thirty the correct way and then I went after him.

It took me four minutes to find him the first time. He had gone higher than I expected — not a tree, but a large rock formation at the eastern edge of the clearing that was covered enough in undergrowth that you would not see it unless you were tracking by scent.

I came around the side of it and found him crouched behind it with his knees up and the expression of a man who had been completely confident in his hiding spot until approximately three seconds ago.

"Your scent," I flashed him a toothy smile.

He groaned. "Right. Forgot you can do that now effortlessly." He stood up and pointed at me. "Your turn."

I went behind a cluster of trees and he found me in two minutes.

“You cheated.” I yelled whilst pointing my fingers to his face and giving him a stern look. ‘You used your wolf hearing on me.”

He shrugged carelessly and smirked. “Of course, I did and you know I'll.”

“Apologize to me now.” I commanded.

“Never!” He chuckled and winked at me.

“Hugghhh. I hate you, Zade!”

“I love you Charlie puppy.”

We went four rounds. He won three. I disputed two of them on the grounds of using supernatural advantages which he said was not a rule and I said it should be and he said I could take that up with the committee.

By the end of it I was laughing in a way that came from somewhere uncomplicated and I had not done that in weeks.

The bar beach was another twenty minutes on the bike.

Small, local, the kind of place that existed for the town rather than for visitors — a stretch of sand with a low wooden bar at the back of it, plastic chairs, a man selling roasted corn from a cart near the water. The afternoon was warm and the water was the colour of something that had not decided yet whether it was blue or green.

We took our shoes off and walked to the edge of the water.

Zade rolled his trousers up to the knee and waded in without hesitation. I followed and the cold of it came up around my ankles and I inhaled sharply and Zade laughed.

We stood there for a while just looking at the water.

"I miss the good old days," he said. Not sadly — just honestly.

"Me too." I dug my toes into the sand underneath the water. "Before everything got complicated."

"Things were always going to get complicated." He looked sideways at me. "But I think about when you were small. How you used to follow me everywhere. Mum used to say you were my shadow."

"I was annoying," I huffed out a laugh.

"You were." He smiled. "I didn't mind."

I looked at the water. "I hate Dad for what he did," I said. It came out quieter than I meant it to but I meant it. "If he hadn't done what he did the family would still be together. Mum would still be here. And we would still be together as one big happy family." I paused.

Zade was quiet for a moment. "Yeah."

"He broke everything," I said. "And we're the ones still dealing with the pieces."

He reached over and put his arm around my shoulders and we stood there like that for a while with the water around our ankles and the sun going lower and neither of us saying anything more about it because there was nothing more useful to say.

We got roasted corn from the man at the cart and sat in the plastic chairs with our feet in the sand and ate it and talked about easier things.

I told him about Italy. The market with my mother, the villa with Diego's colleagues, the feeling of walking through streets that had no pack politics in them.

"It was good," I nodded, chewing the corn hungrily. "For a while it was just normal. Like being a regular person."

Zade nodded. "You needed that."

"I did." I looked at the corn in my hands. "Diego was a good company. Before everything happened though."

Zade smiled. "He's a good man."

"Yeah he's good not until he kissed me," I rolled .

Zade's smile disappeared. “What? How dare he —”

"I slapped him," I cut him off immediately.

The smile came back, different now. "Good girl."

"He apologized too." I pulled at the corn. "He explained himself and I forgave him." I looked at Zade sideways. "He really did save my life."

"I know." His voice was quieter. "I sent him because I was scared. Not because I didn't trust you. Because I trusted what was coming at you." He looked at me. "I should have told you."

"Yes," I nodded and looked at him. "You should have."

"I'm sorry." He leaned closer and brushed his nose on mie whilst his head patted my hair

I bumped his shoulder with mine. "I know you are."

He bumped me back and we sat there until the corn was finished and the sun was most of the way down and the water had gone a darker colour and the man with the cart had packed up and gone home.

We rode back as the evening came in properly.

I rested my head on Zade's back the way I used to when I was small and he was the one driving us somewhere and I did not have to think about where we were going because he did.

The engine was warm and the road was long and I let myself stay in the specific peace of not thinking about anything important for just a few minutes longer.

The Ironveil gate came into view. Zade slowed the bike.

One of the younger warriors appeared at the gate with the expression of someone who had been waiting and was not entirely comfortable about what he was waiting to say.

"Zade." He stepped forward. "Alpha Dorian is sending for you to come to the yard around the back of the pack house. Both of you." He glanced at me briefly. "The whole pack is gathered."

Zade and I looked at each other. The peace of the last few hours folded up quietly and put itself away.

I pulled my helmet off. "What is it about?"

The warrior looked at the ground. "You," he said.