It doesn't take me long to work out where Marshall is taking me: the Dawley-Stone pack land a few miles away.
Although he hasn't spoken a word since he picked me up and stuffed me in his car back at the rental that Regan and her new mate Jackson are calling home, at least for now, he doesn't have to.
I can feel the heat of his anger and frustration building in a space too small to house, and all it's making me want to do is run or hide.
Instead, I do my best to ignore it by blindly staring out at the bright midday sky and the passing trees just outside my window, trying not to think about what's coming. After demanding permanent sanctuary in the Dawley-Stone pack, it's a confrontation that has to happen.
There are some things I can run or hide from, but not this. Not Marshall.
As the most submissive wolf in the pack, it was the first time I've ever demanded anything in my life. And to do it in front of the entire pack, to demand to leave the Blackshaws and join the newly formed Dawley-Stones', is a strength I never believed I possessed.
Some days, I can't bring myself to meet anyone in the eye because it's just too hard. Everything in me, from my wolf to the deepest core of myself, wants to give in, to take the easy path, to not draw attention. To fade into the background.
But not today.
"You know I love you, Jenna," Marshall says, his voice low, quiet despite the heat of his anger that I can still feel creating an unbreachable distance between us. "I've waited for you for years. I'd wait forever. You know this."
I do.
I know with every fiber of my being that Marshall loves me, just as I love him.
But that isn't enough. It isn't near enough. Once I thought it was, but now I know better.
"I don't want you to wait for me forever. I want you to stop," I say, just as quietly. While this is my usual voice, it's not his. As the third dominant in the pack, Marshall's never been quiet about anything.
"I never will. I think you know that too."
We're just rehashing the same argument, the same thoughts over and over. "So that's why I need to leave. It isn't what I want, and your wolf… You may be prepared to wait forever, but your wolf won't. Soon, you won't be able to hold him back."
Finally, Marshall reaches his destination and pulls to a stop, but he doesn't get out and neither do I. "Jenna, look at me."
I shake my head, keeping my gaze trained on the forest beyond the empty plot of land Marshall has stopped on. Empty, that is, except for a couple of padlocked temporary cabins the building contractors have set up at the edge of the clearing they will fill with a three-story pack house. A house I'm not sure why they haven't started building already.
Back in Hardin, I had the pack to serve as a buffer. But here, in this empty, isolated clearing, there's only me and Marshall. And I know, once and for all, I have to make him understand that we're over. That there's no future for us. There never was.
Marshall shifts in his seat. The sound of the leather squeaking seems overly loud in a car with the windows rolled up. "Jenna…"
His scent always makes me want to crawl into his lap and press my lips against his throat. How can he always smell so good to me, even when he's coming home from a long day as a mechanic smelling of sweat, iron and oil?
I should open the windows.
"I don't want to be with you anymore, Marshall. I don't."
"You don't mean it. I know you don't mean it."
I shake my head again, willing him to drop this, willing this conversation to be over. It's easier when I don't have to look at him when I say no. And not just with him, it's with all the pack.
No.
Such a small word to feel so intimidated by it. Yesses are easier. Everyone always expects those from petite Jenna with the small voice and the silent wolf. So, I say yes, even when I mean no.
For one rare second, I resent that I'm this weak frail thing that can't look after herself, that will always need someone to look after her.
And I know exactly when it started.
It was months ago when Glynn Merrick kidnapped Talis, and everyone went to save her. Everyone but me. I'd never felt so helpless in all my life. And what was worse was that I wasn't alone when it would've been better if I was.
I couldn't be left alone because it wasn't safe. So instead of Dayne having Marshall, his third strongest wolf in the pack, help him rescue Talis who'd already suffered at her uncle's hands, and probably was again, he had Marshall stay in Hardin to protect me.
That was when I finally realized Marshall and I could never be together. Not the way he needs us to be. And over time, the feeling has only grown and grown.
He's the protector-the guard. The one saving others.
But me? I will always be the one who needs saving, so while he's with me, he'll never be able to save anyone else.
"I don't want you to bite me. I don't want us to be mates," I say, still not turning to face him, still with my gaze outside.
This time my voice emerges stronger. Not as strong as when I made my demand to Regan outside the rental several minutes ago. I don't know if I'll ever be brave enough to sound that determined in my life again, but my voice is firm. It tells Marshall that this is what I want. That there isn't any doubt in my mind.
But you don't want this, do you? Your mind is filled with nothing but doubt.
"So, we won't be bitten mates," Marshall says simply, "we'll just continue as we have been. We'll spend a few nights at your place, or mine, or the pack house. We won't talk about mating, or moving in together, or the future."
We could. But that wouldn't change anything. Not really. His loyalty, his need to protect me at the expense of anyone else wouldn't change. If Talis or anyone else in the pack ever needed help, the first question would always be, 'But how do we keep Jenna safe, so she doesn't get hurt when none of us are watching her?' And the answer? 'Marshall will watch her.'
Then, there's the not-so-small matter of his wolf's need to mate with me. To bite me. A need that he's struggling to hold back, going by how frequently he's losing control of his wolf.
Marshall has been holding back his wolf's need to permanently tie us together for years already, but he can't forever. Even if he could, it isn't fair for me to keep him in this almost-permanent battle between the two sides of his soul.
If I could somehow overlook all the things keeping us apart, I could never forget that matings between dominant and submissive wolves never last.
At least, not for long. The dominant wolf always exerts their will on the submissive until there's nothing left of the submissive anymore. Nothing but a hollow shell of who they were before.
I straighten from my slump as my determination reasserts itself. "No. No, we can't. It's best that I leave."
"Best for who?" Marshall keeps to his side of the car, suspecting rightly that if he ventures closer, I'll run. "Because, baby, you look as miserable as I feel. It's the mating that's upset you, and I've told you that we won't. I won't ever bring it up again. We'll go back to the way we were before."
I turn to face him because I'm hearing the agony beneath the surface, and I know I'm breaking his heart, just as I know it's breaking my heart to go through with this, but knowing I have to.
I find what I was expecting.
Marshall's jade green eyes are as bleak as he sounded, and his shoulder-length dirty-blond hair is tousled from him raking a hand through it. But it's his hands that are the most telling.
He has them clamped around the steering wheel as if he can't trust himself to remove them for fear he'll reach over and haul me into his arms. Knowing Marshall, he probably would.
As a mechanic, he's used to fixing things with his hands every day, and everything in his face, his eyes, his body is screaming his need to fix this. Fix us.
"We can't. We can never go back to the way we were before," I tell him gently, lowering my gaze to his strong jaw because I can only hold his gaze for a second or two. Never more than that.
And like always, in the next moment, his fingers are gently gripping my chin and raising my head again so that we're eye to eye, something he's done since we were teenagers.
Marshall was always one of the first to shift because he's dominant enough that it never took him more than a couple of minutes. As the most submissive in the pack, I was always the last, that by the time I'd shifted, everyone was strolling back to the pack house, or they'd already left to return home in town.
But Marshall would always wait with my clothes.
He never looked while I changed, even though it wouldn't have mattered if he had. I never believed he could be interested in me with my slim body, small breasts, and pale skin. He probably only liked my wavy strawberry-blonde hair, or my heart-shaped face and small nose. Those were the only parts about myself I didn't mind, so if he liked me, it must be because of those traits.
If he liked me at all, that is. But someone as confident, as assured, and already one of the most dominant shifters in the pack at nineteen, liking me? Impossible.
I told myself there was nothing special about Marshall's lean, muscled body because as shifters, nudity didn't matter, even if the thought of Marshall's body made my cheeks heat.
I thought all those things for weeks until I lowered my head to dodge his gaze, and he lifted it to give me my first kiss when I was seventeen. He's still the boy I've loved forever. That will never change, even if everything else has to.
"You have to stop doing that," I murmur, reaching a hand to move his from my chin. "It's not in my nature to meet a dominant shifter's eyes."
"I want to see your eyes." He releases his grip on my chin with no effort on my part. Just like always. "They're the most beautiful thing in the world. Like falling into the deepest part of an ocean."
"Marshall…"
My tone must clue him in that he won't like what I'm about to say, because his green eyes spark, shifting to a paler green.
At the sight of his wolf, I jerk my gaze from his down to my jean-clad legs.
It's uncomfortable to meet a dominant shifter's eyes when they're in their human shape. But as wolves, or when it's their wolf gazing back at me? It's impossible.
"Jellybean, I'm sorry."
He truly is. I can hear the contrition in his voice whenever he loses control of his anger or shifts his eyes because he knows I can't look at him when he does.
I wish he wouldn't call me jellybean. I have no defense against his nickname for me. None.
"I know." I turn to face the front. "Please take us back now. We're supposed to be helping Regan move in, not… not do this."
Marshall doesn't move. "Do this? And what is this?"
"Saying goodbye. Reaching the point where we realize a relationship between a dominant and a submissive shifter was never going to work."
He growls in frustration. "But it was working. It is working. Why do you think it isn't now? If it's not the idea of us mating, then what is it? Is it the sex?"
I feel my face heating at a vivid memory of Marshall stroking himself inside me, and of the countless other ways he pleasures me. I can't stop myself from twirling a strand of my strawberry-blonde hair around my finger, as I always do when I'm thinking too hard.
He will scent your arousal. Stop.
But it's not that easy to shut off the effects of his words in my mind and my body. I want him as much as I always have, and as much as I'm sure I always will.
"So, it's not the sex," he murmurs as I hear him shifting in his seat beside me, the husky note in his voice telling me he hasn't missed my desire. "It's something else, then. Something that has you convinced there's a problem when there isn't. A problem you won't talk about with anyone, so I know it's nothing anyone else has said. Unless-"
Marshall stops talking when I reach for the door handle. "I think I'll walk back."
Before my fingers make contact, the sound of the locks engaging makes me freeze.
"Not so fast, jellybean."
I stare at the plastic handle of Marshall's steel gray Honda Accord for several seconds in silence as annoyance sparks. Not anger. Just annoyance. My anger is nothing like Talis or anyone else in the pack. The only thing that seems to trigger it is when my friends are hurt and there's nothing I can do to help them. And usually, I'm more likely to cry than hit out at anyone.
"You know I could still open it. This lock won't work on shifters."
"I know. But I know you won't want to damage my car. So, you won't."
No. I won't.
"This isn't something you can bully me into."
Marshall's silence stretches for so long it's agony. I'm desperate to turn around so I can find out if I've succeeded in provoking his wolf's anger, just as I did when he spoke about our mating, so I'd have an excuse to break things off with him.
"Bully? That's the second time you've used that word now, baby." His voice is low, controlled. This is the man speaking, not the angry snarl of the wolf I was hoping to provoke so I would have an excuse to run. "Is that what you think I'm doing? Bullying you? Pushing you into doing what I want?"
No.
I lower my hand from the door. "Please take me back, Marshall."
"I know you don't think that, Jenna."
I don't. But maybe I should let you. Maybe then you'll let me go.
Before either of us can say anything else, the sudden arrival of a truck breaks the silence between us. It takes one glance to identify it as Dayne's.
I'm not surprised he's tracked us down to find out why Marshall would stuff me in his car and drive off like that. He is alpha, and we are his pack. It's his job to investigate when his pack behaves out of character, and lately, Marshall hasn't been himself. Because of me.
That Talis is in the seat beside him isn't unexpected, either. As Luna, one of her main duties is caring for the well-being of the pack. Although she's been trying to pry information out of me for days now, I've avoided spending too much time at the pack house by saying I'm busy with work.
When I couldn't avoid a pack meeting or breakfast, I would stay quiet or give such vague, one-worded responses to her questions that she couldn't help but notice I didn't want to talk.
But it won't last for long. I've gotten to know Talis enough over these last seven months that I know what her patience tolerance level is. That she hasn't already ordered me to tell her what's going on is surprising, but soon she will. Soon, she'll demand I tell her, and since she's both alpha and Luna, I will have to, even if it's the last thing I want.
Dayne pulls his truck to a stop beside us and, with the engine still running, shoves the door open and gets out. When Talis does the same, he snarls at her to just rest for once and stay in the truck. And Talis? She snarls right back and gets out anyway, though it takes her a little longer with her pregnant belly slowing her down.
That's the sort of woman Marshall should be with. If Marshall snarled at me to stay in the car like that, I wouldn't move. I'd probably cry because he snarled at me.
"Marshall." That's all Dayne says. Just his name.
Dayne's gaze is on my face, but at the sound of Marshall unlocking the car door, he jerks his gaze from me to him. His ice-blue, narrow-eyed stare tells me, and Marshall too, in no uncertain terms how he feels about him locking me in.
Without another word, I push my door open and get out, keeping my head down.
As I turn to close the door, Marshall speaks, "I love you, Jenna. That will never change."
I meet his eyes for a split second, and even though I'm on the cusp of tears, even though my eyes burn. I still say the words. "Goodbye, Marshall."
And then, I slam the door closed and walk away from the only man I've ever loved.