Chapter 293


    AXEL


    Emily spins away from me and rushes out through the door, as if she can actually get away from me.


    She’s angry and sad, frustrated and scared, anxious…a whole bunch of bad things that are causing a


    co ktail of explosive behavior within her.


    I huff an annoyed sigh and stuff down that sinking feeling in my gut, and follow after her.


    Unfortunately, having experienced my share of captivity over the long centuries of my life, I know a


    thing or two about the vtile emotions thate into y once you find yourself free again.


    It’s almost as terrifying as the imprisonment itself was, once you realize you can go anywhere or do


    anything.


    Then, there’s the rage. The acknowledgment of everything you’d been denied for every second of your


    capture, all that anger that you hold in it starts boiling up.


    With Emily, though, I suspect it’s more than just being held


    captive. She has a wild look in her eyes that speaks of desperation, of abuse.


    Of horrors that are unspeakable.


    I know my fair share of those too.


    She hates me right now and I’m not too proud of myself either.


    Rejecting Emily had been a rash decision. An instinctual one. I’ve been alone for so long and I’ve


    sworn off ties. or rtionships that might make the people around me vulnerable. The moment I felt


    that draw, that inescapable need to touch, to im, I knew I had to end it.


    Before something ever got started.


    Severing the bond hurt like a so ofabitch. I hate thinking that I caused her pain. The woman’s a victim.


    Emily doesn’t deserve


    to suffer more.


    I scan the vast yards behind the mansion. I don’t see her and


    there are paths carved through the snow in all directions.


    I shift quickly.


    I lope out across the yard, but after a minute, it bes apparent that Emily managed to do what I


    considered dan


    near impossible.


    She’s disappeared on me.


    I don’t know which way she went, and I can’t easily catch any


    trace of her lingering scent…which makes no sense.


    I growl at the inconvenience of her, at the impossible position


    she’s putting me in.


    Aaron will have my a s in a sling if I can’t find her quickly.


    As I’d told Emily, wolves gossip in a pack like this, and aside


    from talking about the turbulent mess that had been Aaron’s


    rtionship with Leah previously, they also talked about how Aaron punished James for failing in his


    duty to safeguard the pack’s Luna.


    And James is Aaron’s Beta. His brother in all but blood.


    Since I’ve got no such standing, there’s every possibility Aaron will do worse to me if I fail to keep track


    of his sister.


    I trot back and forth in an ever-widening arc across the yard and around the back half of the mansion,


    scenting and listening until eventually I pick up a trace of Emily’s fading


    scent.


    She must have been moving fast to barely leave any remnants


    of scent behind.


    And for any other wolf, they might not have been able to pick it up at all.


    But I’m no ordinary wolf.


    Also, even though I rejected her, Emily was my mate, and my wolf is more in-tune to everything about


    her.


    My wolf is thrilling at this chase, liking the idea of hunting down our mate, clearly not caring that I


    rejected her, and we can never actually be anything to one another.


    I take up the trail and bound off in the direction she fled, annoyed that she’s got a good head start on


    me, and could


    get up to anything or go pretty much anywhere in the time it’s


    taken me to work out which direction she took.


    I head way out into the wilds of Rathborn packnds, much further than I had to go yesterday to find


    her.


    I wonder what the hell she could even be doing out here all


    alone.


    If it’s simply the need to run and escape, then maybe her hold on her own sense-her ability to prevent


    herself going rogue- is more tenuous than we thought.


    When I find her, she’s trotting back toward me, casual as


    anything, as if she didn’t just run off and lead me on a merry


    chase.


    For a second, I think I smell fresh blood, but the coppery ta g of it is there and then gone in the next


    moment, so I don’t think too much about it as I shift and step into her path.


    “Shift back. Now,” I tell her in a short voice.


    Her beautiful, dark little wolf huffs, before transforming into the human girl.


    “What?” she demands impatiently, crossing her arms, as if I’m the difficult one in this scenario.


    I step closer, dwarfing her with my size and stature. “I’m only going to say this once more, Emily, so you


    better pay close attention. You do not run off on me, under any circumstances,


    or there will be consequences. Do you understand me?”


    “I don’t care if Aaron put you in charge of me,” she snaps back in frustration. “I don’t owe you anything,


    and you’re basically a


    stranger to me. A stranger who rejected our mating bond the


    second you realized we had one. If I need to run, I’ll run. You


    don’t own me. You have no im on me!”


    She’s right. I gave that right up.


    Property ? 2024 N0(v)elDrama.Org.


    She goes to step past me, and I grab her arm, dragging her in


    closer to me.


    My wolf ripples under my skin.


    It wants us to im her, whispering I’ll never have it so good. as I’ll have it with my mate, but I


    ruthlessly push my wolf and


    its traitorous desires down.


    “Aaron is your Alpha. You’ll respect him if nothing else. And he says you’re my responsibility. So keep


    on pushing me, darlin’ and see where that gets you.”


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