Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 49459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
But now, I felt lost. This all felt foreign.
I didn’t know how long I walked, but when I stopped, I was in a small clearing. I closed my eyes, lifted my face to the night sky, and tried again—willed him and myself—to rise up and take control.
Gods… fooking hell.
Nothing. But still I tried. I reached deep, searching for my Lycan’s presence that had always been part of me. My other half. An internal instinct that was a seventh sense.
I no longer had my Lycan power, his feral rage and protectiveness.
I called to him in my mind, but there was no answer back. My breathing grew rough, my chest tight.
Nothing but damn silence and a hollow ache.
For months now, I’d been wracking my brain trying to figure out why my wolf had gone silent after the injury. I knew many Lycans who’d gotten injured and never had their inner animal leave.
The scarring that covered me didn’t matter. My flesh could’ve been torn to shreds, and I wouldn’t have cared as long as I still had my wolf.
Was it the trauma? Had I been weak and that’s why he’d turned his back on me? Or had something in that fight—something I hadn’t seen, hadn’t felt—broken us apart in a way that couldn’t be repaired?
I got down on my haunches and sank my fingers into the cool, damp earth. The rage built in me until I trembled from the force of it. My breaths came out in ragged gasps. I wanted to roar, to tear at the ground until my fingers bled and there was nothing left beneath me.
I stayed there, hunched over in the moonlight, fingers deep in the soil like I could root myself and find answers from the earth beneath me.
And instead of the voice of my wolf… instead of the connection I ached for…
All I could think about was her.
Aisling.
She calmed the storm brewing in me.
I pictured the soft flush of her cheeks when I got too close and it made her fidgety. I thought about the way her chest rose and fell too fast when she tried to act unaffected.
I inhaled, still able to smell the scent of her skin—clean linen and something wild underneath. Something female and intoxicating.
Gods. What was wrong with me?
This wasn’t about her. It couldn’t be. She was just a distraction. A complication. She wasn’t my mate—my wolf would’ve known, would’ve made himself known and roared the truth the first time we met.
Right?
She haunted me in the best—most frustrating—way.
Why did I want to go back inside and find her, bury my face in her hair, take her scent into my body until she marked me like I wanted to mark her?
A low growl left my chest at the thought of her covered in my claw and bite marks.
I was losing myself. And I didn’t know how to get back to who I was before.
I stayed in the woods so long my skin prickled from the cold, and my legs ached from crouching, and I realized one monumental thing.
The only thing filling the silence and void in me was… her.
8
LENNOX
By the time I returned to the estate, hours had passed, and the sky had paled at the edges, the first signs of dawn creeping over the horizon.
My body was exhausted from running, wishing all that time my animal would take the hint and rise.
But nothing.
The door groaned softly, the centuries old wood protesting as I pushed it open, slipping into the stillness of the lower hall. The air inside was warm, fires roaring in the hearths of each room. I inhaled, the air scented with wood smoke and the faint aroma of breakfast being prepared.
I moved like a ghost through the corridors, keeping silent and to myself as I passed staff readying things for the day.
I didn’t want their looks—the pity, the uncertainty, the quiet terror when they thought I wasn’t watching.
They were afraid of me, and I fucking hated it. These were people I’d known my whole life.
I made it to my chamber, closed the door behind me, and leaned back against it, dragging my hands over my face. My skin felt too tight, my chest too full. My blood ran hot in my veins, and I was thick with frustration.
I paced the room like a caged animal. My eyes burned from lack of sleep, my muscles tense and worn out from my nightly run. I couldn’t live like this. I wouldn’t.
After a shower, I flopped down on the bed, closed my eyes, and willed sleep to come. But it felt like I was in bed for hours, listening to the tick tock of the grandfather clock in the hall.
A soft knock at the door stilled my heart before it slammed against my ribs. My first traitorous thought was Aisling. Had she come to me? Had she felt it, too? This wild, out-of-control thing between us so strong she couldn’t stay away?