CHAPTER 7

Demetrius's POV

I tightened my jaw in utter annoyance. I had left the room in a rage, maybe in a haste — I couldn't trust myself, or my wolf, the longer I stayed in close proximity to her. Every second in that office had felt like standing too close to a flame I had no business touching, and the moment I felt my control slipping, I'd made the only choice that still felt like mine: I left.

I stormed into the forest to clear my head. How I hated losing control. It wasn't something I allowed myself, not since I'd taken this pack and rebuilt it from the ashes of what had been left behind. Control was the one thing I trusted completely, and she had already managed to shake it in less than an hour.

I wouldn't deny it — my supposed mate was beautiful. Auburn hair, blue eyes, a petite body with the promise of full hips and the soft swell of her breasts, all of it visible even as she'd struggled to keep her breathing steady in that thin nightdress she'd failed to hide beneath the dirty prison blanket. I'd noticed every inch of it, and I hated myself a little for it.

Shit. I knew I was drawn to her. Attracted to her in more ways than I wanted to admit — in the way the mere thought of her body made mine react, in ways I didn't like and didn't want to accept. It was the fault of the mate bond, the moon goddess pairing us together as though I had no say in the matter at all. Almost laughable, honestly, that she thought I'd simply accept some random girl she'd chosen for me, as if my years of careful, bloody rebuilding meant nothing next to her decree.

I didn't want a wolfless girl, one whose identity I didn't know and couldn't trust, standing beside me as my mate. I couldn't hand my pack — rebuilt from scratch after the attack that had gutted us — to a total stranger to rule beside me as Luna. I wouldn't let some bond decide that for me. I fumed silently, the anger a low simmer under my skin that refused to cool no matter how far I walked.

Honestly, if it were left to my wolf, Altracas, we would have already claimed her. Already mated with her. I could feel exactly how badly he wanted it, how saddened he was by the fact that she had no wolf of her own — no counterpart for him to run beside under the moonlight, no wolf to mark and be marked by in return. Still, he wanted her. Wanted her enough that the absence of her wolf didn't matter to him the way it mattered to me.

Wolves are more primal in nature. More animalistic. The elders always said instinct ran truer than reason. I didn't think so — not when instinct was screaming at me to go back for a woman I'd only just met, a woman who could unravel everything I'd spent years holding together.

I could feel Altracas clawing at the back of my mind, insistent, restless, a headache building behind my eyes from his constant whining, his attempts to force his way to the surface so he could go soothe our mate. I struck a deal with him — a run, maybe a hunt, if he behaved. If he didn't try to drag us back toward Armida.

I felt him roll his eyes before he agreed, sullen and reluctant. I knew the truce wouldn't last. It never did with him. But I'd cross that particular bridge when I came to it.

I walked deeper into the forest, toward my favorite place to shift — a creek tucked beneath a waterfall, hidden from the rest of the pack. I used to come here often as a boy, back when my mother was still alive, back when she'd let me play beside her wolf in the shallows while she watched from the bank. I hadn't been back in longer than I wanted to admit.

I stripped out of my clothes and set them on a flat rock at the water's edge, and a moment later the familiar ache of bones reshaping and rearranging took hold of me until I landed on all fours. Altracas let out a long, aching howl of longing, one that silenced every bird in the canopy above us, as though the whole forest understood there was a bigger predator moving through it now. My wolf stood tall — huge, proud, coated in midnight black fur, eyes burning gold in the fading morning light. There were rumors across the continent that I was one of the largest wolves ever seen, and looking at his reflection rippling in the creek, I could almost believe them. Cocky bastard, I thought, allowing myself a small, private smile, before he broke into a sprint, speed building until the trees blurred past us like smoke, until we were moving faster than anything human should be able to move.

Altracas ran for what felt like hours, never slowing, never tiring, chasing down a rabbit somewhere near the ridge and tearing into it without ceremony. For a while, at least, there was nothing but the wind and the ground passing beneath us, no mate bond, no responsibility, no woman sleeping in my house wearing my scent like she had a right to it.

It didn't last.

Even mid-run, even with blood still on his teeth, I felt Altracas's attention drift back the way we'd come — back toward the house, back toward her. He didn't say anything this time. He didn't have to. I already knew what he wanted, and I already knew I wasn't ready to give it to him.

I made a mental note to swim before heading home, to wash the last of the hunt from his fur, and to figure out, somewhere between here and there, how exactly I was supposed to face her again without losing the ground I'd only just barely managed to hold onto.