Chapter 4:

By the time I drag myself to my first lecture, I’ve convinced myself of three things.

One, whatever happened in the woods on Halloween night doesn’t matter anymore.

Two, the bite mark on my neck is just a hickey that will fade the same way all hickies do.

And three, I will never, ever touch August’s brownies again.

My neck still tingles, though. Like a phantom reminder of a teeth being sunk into my neck. Somehow that sends a jolt of pleasure through my body.

How odd.

I'm beginning to enjoy being bitten now? I never would have taken myself for the type to enjoy a rough rider.

Or...maybe the tingle in my neck is just a rash. Rashes kinda have that sweet feeling to them, you know?

Yeah, that makes more sense. I'll go with the rash.

"It's very demeaning to tag our mates' mark as a rash, don't you think?" That voice in my head pokes up.

I maybe going crazy, but my mind has never for once used a voice that wasn't mine, when I wasn't thinking in another person's voice on purpose.

No, this voice in my head doesn't sound like me or anyone I know for that matter. It sounds... feral.

"You catch a bug or two from a wild night out in the woods with a stranger," it says, and I imagine it to shrug.

Great. Now even my brain is mocking me.

"I'm not your brain, goddess no, it's dark and empty up there," it corrects. "I'm what you would want to call your other... consciousness. I can't say more than that until...well, you're ready, I guess."

I roll my eyes so hard I might sprain them. “Fantastic. First schizophrenia, then failing statistics. Exactly how I imagined my twenties,” I mutter under my breath, ignoring the side glance from a girl sitting two rows over.

"Schizophrenia is a big word, Liv!" It coos. "But sadly, no. You're not schizophrenic. You're just different, and the sooner you learn to embrace it, the better for you, hun."

"Embrace talking to myself?" I scoff out loud and the boy to my left hisses.

"This is not the time or the place to lose your senses. Unlike you, we're trying to embrace these fucking equations. So can you kindly not embrace talking to yourself...here?"

I turn to glare at him and he shies away under the intensity of my gaze.

"I'm sorry," I say with a tight smile, and he gulps in return.

"You can talk to me without talking to the world. I'm inside of you, I hear your thoughts," it bites back a laugh.

"Thank you for telling me that earlier," I think back with an eye roll.

"I didn't think I had to tell you, but like I said, your brain is a dark and empty place."

I let out a sigh and face my notes squarely. Since the professor started lecturing, I hadn't as little as put a dot down. Now he's talking about an assignment I didn't catch, and it's due tomorrow.

Lucky me.

The rest of the morning is a blur of professors droning on, the smell of stale chalk, and me trying not to obsess over phantom hands on my skin and the mocking voice in my head.

Normal day.

By afternoon, I've almost convinced myself that last night's fever dream is behind me, that is until I spot a rare and familiar flaming red head in the crowd.

He’s leaning casually against the brick wall outside the library like he belongs on a magazine cover, sunlight catching in his ridiculous red hair.

Green eyes flash when he notices me, and that stupidly lopsided grin appears...the exact one my brain so kindly replayed for me earlier.

Oh. Shit.

My entire body short-circuits. My pulse skyrockets, my legs forget how to function, and suddenly I’m very aware of every nerve ending under my skin.

His scent drifts over and my nose catches every detail of it. It's intoxicating, so much so, that it's like I can taste him.

“Honey,” the voice in my head muses. "Our mate smells like sweet honey. And he tastes like honey too, you remember?"

"I would appreciate if you stop saying that word."

"What word? Mate?"

"Precisely so..." My words drift off when he gestures for me to come over.

"But that's precisely what he is to us," it emphasizes on the word 'precisely'.

"He is nothing but a stranger to us, and I believe his name is Zeke, so I appreciate it if you just called him that."

"Right...so he's the stranger that we fucked in the woods, and his name is Ezekiel, otherwise called Zeke."

"Wow, thank you for the brief background check."

"You're welcome." It coos, "now go over to him."

“Nope,” I whisper fiercely, frozen in place.

"Yes, he's calling out to us."

“Absolutely not. Stranger danger, remember? This is how people end up on true crime documentaries. You follow a stranger with charm and then you disappear forever.”

"You weren't thinking about that when you–"

"Slept with him in the woods? No I wasn't, because I wasn't thinking then. I was high. And please stop bringing that up every two seconds!"

The voice sighs and I feel something warm spread through me. "I'll just take you to him, then."

"Wait... what–"

Before I can sputter out a question, my body begins to move contrary to my rebuttal. It's almost like he's magnetic and I'm caught in his force field, moving closer to him until I'm right in front of him.

He's right here. Real. Solid. Smelling exactly like that addictive, sweet honey that clung to me when I woke up and it makes my knees wobble.

“If it isn't the pretty lady I owe my freedom to,” he says smoothly, voice low and warm, like he’s greeting an old friend instead of a girl about to pass out in front of him.

I blink at him, brain cells doing their best impression of a traffic jam.

“Uh… hi.” Brilliant. Future valedictorian right here.

"What did you do?!" I whisper yell in my head.

"Just tapped into the part of you that wants to be near him for life, otherwise known as the mate bond," the voice purs.

Mate bond? What are we, wolves?

I hear a mental snicker, but I ignore it and focus on the man standing right in front of me.

Zeke tilts his head, eyes gleaming with amusement, and that grin widens. “I was beginning to wonder when we’d run into each other again.”

"Why?"

He looks off into the crowd of students moving around us, then his eyes fall back to mine. "Why?"

Again. My stomach flips.

"Unlike a certain person I know, he remembers every detail of your night out in the woods. Of course he does," the voice in my head preens. "He's ours."

I get this urge to bury my face in the crook of his neck, but I fight it off as fiercely as I can. No way I'm making the same mistake twice.

I grit my teeth. “Look, I know what happened between us last night must have been...great, but I was high and I assure you it's not going to happen again. I barely remember anything at all and I would love to keep it that way, okay?”

"Really?" He leans just slightly closer, and my lungs betray me by sucking in a sharp breathe of his scent. "Because your body is saying otherwise, Olivia."

My mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. Nothing comes out. Great. I’m a fish now.

“Relax,” he chuckles, clearly enjoying my breakdown. “You look like you’re about to bolt. I don’t bite.”

My hand flies unconsciously to my neck. His gaze flickers there, sharp and knowing, before he smirks again, easy and lighthearted.

“I mean, not unless you ask nicely,” he adds with a wink.

"And if I remember clearly, you told him to bite you," my mind coos.

"Aren't I lucky that I'm the only one with no memories of this, whatsoever?"

His smirk slowly falls off and his eyes look more earnest now. He leans even closer to me, but not in a sensual way.

"Nothing you didn't want happened, okay? I know you don't remember and it's probably for the best that you don't, but I want you to know that I only did what you asked me to."

My face heats up at his words as I nod, and the muscles between my legs constrict. His nose perks up slightly and his eyes darken, but he pulls back from me with a small smile before I can read the new emotion behind his darkened gaze.

"Why are you here, Zeke?"

"I just wanted to thank you for last night," he bites the inside of his cheeks, then shakes his head. "With words. I wanted to thank you with words."

"Actions speak better than words, my sweet, and the actions last night said all the appreciations we need," my mind purrs and I feel more heat creep up to my face.

Thank me for what though? I want to dwell on the thought and question him about it but I'm sidetracked by the look in his eyes.

He looks curious, like he came to find something else out, and not to appreciate me like he says.

"That's not really why you're here, is it?" I take a daring step closer to him, just so I can get a closer look into his eyes. "You're not a very good liar."

He chuckles and raises his hands in the air in surrender. "Alright, you caught me. That's not really why I'm here."

"So why are you here?"

He looks at me deeply, runs a hand through his hair–his fingers stopping where his bun begins– then he sighs.

"You really don't remember anything about last night?" He asks quietly.

I shake my head.

"Not even anything we said to each other?"

"Nothing at all. Just your face...your name...and the feel of your hands on my body and that's it. But like I said, I was high so it's normal not to remember anything."

"Oh, you did say that," he muses to himself.

“Now that's clear,” I say quickly, backing up a step. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to get away before I melt into a puddle at his feet. “I have… things. Important things. To do. Very far away from here.”

He straightens, like he might follow, and I panic. “So, uh… nice meeting you. Again. Or whatever.”

Then I whirl and march off before my body can betray me further.

Honey clings to the air around me like invisible smoke. Sweet. Intoxicating. Impossible to escape.

"He’s still watching you," the voice in my head coos. "We'll see him again, Liv. Wherever the Luna goes, the Alpha follows."

“Shut up,” I hiss, walking faster and ignoring the strange analogy.

But the truth is, I can still feel him. Like heat at my back. Like every part of me is tuned to his presence. My skin tingles, my stomach flips, and deep down, I know that I'll see him again.

I want to see him again.