CHAPTER4
1130 Words
STELLA’S POV.
The bike was loud beneath us, and I clung to Jace’s body like I hated him, which, technically, I did but also like my bones would splinter if I let go.
Every curve of the mountain road was a knife waiting to cut us in half. Every scream of sirens behind us pressed closer, red and blue lights gnawing at us.
I should have been terrified. I was terrified. But my wolf wasn’t.
She purred, giddy, every time his muscles flexed under my hands. She howled every time his scent poured through my nose like oxygen. She had the audacity to croon one word over and over.
Mate. Mate. Mate.
“Are you even trying to lose them?” I shouted, my voice carried by the wind.
“Trying?” Jace’s laugh was a dark, reckless thing. He leaned into a switchback.
“Sweetheart, I’m giving you a show.”
The bastard was enjoying this. My heart was about to explode out of my ribcage, the cops were on our asses, and he was performing like this was a twisted carnival ride.
I wanted to hit him. I wanted to bite him. I wanted—
Moon help me, I wanted.
The mountain moved into curves. We flew through them, the bike tilting so low I thought gravity might finally win. But Jace rode like the laws of physics bent for him.
The cops weren’t bad. He was just better.
Still, when headlights flared ahead and I spotted the black glint of a spike strip, dread yanked my stomach to the floor.
“Jace!”
“I see it.” His voice sounded serious, no more amusement now.
The bike swerved, the world lurched, and suddenly we weren’t on the road anymore. We launched down an embankment, dirt spraying, weightless for a split second before slamming onto the dry creek bed below. My teeth snapped together. My arms locked around him out of sheer survival instinct.
“Trust me,” he growled.
“Not a chance!”
But I held tighter anyway.
The sirens sound lessened, swallowed by trees. Jace finally killed the engine and the dark swallowed us whole. The silence after the chase was deafening.
“Perfect,” he muttered, kicking the stand down.
I stumbled off the bike, yanking off the helmet. My legs shook like the ground itself was untrustworthy to hold my weight “Perfect? You nearly killed us on that curve!”
He stripped off his own helmet, hair damp with sweat, grin wide. “We didn’t die.”
“That’s your standard for perfect?”
“Works for me.” He leaned back against the bike like he had just parked for a picnic.
“You’re welcome, princess.”
Gods, I wanted to strangle him. Or kiss him. Maybe both, at once.
The bond was a live wire, sparking every nerve raw.
I walked deeper into the cave, pacing just to keep from burning up where I stood.
“This is insane,” I snapped. “I should’ve let the cops take me. My father’s going to—”
“Your father’s council would eat you alive if they knew you were here.”
I whirled on him. “You don’t know anything about me.”
His eyes caught the low light. “Don’t I?”
The way he said it made something inside me flinch. Because it didn’t sound like arrogance. It sounded like truth.
The air thickened, heavy with dust and heat, the pull of the bond. My wolf was practically rolling at his feet, shameless. My pride bristled to make up for it.
“You think this changes anything?” I said, stepping closer. “You’re still Bloodfang. You’re still everything I was raised to fight.”
“And you’re Moon Howl’s princess.” His voice dropped, softer, rougher. “Doesn’t stop my wolf from wanting to ruin packs for you.”
My pulse stuttered. My throat tightened.
Gods.
“Pretty words for a criminal.”
“Truth tastes better than the council’s lies,” he shot back, and before I could blink, he was on me.
The kiss wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t even civilized.
It was a collision—teeth, heat, a demand answered with need. His hands was to my hips, dragging me against him.
The bond burned, a wildfire ripping through everything I thought I knew. My nails scraped leather, my mouth gave as good as it got, and he laughed against my lips like he had been waiting for this war all along.
“You drive me insane,” I gasped against him.
“Good,” he growled, kissing down my jaw. “Maybe you’ll stop pretending you don’t want me.”
Want? I wanted too much. To claim, to burn, to lose myself in the one thing fate had decided to dangle in front of me. My wolf screamed yes. My senses screamed run.
I shoved him back, chest heaving. “This doesn’t change anything.”
“Doesn’t it?” His eyes glowed faint gold now, his wolf bleeding through. “Feel that? That’s not politics. That’s not pack games. That’s real. That’s us.”
And damn him, it was.
But pride dies hard.
“Then tell me,” I snapped, sharp to cover the ache in my voice. “Tell me why your wolf reeks of smoke and ash. Tell me what the hell I’m tied to.”
For the first time since I had met him, his smile cracked. His jaw worked, eyes shuttered, and when he finally spoke, his voice was raw.
“My family’s fire,” he said. “The night everything burned. Pack. Home. Bloodlines. Gone. We crawled out of the ashes with nothing but rage and a name. Bloodfang isn’t a gang, Stella. We are brothers carved from the same pain.”
The words slammed into me and I hated that my chest ached for him.
“You think tragedy makes you righteous?” I whispered.
“No.” His gaze locked on mine. “It makes me dangerous. That’s the difference you need to understand.”
The bond hummed, sharp and hungry, pulling me toward him again. My wolf wanted. My pride hesitated. My heart ached.
And then the moment was interrupted.
A gunshot ripped us apart, ricocheting off stone inches from my head. I ducked on instinct, heart lurching to my throat.
Dust rained from the stone the bullet had hit.
Jace was already moving, shoving me behind him, his wolf at the surface of coming out, I could feel it.
“Sniper,” he hissed.
The bond flared hot and sharp, urging me closer, urging me to fight. My wolf bristled.
Someone had followed us and it didn’t smell like it was the damn police.
- Writer
