A Wolf Too Close
1731 Words
"Hello, Kaela."
I nearly choked. It is a very creepy thought to get out of the shower and walk into your room only to wound up finding a man, no, a Sentinel ready to take you. Particularly when you are fresh out of the shower and all dripping wet in nothing but a towel that is far too light.
My heart went up my throat and I gripped the towel more tightly against my body. It came down to mid-thigh but when he was in the room, suddenly I felt like wearing a napkin.
"Corin?" I managed, my voice tight. "So why are you here? What the devil made you get in here?"
He was standing beside the window, with his arms folded, and the eyes of a golden-brown colour, glowing with a smouldering fire. He appeared to be annoyed like I had rudely entered his room and not vice versa.
“Have you dressed up your injuries?” he enquired roughly.
I stood staring in surprise at the question. "What?"
"Your injuries. Have you sterilized them or are you only going to allow them to fester and infect me through the mate bonding?
My fingers crawled toward a door leading to the bathroom, and I was almost ready to dart back in. “What does it mean to you?”
"Answer me."
“No. I do not feel like responding to a person who enters my room and starts to bark orders at me,” I retorted.
He rubbed his nose tip with shaking fingers, evidently being annoyed. Your crying raps at me in my mind. It is noisy and irritating. Fix it."
I narrowed my eyes. “Fix it yourself.”
He took a step forward and reached toward me. I slapped his hand away before he could make contact.
“What are you doing?” I asked, pulse pounding.
“I just want to check your injuries.”
“We’re not in the jungle anymore. This is my room. My space. And you don’t get to touch me.”
“I’ve seen you naked before,” he said, shrugging like it was no big deal.
“That was different. That was survival. This is not. And you will not touch this towel again.”
He looked at me as though I were the one being unreasonable. “I could command you to drop it and you would. You know you would.”
“You’re not in wolf form,” I replied, lifting a brow. “And even if you were, I’d resist.”
“It still works,” he said quietly. “You’ve just been keeping your wolf so tightly leashed that you don’t even feel it. But she’s there. Always.”
His voice dropped into something softer, dangerous. “Emerge.”
I felt the word more than heard it. My body trembled. My control slipped, just enough for the pressure of the bond to c***k through. Heat flushed my skin. My wolf stirred like she had been asleep under ice and suddenly melted. And then it hit, the pull.
Desire.
The bond overwhelmed me. I wanted him near. I wanted him closer. I hated it.
“You see why I came?” he asked, voice low.
“Make it stop,” I whispered, struggling to breathe, to hold onto my thoughts, to not step into his arms.
“It’s stronger for you because you bury your wolf. Why do you do that?” His expression softened, if only slightly. “You’re supposed to live with her, not imprison her.”
“I don’t, just stop it. Get out.”
“Not until I check your wounds. Did you use alcohol?”
Again he shifted, and I endeavored to force him aside, but my muscles were too slow to act. His hand touched the end of my towel and I became motionless. I drew a tightening breath as he drew me to him, more infuriatingly gentle.
He turned to look at me, his eyes stuck unblinkingly to mine and he spoke in a voice that I could hardly hear. “I do not even know what I will do when this towel comes off.”
“Then don’t take it off,” I breathed, though part of me whispered otherwise.
“Recede,” he said.
My wolf obeyed instantly, retreating to the dark place I kept her locked in. With her went the warmth, the urge, the bond's fire.
I gasped, free again, and shoved him away hard. “Get out of my room.”
“Attend to the injuries,” he said, “or I shall come again,” he added and ran off through the window, before I could reply.
That was the way he managed to get in. No door. Nothing addressed to the folks. Nothing but brute power and the pride of a future Alpha.
I plopped down with force, breathing in deeply as if I had just been rescued from drowning. The pulsing discomfort in my ribs had receded into the background. The mate bond. It overwhelmed everything.
But I wasn’t ready to think about Corin, about us. I could not allow that sort of messiness.
My window was locked securely and I unwrapped the towel and ripped away the old bandages. I got my claw-marks on my belly and neck disinfected, hissing out between my teeth, and put on new dressings, and crawled into a comfortable set of pajamas.
I’d just sat down when a knock came at the door.
“Come in.”
Lincoln peeked his head in. “I heard you come home.”
His voice was neutral, but the weight behind it wasn’t.
“So… you know?”
“What part? That you joined the Trial when you promised me you wouldn’t, or that you got hurt doing it?” He glanced pointedly at the bloodied wrappings in the trash bin.
I patted the bed beside me. He came in, sighing as he sat down.
“I had to try,” I said quietly. “For Mom.”
“Did you win?”
“No.”
He crossed his arms. “So you got hurt and failed. Sounds worth it.”
The look on his face cut deeper than the rogue’s claws had.
“I had to try, Linc. Someone has to set things right.”
“No one asked you to. And maybe I don’t care that the others hate us. Maybe I like being on my own.”
“I care,” I said. “I care that they bully you. I see how they look at you. I won’t let it continue.”
“It’s not your job to protect me.”
“Well, Dad’s too busy hating Alpha Therros, and Mom’s too busy pretending she still has a mate. So yes, it is.”
A knock interrupted us, followed by the door swinging open. Melissa burst in, hair wild, eyes wide.
"What happened? They said you came back bleeding! No one knows the full story and we’ve been freaking out."
Devon followed her, more composed but with tension written all over his face.
Lincoln slid off the bed silently and gave me a look. We’ll talk later. He always knew when to give me space.
“Are you okay?” Devon asked, coming to stand beside me.
“What happened?” Melissa demanded again, sitting on the edge of my bed.
I tried deflection. “Who let you guys in? Mom or Dad?”
“Your mom,” Melissa snapped. “Now answer our question.”
I hesitated. If I told them the truth, it would mean bringing Corin into it. And while he hadn’t used his Alpha command, his words had carried enough weight. Telling others could lead to punishment. Or worse.
“Why do you smell like Corin?” Devon suddenly asked. His voice was low, but deadly. “If he hurt you, I’ll—”
“He didn’t,” I said quickly, catching his hand before he could ball it into a fist. “He didn’t hurt me. He’s… he’s my mate.”
Silence.
Dead, frozen silence.
Melissa's mouth dropped open. Devon blinked like I had just spoken a foreign language.
“Corin Therros is your mate?” Melissa finally said. “That can’t be right. Shouldn’t you have known since you were sixteen?”
“I will keep my wolf suppressed,” I said. “Always have. She only surfaced during the fight with the rogue.”
Melissa’s voice dropped. “Wait. That’s how you got hurt? A rogue?”
I nodded. “It attacked me during the Hunt. Massive. Twice my size. I held my wolf back too long and nearly died. She took over. That’s when Corin found me.”
“Found you or felt you?” Devon asked, his voice sharpening.
“He felt me,” I admitted. “And then he saved me. And… rejected me.”
Another silence fell, this one heavier.
“What?” Melissa breathed. “He rejected you?”
“Said he couldn’t take me as Luna.”
She opened her mouth and shut it. She held me to a hard embrace.
“I will cut him open the very first time we meet,” she said.
“It is all right,” I said with a cracking voice. “He never wanted me anyway.”
“I’m sorry this happened,” Devon said stiffly.
I sat back, staring at nothing. The pain inside was dull, but constant. I couldn’t cry. I wouldn’t.
But as Melissa hugged me and Devon sat quietly beside me, a strange thought occurred.
If I was his mate, and if I could make him accept it, I could restore everything. The mate of the Sentinel, future Alpha or even the Luna herself, was untouchable. Her family, too. Pack law.
It would solve everything. But Corin Therros didn’t want me. Still, I’d do anything for Lincoln. Even this.
The next morning, I was up early and near the training grounds. Not in them, of course no one there wanted me around, but I still needed to train. If the plan to win Corin over failed, which honestly seemed likely, then I would need to rely on the next Trial. The Verdant Boon remained my best chance at restoring my mother’s name, and I had to be ready for it.
- Writer
