Moonlight Prowl

Chapter Seventeen: In too deep

Marcus POV

The phone screen dimmed in his hand, the last glow of Evelyn’s name fading into darkness. Marcus sat there for a long moment, motionless on the edge of the cheap motel bed, his thumb hovering over the black screen as if by sheer will he could pull her voice back into the room.

The silence afterward felt heavier than it should.

He blew out a sharp breath, scrubbing a hand over his face before tossing the phone onto the sagging nightstand. The light buzz of the neon sign outside bled through the thin curtains, painting the cracked wallpaper in a lurid red glow. A motel that smelled faintly of bleach and mildew — that was all he could afford these days. His life had been reduced to stale air, cheap mattresses, and shadows that clung like regrets.

And yet her voice had made it all.. tolerable.

“s**t,” Marcus muttered, leaning back against the headboard, the springs creaking in protest. “You’re in deep already.”

“Already?” A voice in the back of his mind said as he smirked at himself.

He’d barely known Evelyn more than a handful of days. A few stolen conversations, endless texting, a night of fire and heat that had left his chest hollow when she was gone. That was all. And yet — she was in his head like she’d been there forever.

“Or maybe it’s not just your head, came the low hiss,” as Marcus let his eyes slide shut. Purus - The jaguar stirred in the back of his mind, that dark and sleek presence pressing against the walls of his consciousness.

“She’s different,” Marcus admitted out loud to the empty room. His voice was rough, barely audible over the buzz of the neon. “You felt it too.”

His jaguar prowled closer in his mind, a ripple of golden eyes and muscle. “She is our internal flame. Yes, she could be, a goddess made just for us.”

Marcus’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding together. He didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to give shape to that impossible thought that he had practically given up on years ago.

“Don’t,” Marcus hissed. “Don’t say it.”

“Fated mate?,” Purus hissed back.

The word cut through him like a blade, and his fists curled against the thin sheets.

He wanted to believe it. God, he wanted to believe that Evelyn could be the one, the mate written into his blood long before he’d taken his first breath. That the pull he felt toward her wasn’t just loneliness, or lust, or some desperate attempt to claw at meaning in a life that had lost all of it. But he knew better, since he was banished the bond that he should feel when he were to meet his mate was gone. It was his punishment for being banished.

“One we didn’t deserve!” roared Purus. We didn’t kill mother and sister. We wanted to save them!

Marcus dragged in a sharp breath and shoved up from the bed, pacing the length of the room. Two strides, then the wall. Two strides back. A cage, that was what it was — this room, this life. And worse, the emptiness inside him.

When King Theron had spoken the words of exile, Marcus had felt it tear through him like claws raking across his soul. The connection to his realm, to the bond, to his people — ripped out of him. He remembered falling to his knees, his voice raw from the scream that had torn from his chest. Half of him had died that day, the half that could sense destiny, the half that could tell if the gods had chosen someone for him.

And now, when Evelyn’s scent lingered in his head like wildflowers and rain, when Purus prowled and growled that she meant something — Marcus had nothing. No bond, no instinct, no divine whisper. Just longing. Just pain.

He stopped in the middle of the room, his fists hanging at his sides, his breath harsh.

“Tell me I’m crazy,” Marcus muttered to Purus, his voice rough. “Tell me it’s just me wanting something I can’t have.”

The jaguar’s presence pressed harder, golden eyes gleaming from the shadows of his mind. “She is light in the dark. You are not wrong to want. But.. we are broken, Marcus. That is the truth.”

Marcus barked a laugh that had no humor. “Yeah. Broken. That’s one word for it.”

He slumped back onto the bed, dragging a hand over his hair. The ceiling above him was cracked and yellowed with water stains, but in his mind he saw Evelyn’s beautiful face instead — her smile when she teased, her voice warm through the phone. The memory of her skin against his, full of fire and softness.

He wondered what she would think if she knew the truth of him. That he was a man stripped of half his soul. That he was living out of motels, chasing shadows, drowning in ghosts. Would she still look at him like she had that night? Or would she see what the rest of the world did — an exile, a threat, a man with nothing left to lose?

His throat tightened, and he shoved the thought away.

“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered, more to himself than to Purus. “I’m not the kind of man who gets to keep something like her. Not anymore.”

But even as he said it, he knew he was lying. Because deep down, some desperate part of him still wanted to believe in fate. Still wanted to believe that Evelyn wasn’t just a cruel trick of longing.

Silence pressed in again, heavy and close. Marcus reached for the flask tucked into his duffel by the bed, but his hand stopped halfway. No. Not tonight. Evelyn’s voice was still in his ears, still fresh, and he didn’t want to drown it out with whiskey.

Instead, he leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, and let the jaguar curl tighter inside him. Purus didn’t purr — not really — but the low rumble of his presence was steady, grounding.

Marcus whispered into the empty room, the words torn from somewhere he didn’t want to admit still existed.

“I think I’m already in love with her.”

The admission hit him harder than the whiskey ever could.