Chapter 8
1072 Words
I stood by the window mug warming my hands watching the world outside disappear inch by inch. Snow fell relentlessly now thick, blinding sheets of white swallowing the trees, the path, the road I’d come in on. There was no horizon anymore just endless white snow. The wind slammed into the cabin walls hard enough to make the old wood groan. Behind me, I sensed him before I heard him.
Rhage stopped a few feet away gaze fixed on the same scene. He didn’t speak immediately just stood there, broad frame blocking what little light filtered into the room.
“This isn’t easing” he said finally.
I hugged the mug closer to my chest.
“It looks worse.”
“It is worse.”
That single sentence made my stomach drop.
He moved closer to the window, eyes sharp, assessing, calculating risk, danger, survival. I watched him from the corner of my eye ,the way his jaw tightened, the subtle shift in his stance like he was bracing for something unseen.
“How long?” I asked quietly.
“At least three days.”
“The roads are buried, phones, dead zone.”
I wrapped my hands tightly around the mug as I felt him walking away, my mind still trying to makeup how I got in this situation.
We exchanged only a few words that morning. About the storm, the firewood, rationing heat, then I avoided him. Not dramatically or obviously. I just didn’t look at him, didn’t linger much where he occupied, didn’t meet his gaze when he passed too close. I kept my distance with the quiet determination of someone holding a fragile line together with bare hands. But It didn’t help.
I felt him anyway.
Every time he moved through the cabin, something inside me reacted, my skin stayed too warm, nerves too alert and beneath it all, Asha “my wolf” stirred.
“You’re running” she observed calmly.
“I’m protecting myself,” I replied back in my head already getting used to her presence in my life. I sat near the window in the sitting room wrapped in one of the oversized hoodies, knees drawn up while he’s napping in the room.
“From what?” Asha continued.
I closed my eyes.
“From him.”
“From the way his presence pressed against mine like gravity from the way my body betrayed me, heat pooling low, irritation buzzing through my veins, anger that didn’t belong to reason. I don’t like this.” I whispered.
“I don’t like how I feel.”
Asha shifted closer, her presence no longer foreign, no longer tentative. She felt, old and and familiar like muscle memory.
“You are bonded.” she said.
“That doesn’t make sense you said he isn’t my mate.”
“He isn’t.”
“Then why does it hurt?” My throat tightened.
“Why am I angry? Why do I feel—” I broke off, shame curling in my stomach.
“Why do I feel like this?”
“Like my skin was too tight, like I want to snap or scream or shove him away or pull him closer just to see what would happen.” I whispered internally
“Because bonds are not always mates.”Asha replied quietly.
“And some connections exist to test restraint.”
“That’s cruel.”
“Yes.”
I swallowed nails digging into my palm.
“I feel like I’m losing control.”
“You are not.” she soothed.
“But he is struggling.”
That made my head snap up.
“What do you mean?”
Asha didn’t answer immediately. Her silence stretched, very heavy and uneasy.
His wolf is pushing, he wants to claim you.
I exhaled sharply.
“Ares.”
“Yes.”
The name alone sent a ripple through me something so dark and territorial brushing against the edges of my senses.
“He needs to stop.” I said bitterly.
“I didn’t ask for this.”
“Neither did he.” Asha said.
“But he is resisting.”
That didn’t comfort me.
It made me angrier.
The irritation kept building throughout the day, restless, sharp and irrational. Every sound grated, every thought circled back to him, to the way he looked this morning, to how calm he pretended to be while something feral simmered beneath the surface.
I felt pathetic.
A grown woman reduced to instincts I didn’t understand, reacting like a wolf in heat when I wasn’t even claimed.
“I hate this.” I muttered.
“You hate not knowing what you are to him.” Asha corrected gently.
By then he was awake and behind me pacing around while I sat there pretending to be interested in nothing, the empty mug, the blank tv, the faint c***k in the wall, anything but the man pacing behind me like a caged predator.
“You keep hovering.” I finally said, unable to take it anymore. His pacing stopped.
“I’m not.” He replied calmly.
I turned facing him now.
“You are.”
His gaze met mine, steady and unreadable.
“You’re imagining it.”
That did it.
I let out a sharp laugh.
“Right! I’m imagining the way you’ve been watching me since morning? I’m imagining the way the air changes every time you walk into a room?”
Then silence fell but not the awkward kind.
He exhaled slowly through his nose, like he was counting backward inside his head.
“You shouldn’t be paying attention to me at all.”
“Then stop giving me reasons to.” I shot back.
“I’m trying to keep this controlled.” he said quietly.
“This?” I asked.
“What exactly is this?”
He didn’t answer and it hurt more than it should have.
“I didn’t ask for this,” I continued voice lower now.
“I didn’t ask to feel-” I stopped myself jaw tightening.
He took one step closer.
“Finish that sentence”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Liana.”
“Don’t.” I warned standing and backing away from him.
“Don’t say my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it belongs in your mouth.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
For one heartbeat his control fractured.
- Writer
