Marked By Him

Chapter 10

“Remember what I told you, okay? Don’t say anything, unless I say so. And stick to my side,” Mace says. “Do you understand?”

I swallow thickly, and then slowly nod.

“Use your words, Little Angel.”

“Yes. Yes, I understand,” I say quietly, and he doesn’t seem to have heard me, or I think he didn’t.

Then he says, “Hey, look at me.”

I just can’t tear my eyes away from the seven black-furred werewolves. There’s so many of them. Why is there so many of them?

“Little Angel, look at me.”

My breathing comes out in short breathes, and I clench my hands into fists, my nails digging into my palms. I can’t – I can’t breathe.

“Hey, hey, Little Angel.” Mace turns my face by my chin to face him. He cups my face in his callused hands and his amber eyes stare into my brown eyes, searching. “You’re okay. I want you to breathe in and out, slowly. You think you can do that for me, Little Angel?”

I can do that, I want to say to him, but there’s something stuck in my throat, chocking the air out to me.

Breathe, Rue. Breathe.

“Little Angel? Do you hear me?”

Everything starts spinning like a merry-go-round. I squeeze my eyes shut to make the dizziness stop. It doesn’t. Instead, I get dizzier and dizzier, until I feel like I’ll pass out. I clench my fists harder, my nails piercing the skin of my palms. The stinging pain feels comforting, somehow.

“f**k,” Mace curses under his breath, or I think he curses. “Baby, I need you to listen to me. Can you do that?”

I nod.

“Okay, good. Breathe in.” I do as he says and breathe in. “Breathe out” I breathe out. “Breathe in again.” I breathe in. “And breathe out again.” I breathe out. “That was so good, Little Angel. Do you feel better now?”

I do. I can breathe again. “Yeah,” I manage to say.

“They won’t do anything to you, okay? I’m here.” He strokes my cheeks so delicately like I’m made of glass. “I’m here, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good,” he says. He takes my fisted hands and uncurls them. Then he brings my hand up to his mouth, his tongue poking out to lick at the cuts my nails made. I shiver. He does the same to the other hand. And then I watch in awe as the cuts heal. I remember reading somewhere that werewolf saliva has healing properties. Interesting. His thumbs caress my palms. “Good?”

“Good.”

Behind me, outside the car, I hear growling. I flinch. Mace’s face darkens, angry. He lets go of my hands. “Stay here.” And then he’s out of the car, slamming the door shut with so much force that I feel the car shake.

Outside, Mace shouts, “What the f**k do you think you’re doing? You are scaring her! Shift!”

I watch wide-eyed as the werewolves, one by one, shift into their human forms—the fur disappears to reveal skin, claws turn into fingernails and bones snap into place. Four men and three women stand stark naked. I can’t help but think: Was Mace naked the night of the party when he shifted? He must have been. I had been too scared to notice if he had on clothes or not.

Mace says something to them that I can’t hear. All of them look at… me when he’s done talking, and then they turn around, leaving.

Mace opens the door. “Remember to stick by my side, okay?”

I nod.

He offers his hand. I take it and climb out the car. He doesn’t take his hand back when I’m out of the car, instead we walk like that: hand in hand.

We walk along a dirt trail. Out here, in the woods, I breathe in the earthy smell—and Mace’s scent. It smells like heaven. Birds sing. During the day, the woods are vibrant—so serenely beautiful.

“Does it hurt?”

Mace raises his brow, the one with the scar. “What?” he asks.

“I mean, when you shift. It looks really painful,” I say.

“It does hurt.” He squeezes my hand. “But I’ve – we’ve gotten used to it.”

If—and that’s a big fat if—I mate to Mace, then that means he will have to turn to me into a werewolf and that equals to me shifting every full moon. All that pain – it is not something I want to endure; it is something I don’t think I can endure.

Mace must see the worry on my face—or he must feel it through the mark—because he says, “You don’t have to worry about it. You’ll get used to it too.”

That’s not very reassuring. “I’m sure I will.”

We fall silent.

Fallen leaves crunch under our feet. Twigs snap. In the distance, the barrage of a waterfall fills my ears. I close my eyes, tip my head back slightly to bask in the warmth of the sun, a smile on my face.

Peace – I get lost in it.

And for a second, I forget. I forget about everything that’s happened in the past few days.

I just… forget.

Suddenly, I’m not in the woods anymore. I’m far away—home. I’m with Ma. It’s a hot Summer’s day and Ma is sitting on the bed and I’m on the floor, cross-legged. She’s braiding my hair, singing, smiling down at me.

That’s what peace feels like. It—

“It feels nice, doesn’t it?”

I snap out of my reverie. “W-what?”

“Being out here. It’s always so peaceful, so beautiful,” he says.

“Yeah.” I smile. “I wish I could stay here, away from everything.”

“You can,” he says.

What he doesn’t say is: I can stay here if I mate with him and become a part of his pack.

“Why don’t you live with your pack?” I ask, shifting the conversation away from me.

“I do live with them.”

“But the house…” I trail off. Oh. “You’re not living with them now because of me?”

“I have to protect you. This is the first place he would look for you.”

He? Who is ‘he’? “Who wants to hurt me, Mace?”

There’s a pause. I bite the inside of my cheek, dreading the answer. Suddenly, I don’t want to know anymore. But Mace answers before I can stop him:

“It’s the man who killed your parents.”