TWO
ONE YEAR LATER
“You’re really still runningfrom him?” Del asked. She sounded somewhere between amused and tired.
“Of course I am,” I shot back, though my voice sounded just as tired to me as hers did. “I told you, I don’t want a soulmate.”
“Did you read the mate manual yet?”
“If I wanted to jump ass-first onto a werewolf’s cock, I would read the damn mate manual,” I growled back.
She snorted. “Gross, Jay.”
“I know. I’m grumpy, sorry.” I ran a hand over my greasy hair. It needed a wash a week ago—now it was nearing homeless-status. “I need sleep.” I glanced in my rearview mirror, at the wolf running behind me as steadily as always.
How he could run as fast as I could drive was beyond me—and it really pissed me off. Even if I did get a little ahead of him, he would catch up when I inevitably stopped to sleep on the mattress in the back of my truck, and then he’d sit outside all night, like some kind of guard dog.
“Stop running, then,” Del countered.
“Like hell I will.”
I wasn’t sure I had that setting in me. The “stop running” setting. I’d been traveling for so many years that I didn’t know if it was possible to stop.
And if I did, the werewolf would bite me, turn me into one of them, and change back into the huge-ass man who would only end up hurting me just as much as every other man in my life had.
She laughed. “Alright, suit yourself. Be safe, though. I’ve got to go, but I love you, crazy Jay.”
“I love you too,” I grumbled back.
We hung up and I leaned back against my seat, glancing in my rearview mirror for the thousandth time.
I…
Couldn’t do this.
Not anymore.
I was exhausted, and sad, and hungry…
And tired.
So tired, in so many ways.
Plus, Del was nearly done with her pregnancy, and I’d missed all of it. She was the closest thing I had to a sister, or any family at all, and she’d gotten pregnant quickly—which was apparently an absolute miracle in the world of werewolves—and she was about to have a fucking baby.
And I wasn’t there.
I hadn’t been there.
My eyes stung, and I wiped at them angrily.
I was so damn tired.
I didn’t want the asshole soulmate who would undoubtedly make my life a living hell once again.
I didn’t want to lose myself any more than I already had.
But Del was the only family I had. She stuck with me even when I was flighty, and bitchy, and shitty, and just laughed when I told her she’d be better off without me. She was my anchor to everything, and… I didn’t want to miss any more of her life.
Especially not when she had a baby. Missing that would be unforgivable.
So, with one last glance at the wolf in my rearview mirror, I wiped at my watering eyes again and said, “Fine, you win.”
Turning my truck’s wheel sharply, I sped back toward Moon Ridge—back toward the wolfy bastard’s home.
It was time to face the asshole who’d decided I was his soulmate.