Chapter 315
EMILY
Axel is infuriated, and I think he must have seriously heightened senses to be able to smell Ronan on me when we barely touched for more than a few seconds.
“No one!” I yell angrily–though that anger is fed by a healthy dose of fear now that I know who Axel really is.
“Tell me the truth, Emily!” he growls menacingly.
“Fine!” I yank harder, and this time he releases me, and I stumble a step. But he crowds closer to me until I’m backed up against a tree with no means of escape.
“It was just some guy,” I lie, hoping he can’t somehow tell I’m not telling him the truth. “I tripped over on the trail up there, and he helped me up. That’s all. It was just some stranger. We barely even spoke!”
Axel stares at me, eyes hard, glittering and threatening.
I half think he’s going to run off and track down Ronan to ask him for his version of events.
However, Axel doesn’t do any of those things.
Instead, he moves back just enough to give me room to breathe.
Still, I don’t know whether he believes me, or knows I’m lying.
“Shift, now. We’re heading back to the mansion.” Somehow, his already intimidating stare becomes even more threatening. “And don’t even think about running off on me again. You won’t like the consequences.”
Part of me wants to defy him.
I wish I was brave enough–like Ronan had said–to ignore his threats, to shift and run and escape him and my brother and their stupid suffocating rules.
But I’m not that brave.
At least not today.
Because like Axel so aptly pointed out, I’m reliant upon Aaron for a roof over my head.
For my clothes and food and pretty much everything else in my life.
If I left, I would have to live in the human world, and likely be homeless.
Sure, I could petition the Council to join another pack, but that wouldn’t solve my problems.
I’d still be hiding the monster within me.
I’d still have to live in fear that someone might discover my
secret.
Or worse, that Axel might somehow find out and come for me, just like we were warned in those scary fairytales as kids.
Besides, Aaron is basically running the Council now with his status as a wolf with the power of three Alphas.
He would simply block or stop any petition I might put to the Council.
So I’m trapped.
Almost as effectively as I was living in that isolated house all those years.
Tears well up so hard and fast and I choke on them.
I won’t be weak. I won’t. Never again.
My tears have Axel’s features changing and I shove away from him and shift before I can allow myself to even contemplate what his expression might mean.
I watch as he picks up my clothes and rolls them into his own. He’s squatting, watching me. And I don’t dare let myself–my wolf self–linger on the sight or scent of him.
I run.
Hard and fast over the terrain. The scents I encounter are all
Rathborn which makes me think seeing that man Ronan was a complete oddity. We don’t traipse much near the public parks and the state preserves don’t typically see too many visitors this far out. Why was Ronan here, I wonder?
Getting back home, I don’t bother to shift until I’m inside and in my room. I’ve been gone most of the day and it’s almost dark by the time I walk back into the house.
When I find out Aaron and Leah have already packed and left for Romania, I try not to feel hurt.
Part of me knows it was my own fault I wasn’t here to say goodbye, and Aaron probably viewed it as me being petty and spiteful yet again.
Except I honestly didn’t think about it.
Aaron hadn’t told me what time the private jet had been booked to take off. And because it is our own jet, he easily could have asked to postpone for an hour or two so I could be here to say goodbye.
Instead, they simply left, and it feels like Aaron is telling me how high his regard is for me, and where I am on his life priorities.
Which is to say low to the point of not caring.
I drag on clothes and then head back into the hall because something silvery had caught my eye when I ran in.
I see a shiny new lock has been installed on the door.
One that latches on the outside and prevents me from being able to open the door and escape.
“No.”
Axel approaches. His big, hard body coming down the hall. His jeans ride low on his hips and he hasn’t taken the time to put his shirt back on.
Muscles ripple across his chest and stomach.
“Wait!” I cry, resisting as Axel pulls me into my bedroom. “Why is there a lock on my door? What are you doing?”
Once we’re inside, Axel releases me, none–too–gently, then stands between me and the door, preventing me from going right back out again.
“Believe me, Emily, this is not what we wanted for you,” Axel says in a hard voice. “But you leave us no choice. You keep running off without telling anyone, no matter that you know vampires are lurking around, waiting to strike at any weakness.”
“And in this case, I’m the weakness?” I demand, my voice hoarse as I resist the urge to start crying.
After everything–after spending ten years behind a locked door I had no control over–how could Aaron and Axel even think to
do this to me?
Don’t they know this is my absolute worst nightmare?
Being locked up, unable to get card, wanalale to pats in
on what’s
I’d rather heddend
