His glower intensified as he stared down at her. Hope could feel the heat pouring out of him. "And you never once mentioned your friends."
Guilt reared up and gave her another sucker punch to the gut. "That's not fair."
"Maybe not," Maddox said before turning away from her and heading toward the trees again. "But not many things are."
Hope threw up her hands. Was he really just going to walk away from this? "Where are you going?" she demanded.
"You want dinner? That means I need to hunt," he answered. "So go back to the house. And stay inside and stay quiet until I get back."
Chapter Ten
Maddox drew in a slow, even breath as he drew the arrow back in his bow. The fletching feathers brushed against his chin as the string pulled taut. The muscles in his back and arms stayed coiled and ready while his stance remained relaxed.
Then he waited.
It didn't take long for the deer's pale brown flank to appear from behind the towering redwood. When it did, Maddox was ready. He slipped his finger back from the string, and the arrow flew, burying itself deep into the animal's heart.
The deer fell dead instantly and painlessly. Now Maddox had another week's worth of meat.
He slung the creature's lifeless body over his shoulders and started on the long walk back home.
Usually, Maddox didn't travel out this far on his land to hunt, but today he'd had no choice. Hope had made enough noise tromping around to spook every pheasant, rabbit, and deer for miles.
Okay, maybe that wasn't exactly true. Her clumsy footfalls had only sent a handful of creatures running, but Maddox still figured it was safest to put some distance between them.
Safer for the hunt. Safer for her.
Safer for him.
Maddox would never admit that he'd run away from Hope. He'd never run from anything in his life. But he needed a little space and time to himself to think.
So far, it hadn't helped a damn bit.
Just like five days straight of knotting hadn't cooled his blood.
And it never would, Maddox realized. There was no distance great enough, no amount of come he could spill inside her, no number of days that could pass that would change how much he needed her.
And it was driving him crazy. Rage had ignited inside him the instant he'd seen her sneaking down the path. The thought that she could leave him, even for just an afternoon, sent him spiraling.
As if his life hadn't been thrown off-kilter enough already, now Hope wanted him to drive her all the way to Evander's just so she could tell the cops about some dead betas. Fine. But he'd do it on his schedule. Not hers.
He was already behind on so many tasks because she'd stolen ten days from him. Ten days he couldn't spare before the autumn gave way to winter. There was game to hunt and to dress, fish to smoke, traps to prepare. There was wood to chop and leather to tan.
Now Maddox was working twice as hard just to catch up, all the while tamping down the urge to rush back to the house and wrap his arms around Hope. Lift her against the wall. Sink deep into the sweet heat of her body.
Fuck.
Maddox stopped for a moment to adjust the deer's carcass before continuing to trudge through the forest.
Just like every other alpha, he'd been better off on his own. No amount of knotting was worth this kind of distraction.
Nothing drove the point home more than coming through the tree line in front of his cabin and seeing boxes of stuff—his stuff—sitting out on the porch.
Maddox muttered a curse and let the carcass fall to the ground before storming through the open door. He found Hope kneeling on the floor with her back to him. Her hair was tied back with a strip of ripped cloth, and her hands moved over even more piles of stuff—clothes, tools, kitchen utensils.
"What the fuck is going on now?"
Hope didn't flinch. "What does it look like?" she asked without bothering to look up.
"Like you trashed the place."
Maddox ought to know. His father used to do it all the time when he was a kid. Maddox would come home from school to find the house in shambles, with all kinds of crap either broken or hauled off to the pawnshop.
But this wasn't the same. For one thing, he didn't detect even a whiff of anger in the air. Only annoyance and a hell of a lot of frustration.
"That's just because you came back before I was done," Hope said, still stubbornly refusing to look at him. "I'm actually trying to fix the place up."
"Fix it?" Maddox snarled. "It was fine when I left this morning."
Finally, she shot him a look over her shoulder. "Well, it's better now."
Maddox grumbled some more, but Hope just rolled her eyes and got back to work.
What the hell?
The way Maddox understood it, omegas were supposed to be subservient, submissive, docile…not dismissive pains in the ass.
He suddenly remembered the way Gail had spoken to Randall when Maddox showed up with Hope. How she'd prevented him from following his instincts and killing Maddox.
Maddox remembered thinking that he'd never allow a woman to scold him like that. But it seemed like Hope was headed down the same road.
He wasn't going to put up with it.
"Put all this stuff back," he told her.
"I will," Hope said. "Once I'm done cleaning it all off."
"Whatever it is, it's clean enough," he said.
Hope's hand's stilled. Slowly, she stood up and faced him, holding an old pair of his boots in his hands. They were still caked with dried mud from early summer storms.
"Really?" she said, arching a brow. "These are filthy."
"They don't bother me," Maddox said with a shrug. As long as the inside of the boots were clean and dry, what the fuck did he care about the outside?
"Well, they bug the hell out of me," Hope shot back. She took the boots
