“Mating thing? So this animal is making me crazy too?”
“Uh.”
“Just don’t. You know what. I didn’t assume you were some virgin, but a little girl? That’s a huge thing. Like super huge. And that fact also means I have to compete against her mother too? I’m only now figuring out what it means to let myself love you. I don’t even know what being a wolf means, and now I have to tread water into a murky disaster of a baby-mama? Was she your first love? High school sweetheart?”
Ethan glanced around as the air dropped ten degrees. This was a fucking disaster. He stared at the ice forming on the window and back at Olivia. Her eyes no longer human, the wolf had taken over. Maybe that would push aside the emotions. Of course, the territorial issue might be worse.
“I never loved her.” He paused as steam trailed his words. He shivered. “I couldn’t love her because she wasn’t you. She wasn’t my mate. I tried to make it work because it would have solved some shitty pack issues.”
Her body began to tremble. Shit.
“I’m never anyone’s choice, am I? I was just some easy lay that you happen to be stuck with. I can’t do this. I can’t.”
Her hands fumbled with the door, pushing it open just as he saw the change take her.
“Shit. Olivia. Stop. You are my choice. You can’t run from this.”
A guttural growl hit him as her clothes ripped and tore, a bit of shirt still clinging to her flank.
“Shit. Olivia. Don’t run.” He threw the truck into park and jumped out. Without a thought he ran after her, shifting mid-sprint. He sniffed the air, but something about her was different. She was everywhere yet nowhere. The air was colder than it should have been at the brink of fall, summer still trying to hold on.
His wolf cried out, a howl that would alert the pack.
He would find her, and he would explain. His daughter was no mistake, even though the mother was.
He paced back and forth unable to grab her scent. Shit. That damn pack. He’d thought that he could force a mating. He’d been a young dumb kid. But if he’d mated the Alpha of the Ashburn pack’s eldest daughter, it would have solved the war issue. Or at least he’d thought it would. He’d been wrong. And now this.
Olivia would understand once she calmed down. Once she learned to control herself, the shift, the emotions. All Ethan had ever wanted was for both packs to coexist.
He paced, waiting for the others to arrive. If only he could have told Olivia that the woman she was suddenly so jealous over had used him. She’d used him so she could find a way out.
Olivia. He called out to her in his head. Nothing. The connection should be stronger in wolf form. He’d heard her so clearly in the truck. Sharp pain shot through him. She’d left. The one woman he loved more than his own life just left him. He knew the pain of betrayal. This time though, he wouldn’t be able to recover. He had to stand strong for his daughter and her freedom, but the pain ripping through him took every ounce of his energy. He was the only reason his daughter was safe. He had to remain strong. He had to remain alpha. To do that, he needed to stay strong.
Echoes of his pack coming came to him. His pack was close.
All this would be over soon. They would find her.
He still remembered the day Amelia was brought to him. The Ashburn Pack had created a procession along the tree-line between their lands. Pack law ignored and what followed there were no protocols for. Right now, Ethan tried to pull the strength he’d had that day. He’d been ready for a fight, yet no duel was presented. One didn’t need to.
Ethan had barely grieved the loss of his father, the loss of his hope for a truce, and here they were waiting for him. He’d commanded the packs to remain separated until he’d been able to work out the logistics. He’d kept both packs in check, but at some point when Heather had run off and later returned only for him to realize she didn’t want to be with him, it was all too late for anything.
The reality was that she was the reason for the duel that killed his father. She’d created some kind of game, and he’d been the pawn, only she’d never seen him coming.
He’d risen to the occasion and challenged their alpha and won. The bitterness replaced now by the worry he had for Olivia.
The confusion of the moment now so close to the mess then. He paced more, stepping between the trees only to come back and wait for his brothers. Odd how this moment might end up so close to then.
He’d remembered his brothers flanking him as they’d approached the Ashburns. Anger laced the air that night. He still couldn’t forget the scent of Amelia as she was presented to him. Gianna, a younger member of the Ashburns, had come forward around the front lines. Ethan hadn’t expected her, not when it appeared to be a battleground.
Instead of the pack attacking, she walked forward and passed over a baby. He’d never forget her words.
“Heather’s gone. This is your daughter. I’d sleep with one eye open from now on if I were you.” She’d ducked away fast and ran back to hide. Kurt, the asshole who had always believed Heather was his, that being the Alpha was his birthright, approached.
The words spoken next had surprised him. “That child for my pack. You back the fuck off, and you keep it. You break the truce, and I will break you.”
He hadn’t broken the truce, but now that he’d found his mate, Kurt was bound to try something. Olivia had just given him his opportunity. Ethan sniffed the air again, the memory of the past faded but the
