Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 454(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 454(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Madisyn would like it here, he thought. She wouldn’t spoil the solitude; she’d share it with him.
His home had been a guest lodge up until four months ago. Before that, he’d lived in a smaller one that was situated in the middle of pack territory. As he’d sat inside those walls, drowning in rage and grief, he’d grown to hate the place. Sitting on his old porch overlooking the empty field hadn’t helped because it had mirrored exactly what he’d felt back then: empty.
It had been Shaya’s idea for Bracken to move to a different lodge, where he wouldn’t be surrounded by walls that were stained with grief. The change of scenery had helped a lot more than he’d expected. He hadn’t realized how much he’d dreaded going home until that place was no longer his home.
This lodge felt . . . clean. Fresh. Serene. Untainted.
It was also one of the most isolated of all the lodges, so he had all the privacy and space he needed. His pack still turned up whenever they felt like it, but not so often because it was such a trek for them.
Despite what Jesse believed, it wasn’t so bad for Bracken to have space from the pack. Not when they insisted on watching him so closely . . . as if he were a ticking time bomb. He understood it, since rationality wasn’t exactly his strong point these days. But he would never be better, and they just didn’t get it. He could still have a life, sure, and he might even find peace one day, but his soul would never get rid of that black stain. He hated that, because it meant going to Madisyn with that stain.
He wouldn’t have to worry about her trying to fix him, though. Not Madisyn. His pack mates, however, seemed to think they could bring back the old Bracken. That person had died with his family. He wasn’t coming back. Until they accepted it as Bracken had, he couldn’t feel the same ease in the pack that he once had. But he was no longer interested in roaming. His only interest was Madisyn.
Feeling restless, he thought about going for a run in his wolf form. The beast sniffed at the idea, too busy brooding. All his wolf wanted was to hunt down their mate. He was angry at Bracken for leaving her last night. It hadn’t been easy. The farther he’d driven from her house, the tenser and surlier Bracken had become. And the longer he’d stayed away, the more his stomach had twisted in knots.
He hadn’t been exaggerating when he warned her how much he’d hate being away from her. The only reason he wasn’t pacing restlessly was that the time that he planned to go see her was fast approaching. There was only so much space he could give her.
As he’d told her, he’d been heading on a downward spiral for a while. He hadn’t felt real most of the time. He’d felt more like an echo of a person. A person without hope or purpose. That had changed overnight, and it was drugging to once again feel those things. It had been so long since he’d craved something other than revenge. So long since he’d felt anything as intense as the possessiveness he’d experienced while gripping Madisyn’s skin between his teeth—and that was before he’d even realized she was his mate.
If he hadn’t felt the pull of the bond last night, he still would have made the decision to pursue her. Especially since the sort-of-friends lens he’d seen her through had fallen away the moment he thrust his tongue into her mouth. He hadn’t meant for things to go that far last night. He hadn’t meant to do anything other than pet the pain out of her. Somehow, he’d ended up with his fingers buried in her pussy and his teeth gripping her flesh so hard he tasted blood. If his phone hadn’t rung, snapping them out of the moment, he’d have fucked her right up against that wall.
Bracken suspected she’d find it hard to believe that he would have pursued her regardless of the mating bond. She hadn’t been wrong in the things she’d said. She wasn’t his type. She hadn’t been on his radar. And if it weren’t for the touch-hunger, their encounter wouldn’t have happened. At least not then.
However, she was missing something. Missing that he could have eased her pain and discomfort just by petting her. Things hadn’t gone so far because of the touch-hunger; they’d gone so far because a sexual chemistry he hadn’t previously acknowledged had sent them both nuclear. And maybe that would have happened sooner or later. He’d like to think so, because it was far too sad to think that he could have lived so close to his mate yet remained so utterly clueless about who she was to him.