Filed To Story: Traded To The Lycan King Novel (Colette & Merikh) by MG Wattsons
We drive in silence, fighting the urge to look in the rearview mirror as the mate bond stretches. If I look back and see her, there is no way in hell Iwill leave the way she wants me to. This is what she is asking for. She is asking for me to be broken so she can find her way to feel whole.
In retrospect, it’s not a terrible thing to ask of me, it’s something I want to give her. But f*ck if it doesn’t hurt my heart and ego. I can feel her emotions slowly draining from my head until we pull out of the mansion grounds and she is gone from me completely. My mark burns before it dulls to a throbbing, and I place my hand over it.
“Plan on filling me in, brother?” Hayes asks, and I look out the window.
“Not really,” I admit..
“How about you tell me, anyway?” He says, and I roll my eyes.
“Not much to tell, Colette wanted to go with Caspian and learn what her skills are.” I shrug.
“Mmhmm, and you seem super thrilled about it.” He teases.
“Aren’t you the clairvoyant one?” I grumble in annoyance.
“Did you guys at least discuss it?” He asks, seeing right f*cking through me. I hate when he does that shit. I glare at him and he chuckles, shaking his head. “You idiot.”
“Careful, I’m your alpha.” I grumble.
“You are my brother first. And you are an idiot. I bet you tried to strong arm her into coming home by deciding for her and knowing Colette she got mad and decided she was going to do it I don’t respond. I look out the window instead, watching the trees blow by as he speeds down the paved road.
“I am proud of you, Merikh.” He then murmurs. I turn to look at him, my brows knitting together.
“For what?” I ask.
“I mean, she isn’t tied her up and locked in the back of the SUV. You let her go, and you are trusting her to come back when she is ready” He says and I move uncomfortably in the leather seat.
“Yeah, well, I was da*n close to doing just that,” I mutter, and Hayes laughs again.
“She will be safer with Caspian,” He reminds me.
“That’s the only thing keeping me sane.”
“Colette “How far ahead of us do you think they are?” Penny asks, tugging the bag further up on her shoulder.
I pause, looking through the trees at the trail Ezrah said Caspian took on his journey to the ocean. Truthfully, I don’t know how fast Caspian can travel by foot on land. There is no doubt he is fast in the water, but here, on land? He should be slower moving, right?
“They can’t be more than half an hour to forty–five minutes ahead of us.” I assure her without actually knowing “Good,” she says, looking around warily. “These woods are giving me a bad feeling.”
I look where her eyes are, seeing nothing and feeling nothing out of the ordinary. But then again, Penny is not only a trained warrior but a skilled gamma. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be my gamma in the first place.
“I don’t see anything out of sorts.” I say casually.
She scoffs and shakes her head. “It’s not something I see, luna. It is something I feel, here.” She places her hand over her gut.
“Hmm,” I muse again, looking around, trying to feel with my wolf or anything I can. “Instincts?”
“In a way,” she shrugs. “It feels like there is more of a disturbance. My lycan is bristling, warring with me to take over and search the area.”
Suddenly, a shiver runs down my spine, my skin growing cold, and I whip my head around. Penny places her hand on my shoulder, leaning closer while her eyes search every nook and cranny.
“Luna, I think it’s time to run,” she says, giving me a gentle nudge. “Now.”
There is no questioning her or her judgement. I break into a sprint, tearing through the trees like a raging bull let on the loose. Branches whip across my skin, stinging my face as I push forward, my hands out, trying to protect myself.
“To the left,” Penny hisses, “running on that trail will be faster than pushing through the foliage.”
I turn toward the trail I can see pecking out behind a sparse bush. As I approach it, I leap over a root, my foot getting caught as I cry out and slam hard into the ground, my hands saving my face from barreling toward the ground at full force.
Hands tear me from the ground and I flinch away, looking up at Penny as she runs while dragging me along. I can the fear on her face, the fear she tries to hide from me as she forces me in front of her.
“Are you sure there is someone following us?” I hiss at her as I look over my shoulder. I see the panic rising and she turns, running backward for a moment before turning forward again.
“Hard to say, but I would rather not stop or slow down and find out we are wrong.” She says, pushing on my back again to make me move faster. I stumble on further, wishing I had spent more time running in the recent month.
It feels like we run forever, my wolf now burning with awareness and my nerves on full tilt as I scan every area, watching, waiting. Penny remains as close as she can be without running me over, her breathing slow and even, unphased by the running with weight bags full of useless shit.
“Drop your bag,” I tell her, pulling mine off while stumbling down the narrow trail. I can hear her doing as I do, and I toss it to the side, the bushes crunching under the weight.
“Now we will move faster,” she sighs in relief. I look back at her to catch a grin. “We can’t be too far behind them now.”
There is a break in the trees, the ground ceasing to be hard and mossy, the texture moving to sand and I giggle with relief when I see a beach in the distance; the sun setting lower with ever stride toward it.
I take one more step, a strange snapping sound echoing to my right and I turn to look as a branch flings up, a string attached flying higher until my ankle sears in pain and my body pitches forward. My fingers dig into the sandy earth. unable to find leverage as I fly upward.