Chapter 13: Chapter 13

Her squeals turned to laughter and made me run faster as we zipped through the trees heading home.

The warmth of her body was comforting, and for once, I felt warm inside instead of the cold feeling that usually churned within me. She was like fresh air after so many years of having the oxygen stolen from my lungs. As much as trauma tainted her, she did not wilt and wither away as I did. It did not turn her cold and uncaring, she still had life within her, and I found I craved seeing that on her face. Seeing the way she lit up with excitement, the way she came out of her shell when she thought no one was watching.

When the castle lights came into view through the gaps in the trees, I slowed. Some part of me expected her to try to make me put her down, but instead, she remained in my arms. A place I never wanted her to leave, tucked in my embrace and I hers. Yet as we got closer, I knew I had to set her down and leave her side. A place I wanted to remain but couldn’t because she was not mine and I was not hers, but for a second, I could pretend. Pretend she was the mate I was destined for.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” I ask her, and she purses her lips, lips that I desperately wanted to taste.

“Going into town with Clarice,” she answers as I brush a fern away so I can step through the gap in the trees. I hoist her up higher, making her bounce in my arms as she scrambled to grip on to me, so she didn’t fall backward.

“You don’t want to go?” I ask her.

“I want to see Ivy. I hardly see her anymore,”

“You and Ivy are close,” I tell her.

“She is all I have,” she says. I nod.

“What about you?” she asks, and I could hear the curiosity in her voice before she blushes.

“You don’t have to answer. Sorry, that was rude,” she says, and I nudge her with my nose.

“Why is it rude?” I ask her as I start to climb the hill to the cemetery.

“Rogues should know their place, speak when spoken to or not at all” she shrugs.

“I was raised in the kingdom, alongside the King and Beta Damian. My father was the King’s Gamma, and my mother was a maid,” I answer her.

“You were raised by Clarice?” I laugh because Clarice raised nearly everyone in the castle. She was like the universal mother.

“Yes, like most of the King’s guards, the titles were usually handed down, then we competed for the best places. All the guards are of gamma blood or higher,” I answer her.

“Higher?” she asks.

“Yes,”

“But there is only one Beta,” she says.

“Liam is of Beta blood, but he is now a gamma,” I tell her.

“So, how do you compete?” she asks.

“The trials, Liam, could probably match Damian, yet he is a little unhinged and always drunk.”

“Could he beat you in the trials? Aren’t you third in command?” she asks, and I hum.

“If he wanted to, I suppose, but then again, I train daily with the guard, so probably not, but if it came to orders and he chose to use his aura, possibly,”

“Doesn’t it bother him that he is of lower rank than you.”

“No, he is like my brother, like Damian and Kyson. Packs are family, united. It doesn’t matter where we fall. We all have each other’s backs where it counts.”

“Sounds like me, an Ivy, more than my life,” she says, and my brows pinch together at her words.

“And what does more than my life mean to you?”

“Means I fight you fight, we fight together, we die together,” she says simply, yet the far-away look she got, I felt it meant more than what she claimed.

“I will speak to Kyson and see if he will allow her to see you. We are going away soon. I need to go to one of the neighboring kingdoms with the King. He intends to take her.”

“Why?” she asks, and I feel the rapid beat of her heart thumping erratically against my chest. I didn’t answer because I couldn’t, yet her worry made me regret mentioning it.

“She’ll be fine. I won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Yes, but why is she leaving? What does the King want with her? She should be with me. We have never been separated. She-” she sucks in a breath and kicks her legs, wanting to be put down. I let her slide down as she moves to climb the hill. Anything else was forgotten, and now her panic for Ivy set in.

I could tell she wanted to see her more than ever.

I catch her hand to stop her. “Abbie?”

“I should go inside; I have chores to do,” she says while trying to tug down the shirt she was wearing as if her nudity bothered her. I thought it odd. She was the first werewolf I had met that was afraid of showing her own skin. But then again, I was scared to show her mine, not because I was shy, that definitely wasn’t it, but because I didn’t want her to pity me.

“She will be fine, Abbie,” I tried to reassure her, but she didn’t look like she believed me.

“Yeah, and that’s what Alpha Dean said when he brought us to the orphanage, that we would be fine.

No one tells you their intentions Gannon, not really. Not until they have what they want from you, and by then, it’s too late,” Abbie says, rushing off and leaving me dumbfounded. Were we talking about the same thing? I couldn’t understand her.

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