Chapter 92: No Turning Back

NATALIA

I charge back to my car.

Charlie’s nowhere to be seen, so he won’t miss me.

I can just return to my normal life, and he can keep living his completely bizarre one.

Clearly he doesn’t even want a mate anyway.

Otherwise, why would he be living all the way out here, where he could never find one?

As I dash back down the hill, my heel catches on a rock and I trip and fall onto my butt, sliding the rest of the way.

~YOWW!~

That hurt.

A lot.

~See? I’m not cut out for this life.~

~This was a HUGE mistake.~

I get up, dust myself off, smooth out my hair, and continue my beeline toward my car.

But…

~Oh Goddess, no.~

There’s something in my path.

Or rather, someone.

A large wolf with a thick black coating of fur.

His piercing eyes catch mine, and, in that instant, I am certain that this is no random rogue.

~This is Charlie.~

Suddenly, I hear the cracking of bones as he begins to shift into his human.

And then, I’m not making eye contact with him anymore, but with his impressive member standing at attention on his naked body.

I blush and force myself to look up at his face. He stares at me in utter disbelief.

“Mate,” his deep voice rumbles. “It’s you. It’s really you. I can’t believe it.”

But I don’t say a word.

I just take in his appearance.

~His rugged features framed by long dark hair and a bushy beard.~

~His shining blue eyes.~

He looks nothing like the lanky teenager that he was when I saw him last.

He’s definitely a man now—and a massive one at that, in all the right ways.

He approaches me, completely shameless about the fact that he’s stark naked.

“Mate,” he says again.

And then he pulls me into a deep hug.

The term ~bear hug~ must have been invented to describe my current situation, swallowed by his sturdy arms, my face buried in his chest.

I’m enveloped in his delicious scent.

~Cinnamon and cypress.~

His embrace is sweaty and sticky and grimy…

But it’s insanely intoxicating.

“My Goddess,” he says with a satisfied sigh. “You smell just like I remember.”

~Huh?~

He pulls away from me, and I hear my wolf whimper.

She wanted that hug to go on forever.

His hands still on my waist, we just stare at each other.

~What the hell are we supposed to do now?~

I breathe a sigh of relief when he breaks the silence first.

“Come inside,” he says. “I’ll make us some dump stew and we can get to know each other.”

“What is a…dump stew?” I ask timidly, trying to hide the disgust in my voice.

“It’s where you just dump every ingredient that you have in a pot and pray to the Moon Goddess that it winds up tasty.”

He grabs my hand with his enormous one, sending an unmistakable tingle through my entire body. He starts leading me back up the path to his house.

My heels stumble through the rocks again.

“Well, those are some silly shoes, aren’t they?” he says.

And then in one swift motion, he whisks me off my feet, carrying me effortlessly in his arms toward the hut.

This man is nothing like what I expected.

~Everything~ about him is the opposite of me.

And even though I know what they say about opposites, I’m still shocked by how attracted I am to him.

“Welcome to my home,” he says as we get closer. “I like to call this Chuck’s Palace.”

“Who’s Chuck?” I ask him.

“Me, of course,” he says. “The name’s Charlie but I prefer Chuck.”

“Oh really?” I say. “But…I like Charlie much better.”

I see a smile break out from behind his beard.

“Honey, you could call me ‘that stupid son of a bitch’ and I’d still be the happiest man in the world,” he says. “I can’t believe you finally found me.”

His smile is contagious, and, before I know it, I’m wearing one too.

“What’s your name?” he asks me.

“I’m Natalia,” I say.

“Natalia,” he repeats back to me, and I swoon at the sound of my name on his lips.

~Oh Goddess…~

~I’m in trouble, aren’t I?~

ARIEL

I continue stepping timidly, one foot in front of the other, as the webs above us grow denser, blocking out more and more of the light.

I’ve never been particularly scared of bugs, but a spider that could spin these kinds of webs must be absolutely terrifying.

Still, Fate has led me here, and something tells me that I must meet her face-to-face.

My curiosity has gotten the better of me. I need to see what’s awaiting me in the depths of this canyon.

I feel my way through the increasing darkness.

But as we round a corner, I realize that our path is blocked by a massive silvery web, so thick that I can’t even see what’s on the other side of it.

I pull my moonstone dagger out of my pocket. ~Thank Goddess, I never leave home without it.~ I slash a hole into the web and see that we’re standing at the mouth of a cave.

I slip through the opening.

Alex follows after me.

My heart drops when I realize we’re now surrounded on all sides by walls of tightly woven webs. They form a narrow passageway in the cave, illuminated only by glowing phosphorescence light in the webs above us.

“Alex,” I say, feeling behind me for his hand. “Let’s turn around.”

I look over my shoulder and a scream escapes my lips.

A sea of small spiders have suddenly repaired the tear in the web that I just created. And this new web looks even thicker.

~“There is no use turning back now,”~ Fate calls out, her voice echoing around us.

“What do you want from me, Fate?” I ask out loud, panic rising in my throat.

~“I mean you no harm, my child,”~ she says. ~“I could have killed you in that plane crash, but instead my winds were in your favor.”~

“That was you?” I ask incredulously. “You caused our plane to crash?”

~“I must apologize if I gave you a scare,”~ she replies. ~“But I needed to find some way to draw you into my web.”~

I feel a gust of wind at my back, pushing me further down the passageway, and I let it. It’s like her voice has me hypnotized, ready to obey her commands.

As I walk, I swear I can feel little spiders crawling up and down my legs. The sensation sends shivers down my spine.

“Want to play a game?” Alex whispers in my ear.

“Right now?” I ask.

“Would you rather almost die in a plane crash or get trapped in a dark cave full of spiders?”

I can’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of it all.

“I hope your answer is ~both~,” he says.

“Goddess,” I sigh, “why can’t we just have one weekend of peace?”

Just then, I take a step with my right foot, but there’s no ground beneath me when I try to set it down.

I feel myself starting to fall, but Alex grabs me by the waist and pulls me back up.

I peer through the darkness and see that I’m standing at the edge of a sinkhole.

“Holy shit,” Alex says. “Be careful.”

“See what I mean? No peace,” I say. “I’ll go left, you go right.”

We both tiptoe around either side of the sinkhole’s circumference.

I cling onto the wall of webs for stability.

And that’s when I feel it—the webs starting to cling onto ~me~.

They are wrapping around my hands, like thin, silvery handcuffs.

“I’m trapped! I can’t get loose!” I call out to Alex.

“It’s got me, Ariel!” he says. “It’s got me, too!”

The webs start to spin around me faster and faster until I find myself completely entangled in the sticky, wiry substance.

I’m losing all sense of direction. I have no idea which way is up or down. Not to mention, I can barely breathe.

I can still hear Alex calling out for me.

“Ariel!” he cries. “ARIEL!”

“ALEX!” I shout back.

But the sound of his voice is only getting fainter, and I’m only getting dizzier.

After a moment cocooned in the thick, sticky threads, I feel them start to loosen.

My hands regain mobility, and I start to cut through my bindings until I’m free again, dropping down to the floor.

When I look around, I have absolutely no idea where I am.

And Alex is nowhere to be seen.

It’s like I was absorbed into the wall of webs and spat out into another, parallel passageway.

“ALEX!” I scream.

I get no response.

I pick myself up onto my feet and try to steady my spinning head.

~You’re a warrior, Ariel,~ I say to myself.

~You’re not afraid of spiders. You’re not afraid of the dark. You’re not afraid—~

But my wolf knows better.

She’s shaking, paralyzed by the crushing weight of complete and total fear.

ALEX

“ARIEL??” I scream out. “ARIEL!”

The webs just entangled my arms, but I watched my mate get consumed by them entirely. And now she’s nowhere to be found.

I partially shift, clawing wildly at the wall until I can break myself free from its grasp.

Gearing myself up, I jump over the sinkhole to the other side, where Ariel disappeared.

I continue to slash into the webs to try and find her, but every cut that I make instantly repairs itself.

I’m not getting any closer to her.

~This is useless.~

~I need to try something else.~

I decide to continue down the path.

Maybe I’ll find some opening that can lead me to her.

But as I move through the darkness, I hear something—

A sound that makes my heart drop and my stomach sink…

The sound of my mate screaming bloody murder.

ARIEL

I can’t stop the guttural scream that escapes my lips when I see him.

At first I think my mind is playing tricks on me in the darkness.

But small slivers of light seep through the webs above me, illuminating his face, and I’m certain that it’s really him.

The last person in the world I was expecting to see here…

~Xavier.~

“Hello, Ariel,” he says. “I’ve been waiting for you.”