Chapter 310

| hate that | don’t have the money to support Grace. It’s really bothering ine. | realize I've spent my life on the run and that I’ve been in one of Liam’s cells for the last six months, but it doesn’t sit right not being able to take care of our mate. What's worse, she and her mother seem to have stockpiled money over the last six years since they ran from Grace’s father. How can Louis and | prove that we are worthy mates if | can’t even afford a bus ticket and a place to stay for longer than a week?

I'm laying in the dark, staring at the ceiling and contemplating what | will need to do once | have her safely within the borders of Rik’s or Liam's territories when | hear her voice.

“Are you awake?” She whispers. | was pretty sure she hadn't fallen asleep. Her breathing hadn’t changed to that deep breathing a person gets when the drift off to dreamland.

I sit up on my elbow and look over at her bed. Whether she did it intentionally or not, she put herself in the bed farthest from the door, which is where | wanted her. | know she’s a Guardian, but she’s untrained and if anyone breaks through the door, | want them going through me before they get to her.

“Yeah, I’m awake. Is everything alright?” | ask her.

It's quiet. | wait, but she doesn’t respond.

“Grace?”

“Can | come lay with you? I...! don’t mean for anything to happen, | just....I just got used to your scent when we were sleeping on the bus and now, | can’t fall asleep.”

| scoot over, keeping myself between her and the door, and pat the bed next to me. “Come here.”

When she crawls in beside me, | lay on my back. She sits up next to me, looking down at me. I’m not sure what she wants, so I pat my chest in invitation. She immediately curls up beside me and lays her head on my chest. | wrap my arm. around her, holding her close.

Asense of peace flows through me. It’s a foreign feeling to me, not something you feel when you are constantly looking over your shoulder for someone who is chasing after you. And while I’m still looking over my shoulder for a different reason, having my mate lying beside me calms me in a way I’ve never felt before.

“What if they catch me?” She says quietly.

“They won't, | won't let them get to you.”

“But what if they do? You can’t fight an entire pack, and neither can |.”

| kiss the top of her head and take a deep breath of her cherry blossom scent. “I'll die before | let anyone forcibly mark you.” | tell her, my voice going deep and gruff as Louis pushes forward.

She lifts her head up, looking at me. “I want you to make me a promise.” She says.

“Tell me what it is before | promise. | won’t promise you something when | don’t know if | can keep that promise.”

“If it looks like I'll be caught, if it looks like they are going to take me, | want you to mark me.”

| jerk back as if she’s struck me. “I won't let it come to that.” | say, my mind. reeling.

Of course, | want to mark her, she’s my mate. But | don’t want to mark her under those conditions. | want her to accept me, to want the bond. | want what Rik and Liam have with their mates. | want the love and respect that | see between them. Forcing my mark, even if she’s asking me to, will not give us the start to a relationship where that type of love and respect comes easily.