Forsaken by E. M. Moore

29

Nathan shifts first, and I follow after. Blood coats the area around his mouth, evidence of what just transpired. He wipes at it as he stands to face me. I stay on the ground, falling forward on all fours. My wolf abilities will help me heal faster than a normal person, but it still hurts like a bitch.

“Don’t hate me,” Nathan says. “I had to do it. If we left him alive, he would’ve run right back to Daybreak. He could’ve given them a place to start tracking us.”

He kneels next to me as I position myself on my side. I take shallow breaths for my bruised ribs, but also because it feels like if I let too much out, I’ll break the dam of emotion that’s building inside. “I know,” I tell him, giving him a small smile and avoiding Sean’s lifeless body only a few feet away. “It’s just…his wolf….”

Nathan wipes his hands over his face, then entwines his fingers with mine. “I know. He didn’t shift,” he states. “If he wanted to, he could’ve. He held back because he knew what we had to do.”

I clamp down on my jaw, still refusing to peer at the carnage left over. I don’t think I’d be able to handle it if Sean’s wolf was lying there dead.

Nathan squeezes my fingers, giving me a lifeline to hold onto. After a few more moments, he brings me back to the present danger. “We have to hurry, Mia. We’ve already lost too much time. Can you get up?”

I nod, and with his help, I get to my feet. We walk toward the car. “What about this?” I ask, looking at the shitshow we’re leaving behind.

An abandoned vehicle.

A dead body.

Blood.

Nathan opens the car door for me. “Jonah’s going to take care of it.” He gingerly helps me in, and when I’m settled, he finds the keys in the ignition and opens the trunk. There, he fishes out a blanket for me and pulls on some clothes. If anyone came upon us looking the way we do, they’d be highly suspicious.

He places the blanket over me and then jogs to the other side of the car. He wastes to time getting it started and pulls out onto the road, gunning it. “You should’ve left without me,” he admonishes, checking the rearview mirror.

“Please,” I scoff, peering over at him through fanned lashes. “Would you have left me?”

He pulls my hand up, brushing a kiss across my knuckles. “Never.”

I give him a look that says the same should go for me, obviously.

He turns his attention back to the road. A few minutes go by, and in that time, he checks the rearview mirror about a hundred times. “Are we going to be okay?”

“I hope so.”

Hope is all we have now. I run my hands through my tangled mess of hair. “How did you get free, anyway?” I ask. Even Sean was taken aback when Nathan’s wolf showed up.

“Basically, I’m a fugitive now,” Nathan relays, a sly smile pulling his lips apart. “I overpowered Jonah. Then I took out the two security guys...and Gayle.”

The mention of his fated partner makes me a little uneasy. “She wanted to be with you,” I admit. “For real.”

“I know.” His soft tone betrays that there’s still some fondness there. “But it was too late,” he argues. “I’d already grown out of her. Like with you and Sean’s wolf, there could’ve been something had things been different, but they’re not. I’m with you,” he says forcefully before peeking over at me. “The longer time went on, there wasn’t a chance for Gayle and me. Not only did she snuff it out, but it was our connection, Mia. Our true mate bond. You’re my choice, and that means everything.”

“We can hear each other,” I remind him, tears glistening in my eyes. After choosing Nathan, I wasn’t sure that was a perk I was going to get.

“We chose for ourselves.”

And we’re blessed with the same abilities that true mates have. “It should be impossible.”

“I’m wondering how many things are possible that we were told aren’t.”

He’s beginning to sound like Kinsey, and honestly, I am too. It’s hard to go against everything you’ve been told. It’s walking on a shaky foundation that was always as strong as a hundred-year-old tree with roots so thick they practically penetrate the earth’s crust. The road we’re taking now is wobbly, unsure.

“It’s not right,” I say. “Maybe they don’t know.”

“They know, Mia. The alphas? Come on. They know they’re feeding us a bunch of lies, but they’re doing it to keep us in line. They give us systemic boundaries to follow so no one asks questions. You get a mate, you procreate, you produce more members of pack society that will fall in line.”

“Don’t you wonder what it is that they don’t want us to know?”

He squeezes my fingers. “I can only process one problem at a time, and right now, I’m only worried about getting out of Daybreak and the other pack territories alive...with my mate.”

“I like the ring of that,” I smile.

“You better. You’re stuck with me for the rest of your life.”

“I don’t know if I would call it being stuck with you exactly,” I tease, resting my head back on the seat, staring up at the twinkling stars. I check the side mirror. No one is following us. I’m sure our friends back at Daybreak are doing their best to help us get our freedom. I just hope they’re not implicating themselves in the process.

Jonah would never allow that to happen.

“So, Outlaw, what do you think the story is they’re telling back home?”

Nathan beams. “My guess is that they’re spinning it so that I went against my mate bond and totally corrupted everything. I injured a member of another pack, my own mate, and alpha security. When they realize you’re gone, they’ll probably say I kidnapped you, killed your mate, and took off.”

“Heathen,” I tease.

“If they think that’s bad, as soon as we’re far enough away, I plan on finding a remote place to fuck you until the sun comes up.”

“What if the sun’s already up?” I ask coyly.

He gives me a determined stare. “No, I mean until the sun comes up the next day, Mia.”

His answering words heat my core.

He checks the rearview mirror again, fiddling with it. “My wolf needs to know that you’re okay. He craves that primal connection. If Jonah hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve ripped Sean’s head off in front of all those guests at the Winter Solstice ball.”

“Yeah, you made quite the commotion.”

He looks away sheepishly. “I couldn’t help it.” Fingers tightening around the steering wheel, he grunts. “Everything in me said I needed to stake my claim.” He visibly relaxes his fingers, fanning them out as if he’s trying to wrangle himself under control. “How did you get away, anyway?”

My heart thuds with a pang. I don’t like thinking about Sean’s wolf. “I forced Sean to shift. He must’ve been able to stay in control for a while because Sean said he was able to track me through him. I wasn’t thinking.” I shake my head. Had I stayed human, Sean wouldn’t have been able to find me.

“You had to. Our wolves are faster,” Nathan reassures me. “Fun fact, I can also track you in wolf form.”

I brighten. “Yeah?” Evidence keeps piling up. Fate may pair us together, but she isn’t the end all be all. We have our own control.

Sean fell victim to the mindset that he still had to play by the pack’s rules to be completely free. He was wrong. Ignorant. There are a lot of pack members who aren’t being told the whole story.

“So, this means the Rejected Mate Academy is a crock of shit,” I growl.

“Another way to keep us all in line.”

If we weren’t running for our lives, I’d have Nathan go to the academy right now so we could tell everyone there’s another way. Nathan and I can talk to each other in our wolf form, just like mates. He can track me. We feel the bond like fated mates. Jealousy. Possessiveness.

If that’s the case, what else are they lying about?

“I see that look on your face,” Nathan says. “Wait until we get somewhere safe before you start overthrowing governments.”

I snicker. “This place better exist. I’ll live with you in the woods if I have to, but I’d much prefer a bed.”

He bites his blood-stained lip. “I think there’s a lot we don’t know. I won’t even be surprised if this place actually exists, and they know the same things we now do. Plus, you’re not giving me enough credit. Even if we have to live in the woods, who says I won’t build us a bed?”

“Just a bed?”

“What? You want a roof too?”

I squeeze his hand. He checks the mirror again, but so far, we’re in the clear. I stare straight ahead, wondering what’ll happen to us. We’re together, so that’s what counts, but this is much bigger than us at this point. We’re talking about our whole lives being a lie. Everyone at Greystone Academy deserves to know the truth.

Nathan and I are walking, talking evidence that this world is so much more than we’ve been told. It’s like we’ve been restrained our whole lives, and we’re now getting to see everything in perfect detail.

“I’m glad you waited for me,” Nathan says.

As if I had another choice. My heart beats with his.

From this point forward, Nathan is my everything. Above pack. Above others. Even above myself.

I have a feeling our story is far from over, but whatever happens, we’ll go through it with the other by our side.

Together.