Chapter 28 Ch 28

I almost passed out on the Uber ride back to my apartment. Stars kept cluttering my vision, so I knew my blood pressure was too high. The consequences of what I had just done were too much for me to believe. I rejected my mate. I rejected Tandan. My hands flew to my mouth to silence a sob.

"We're here," the driver said.

A glance out the window confirmed we were at my apartment complex. I thanked him and climbed out of the car. The night air felt cool on my skin, cooler than I remembered it feeling when I ran out of Tandan's apartment. His ground-shifting bellow still seemed to ring in my ears.

My legs carried me up the stairs towards my apartment. I pulled out my keys from my pocket, trying not to look at the jagged animal scratches that were carved into the wood. Another reminder of him. My hands trembled and I dropped the keys. I bent down, grabbed them, and shoved the one to my apartment into the keyhole.

The doorknob turned accordingly, so I pushed through the door. Tears flooded my eyes. I made my way to the bedroom by feel and collapsed onto the bed. It was a mistake. I knew that. But I couldn't change that, nor did I want to. Tandan would never love me.

After torrents of sobs, I lost the energy to cry anymore. My breathing slowed again. My blood pressure returned to its normal speed. The ache in my skull remained, but it kept me company.

Company.

I lifted my soaked face to look for my phone, which had been thrown somewhere on the bed. Grabbing it, I brought the device closer to my face. There weren't any notifications. Not that I had been expecting any, as much as I might have secretly hoped. He wouldn't beg me to come back. He wouldn't.

So I called Matt instead. I didn't really expect him to answer, but there was still immense disappointment when my call went to voicemail. There was no one else for me to go to except my family. My hand slapped over my mouth. My family! They were going to kill me. The thought of my parents scowling in disapproval made me want to bawl all over again.

"Get a grip on yourself, girl," I said aloud.

While I wallowed for a moment, I felt something stir inside of me. It was warm and energetic, restless. My wolf. I suddenly remembered that I could shift and let my other nature take over. It would be nice to give myself up for a while.

I got off the bed and, slipping on my shoes, headed for the door. My heart was already pounding in anticipation as I grabbed my car keys and jogged down to the parking lot. Where could I even go? I didn't know the forests around here. After a quick search on my phone, I pulled up the directions to a national forest. The drive only took ten minutes.

Goosebumps were covering my skin when I found the trailhead and parked. By the time I was out of the car and kicking off my clothes, my body was shaking. I didn't have the patience to neatly place my clothes on the hood; I immediately shifted. My limbs snapped and muscles reshaped until I stood on four hairy paws. Overcome with heartache and loneliness, I tilted my head back to howl, to cry out to someone who might care.

Then I darted into the canopy. Every inkling of anguish in my bones fueled me onward. My sensitive ears flickered around me at the sounds of the night. Cicadas were calling out all around and I could hear the racing heartbeat of a near rabbit. Above me, the starlight seeped in between the dying leaves of tree branches. Their decay filled my nostrils with a spicy earth smell. I swerved around trees and bushes too tall to leap over.

I handed myself over to instinct. It was just as liberating as ever, and I wondered why I didn't allow myself to stay like this. What did I have to go back to now? My human life sucked. I didn't have a pack here, but maybe I could find one. Maybe I could find a pack of feral wolves. I'd heard myths about other werewolves who had lost their minds and spent the rest of their life hunting with wolves that didn't shift back into a human at the end of the day.

Perhaps they were not so crazy after all.

Just as I had nearly decided I would never go back, I heard a menacing growl off in the not-so-far-off distance. My legs locked up. I slid forward in the rich soil a few inches and tried to calm my rising panic. Straining my ears, I strained to hear the growling animal. The howl had sounded familiar.

But I couldn't hear a damn thing. I knew it was that thing, that monster. The pounding in my chest agreed. Spinning around, I charged back in the direction I came and followed my scent. Shit. If my own scent was this potent to me, any lurking demon-wolf would sure as hell smell it too.

My paws punched the forest floor with each mighty stride. I was struggling to breathe well enough to keep up with this pace, but I was terrified. Memories of that night it attacked me pockmarked the darkness behind my eyes. It riddled me with paranoia and panic; I knew it had to be right on my tail.

By some miracle, I stumbled out of the trees and into the parking lot. I was two steps into the gravel when a blur of darkness shot out of the trees behind my car. The sight of it didn't allow me any time to think, to strategize. I just halted. I froze.

The beast froze too. We stared at each other, its cobalt eyes glowing in the dim twilight. What do you want from me? I wanted to scream. How the hell do you keep finding me?

Then it started stalking towards me in big, lumbering strides. It never broke eye contact and I never budged. Once it was about ten yards away, it bent down to place a paw-like hand on the ground. The beast leaned forward to test the air with his wet nose. At least it wasn't trying to knock my head off again.

Some primal instinct buried deep down inside of me resurrected itself. I lowered my head and released a sorrowful, submissive whine. A grunt was heard in response. I didn't move; I hardly breathed. The animal's claws dug into the gravel as it closed the distance between us. When one of its hands touched my spine between my shoulder blades, I dropped to my stomach with a cry of surprise.

It lowered its nose to my neck, and I let it smell me. Another low growl built in the back of its throat. I'm dead. This thing could snap my neck with its jaws without breaking a sweat. Jerking upright, the beast let out a tremendous roar and I knew it was going to crush my skull. I scurried to my feet in a last-ditch effort to save myself and bolted towards the car. When I was close, I jumped into the air and shifted before my bare feet touched the gravel.

The sharp rocks were crippling on my weak human body, so I crumpled. My knees bit into the ground and drew blood. I felt so much pain and adrenaline but I couldn't make myself get up. Not that it mattered, because the bellowing beast was marching in my direction. Tears gathered in the corners of my eye. I risked a glance over my shoulder and was overwhelmed to see the beast standing right behind me, drooling on itself. It looked so much bigger to me now.

The beast stood still for a moment, seeming to process this strangely weak creature at its feet. It slowly extended a hand at my face. I shrunk into myself as if that would lessen the blow. But there was no blow. Two arms captured my waist and I could only squeak in surprise. The beast cradled me to its hairy chest, the bristly hairs covered in mud and knotty with pine straw. After holding my eyes, he looked ahead and carried me into the forest.