Mindlessly, my hand reached up from beside me, my fingertips begging for just a touch. My hands craved to feel the body made perfectly for mine, to feel every curve and every dip, to feel every scar that illustrated the path he took to get to me. My...
Rất tiếc! Hình ảnh này không tuân theo hướng dẫn nội dung. Để tiếp tục đăng tải, vui lòng xóa hoặc tải lên một hình ảnh khác.
~•~
"You're a coward." He spat, dark eyes narrowed into slits as he clenched his fists.
"I'm sorry." I begged, grasping his shirt tightly within my fingers. "I had no other choice."
"Everyone has a choice." He said, all emotion sinking from his face as he roughly pried my hands from his shirt. "And you made yours."
"I, Alpha Caleb Johnson, of Blackridge Pack, reject Grace Woods as my mate."
Something snapped within me, the feeling similar to a rubber band if you pull it too hard or like a shard of glass shattering into nothing. I felt like I had just been stabbed in the chest and that my lungs had been ripped right from my ribcage. And then suddenly I was on the floor, collapsing beneath the barracks of my own sanity. Every sliver of rot bid from my withered soul now lie still within my unbeating heart. The last thing I saw before I welcomed the open arms of darkness was my mate as he walked away from me and left me shattered in the burrows of what I truly deserved.
I sat up from my position on the forest floor, gasping for air as I held a shaking hand to my aching chest. The pain wasn't as horrid as it was in my nightmare, but it was still present. I couldn't even tell if it was mine or my mates. Maybe it was both.
Panic continued to rise within me as I began to sob, my blurred vision and ringing ears doing nothing to soothe my oncoming anxiety attack. I'd had this same nightmare hundreds of times, but this time had shaken me more than any other. I pressed my back against a nearby tree, holding my head in my hands as I cried. My body rocked back and forth as I fell further into the abyss of panic.
I tried to grasp onto the dirt beneath me, hoping the crumbled leaves and rubble could somehow help ground me. I tried to familiarize myself with the scenery surrounding me but there was nothing but the helpless moon there to watch as I collapsed further into this endless dark hole.
I must've cried for hours. My throat burned with tire, eyes swollen, body practically numb. The sun was peaking up above the horizon, the darkness slowly fading in the sky as I leaned brokenly against the tree. It was silent around me, which was unfamiliar. Usually, the boy's snores or their petty fights would fill the emptiness I would find myself in, but I had none of that now. It was just me.
As my hiccups soothed and I finally began to stop sniffling, I slowly began to regain the strength to keep moving. But before I did so, I knew I had to derive a plan for where I was going next. Though I had been tracking this woman for months, I had always just barely missed her.
I wasn't the only one trying to find her.
With slightly shaking hands I pulled the map from my backpack, sighing tiredly as I laid it on the flattest part of the ground I could find. My old notes were still scribbled messily amongst the surface, the markings of the woman's supposed future convoys remaining useless.
