Artemis

9

My breath caught in my throats when silver eyes looked through the trees, sending hoards of butterflies to my stomach. I bit back cringing into myself when I realized this was it, this is what I had to do. The air around me lit up, electrifying molecules erupting against my skin.

I watched as he stepped forward, his body naked except for a pair of black shorts that left little to the imagination. His muscles chiseled deep within his skin, dark tufts of hair running along his chest and forearms. He had a small tattoo on his right pectoral, showing the fact he was the Alpha to his pack.

Goddess, he was sinfully beautiful.

"I'm sorry."

My eyes glanced back up to his silver ones, my eyebrows furrowing slightly. "You have nothing to apologize for?"

He sighed deeply as he stepped closer, the same electrifying molecules that had previously been lit up flared into an inferno I never wanted to be quenched, and he wasn't even touching me. I held in a breath to try and suppress a shudder, already feeling my body react to him in ways that sent a flush of blood to my cheeks.

His nostrils flared as he inhaled my arousal, his eyes flashing all along my barely clothed body. He shut his eyes as he tried to calm his wolf, his eyes flashing between steel grey and shining silver.

"I made you believe those things about your body, when none of them are true." I scoffed, shaking my head as I turned away slightly.

"That's bullshit and you know it."

"Don't make me bend you over my knee and spank you until you believe just how beautiful you are." I shot up, my jaw grit and tense as I stared at him.

"Then why the hell did you reject me huh? Because guess fucking what, I'm not human, never been human, and yet here we are. Supposedly mates, but are we mated? No! We can barely stand to be within ten feet of one another with erupting in a fight."

"You don't understand –"

"Then make me understand!" His growl ripped through the air, his body tense as he took a menacing step towards me.

"My mother was killed, taken by Rogues and tortured, all while my father felt. He felt her get cut, hit, bruised beyond belief, and it tore him apart. He is a shell of the man he was, and can barely lead the pack now. I can't let you get hurt, as selfish as that fucking makes me, I can't."

I watched as a lone tear fell down his cheek, my heart breaking in the form of the wolf who was breaking himself before me. I wanted so badly to hold him, cradle him within my arms and soothe his hurting heart. I wanted to kiss him, ravish him until he couldn't focus on a dibble thing except the feeling of his lips against my own.

So that what I did.

I covered the space between us so fast he didn't even register it until my lips were pressed again his, my body warming as he touched me. It happened so fast, one moment he was still and frozen against me, the next his mouth was moving against mine in synchronized motions that sent my heart into rifts and patterns that I thought was surely illegal.

I thought I was safe, but then it happened. The vision took over my vision and complete meaning, sensing me into a field with my lips on the man before me; except, this time it was different.

He was rougher, his beard grown in a bit more. Dead bodies littered the grass around us, my body covered in both my own and someone else's blood. He pulled me into his arms, warm and comforting that sent chills down my very skin, his smell making my muscles relax against his very own body.

I looked over his shoulder at the exact moment an arrow was shot out, a mangled hunter barely lifting his body off the ground to shoot it out. I moved to push him out of the way, but I wasn't fast enough. I watched it rip through his chest, the exact moment it registered on his face what happened, and the exact moment the life left his eyes.

His lips touched mine one last time as the vision swirled out, leaving me a sobbing mess by the tide pool in Jaxon's arms. I looked up to his grey eyes, which looked down to me with so much concern and worry it simply made me sob even more. I moved up and held even tighter in my arms, placing a deep kiss on his lips before moving my face into the crook of his neck.

"Please never leave, please."

I felt him lift me up, his body moving in some direction. I couldn't see where he began to bring me, my head resting as far as I could push it into his chest, his smell wrapping around me and comforting me in a way only it could. I heard a door shut and close quietly, my head lifting out to find him in my own kitchen.

He walked down the small hallway to my own bedroom, the dark room left plunged in darkness as he set me softly on my bed. He undressed me, not sexually, even as his fingers brushed over my skin, but in a comforting way that he knew I needed. I don't think I would've let him leave, I don't think I even could have let him leave with the state I was in, so when he pulled a big t shirt over me and wrapped himself around me in my bed, I was content.

Actually, content doesn't even cover it. I was happy, nervous, excited, and even a bit guilty at how fast I had accepted him back into my life. But as he placed a lingering kiss on the temple of my head, I felt every trace of doubt wash away from me like a new April rain washing away the dirt from the previous month.

I felt myself drifting as his mouth moved, words whispered against my skin barely registering in my half comatose state. I finally shut my eyes and let myself give in, let myself grow vulnerable in his presence here in my own bed.

"I will never leave, not again."