Free Web NovelChapter 54: I Kissed Him
"Check all the gates. Ensure they are fully secured. Quickly!"
Seven nodded and dashed out.
Rodrigo stood still as his breath grew ragged, sweat forming at his temples. He glanced at the mirror once before turning back to the room, and then his legs stopped.
His eyes lifted.
Nina.
She’d left the room.
He turned and dashed out the door.
He sped through the hallway, his shoulder catching the wall as he turned the corner. The pack house had lost its mind around him — humans running in every direction, doors slamming, voices pitching high and breaking. He pushed past them without slowing. Outside the gates the city had already started, the screaming carrying over the walls, and he gritted his teeth and kept moving. It was the same every full moon. Lycans who hadn’t mastered it went wild and came back with blood on their hands and nothing in their memory.
She needed to be inside.
The pain hit him at the base of the stairs and drove him sideways into the wall, his shoulder taking the impact hard. His bones had started breaking beneath his skin, his spine dragging inward, and he pressed his back flat against the stone and forced himself to breathe through it. His vision went white at the edges then came back.
Not yet.
He pushed off the wall and took the stairs.
He reached his chambers and threw the door open.
Empty.
He stood there with his chest heaving, his eyes moving across the room. The windows were open, the curtains blowing, the balcony dark. He crossed to it anyway and stood at the railing and looked down.
She wasn’t there.
He turned back and made it two steps before his knees hit the floor. The pain dropped him all at once, his hands slamming into the stone, a sound tearing out of him before he could stop it. He stayed there for a moment with his whole body shaking, then drove one hand into the floor and pushed himself up, his teeth locked, his breath coming in short hard pulls.
He made it to the corridor and down to her quarters and shoved the door open.
Empty.
He stood in the frame breathing hard, one hand gripping the wood, his wolf throwing itself against him from the inside. His hands had already gone wrong at the wrists. Down the corridor a door banged and a howl cut through the dark outside, long and fractured.
His chest went cold.
Where was she.
His legs gave out and he went down to his fours and the shift took the rest of him.
---
Nina sat on the bench in the lavender garden with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes on nothing.
"My lady." Moreen shifted beside her. "You have been staring at the same spot for nearly an hour. Is something going on?"
Nina blinked. "It’s nothing," she said, and kept staring.
The cold air moved across her bare arms and she rubbed her palms together, breathing warm air into them. She’d been sitting here telling herself the same thing for the better part of an hour. She kissed him because she needed to gain his trust. It was calculated. It was planned. It made complete sense.
So why couldn’t she breathe properly when his face came back to her.
Nina pressed her lips together and looked at the path leading back to the pack house, then looked away from it.
Moreen sighed beside her, long and exhausted. "My lady, it is late. We should return. The Alpha may be looking for you."
Nina glanced at her. Moreen’s eyes were red at the corners, her head nodding slightly before she caught it.
"You can go in, you’re sleeping already. I’ll come soon."
"My lady, I cannot leave you here by yourself." She glanced at Nina’s dress. "And it is cold. You are barely covered."
Nina rubbed her arm without thinking, her hand sliding up to the bruise and stopping there. She looked down at it. The ointment had dried over the skin, cool to the touch, but underneath she could still feel the pressure of his thumb, careful, like he was afraid of hurting her.
She closed her eyes.
*What is wrong with me.*
"Go in," she said. "I’ll follow now. I just want a few more minutes."
Moreen hesitated, then stood with a yawn. "Goodnight, my lady." Her footsteps faded up the path and then it was quiet.
Nina stayed on the bench until her legs ached, then she got up and walked the path with her arms crossed over her torso.
"What the hell am I doing?" she laughed to herself.
"I kissed him, so what?" She scoffed. "Married couples kiss each other, what’s the big deal?" She shrugged to no one.
"Besides, he kissed me at the wedding. It wasn’t a big deal then."
She laughed, but the image flashed in front of her eyes again and she grimaced.
"Urgh, why the hell did I do that?"
Nina stomped her foot into the soil.
A low growl sounded behind her.
Her feet stopped. She whipped her head around, her face draining of all color.
A black wolf stood at the edge of the path. Head low, lips pulled back, a snarl rolling steady from its chest. Its eyes were fixed on her and didn’t move.
Nina’s gaze snapped to the sky.
The full moon hung there wide and bright, the clouds pulled back on every side.
*No.*
She took one slow step backward. The wolf matched it immediately, moving forward, closing the distance before she’d finished making it.
Nina stopped, her heart slamming against her chest. frёeωebɳovel.com
She looked left — the path ran empty into the dark. She looked right — more dark, the lavender thick on both sides, blocking every light. The pack house was far enough that even if she screamed at the top of her lungs she was sure no one would hear her in time.
She looked back at the wolf.
Its legs coiled beneath its body, weight shifting onto its front paws.
She ran.
