As soon as River sat in the car, Hunter closed it in a definitive way. He rounded it and came to sit on her other side. Elijah and Asher sat in the front, with Asher driving it. Tension rippled in the air.
As the car rolled out of the portico, River saw Hector standing with Victoria with her arms wrapped around his arm. She felt a terrible heartache. She bit her lips to stop herself from feeling this heartache and reminded herself of his betrayal. They had driven out of the mansion and were now on their way to the forest on the other side of a large, mostly snow-covered ground which separated the town from the woods which surrounded it.
With a whimper, she looked behind over her shoulder at the trees that were beginning to shield her vision of the town, as the car took her away from it. Even though River was mistreated every day and not welcome in her town anymore, shel couldn’t help a feeling of forlorn. In a few minutes the town disappeared from her vision, forever.
“Give me your feet,” came Alpha Hunter’s voice and she practically jumped out of her skin. The man looked… intimidating. She blinked her eyes with fear when he asked for her feet. She pursed her lips and then meekly lifted her feet on the car seat, away from him.
Hunter pulled it in his lap. He dug his pockets and took a small red velvet box. He opened it. There were two dainty silver chains with a red ruby and a jingle bell on each. Very delicately, he tied it on her feet and clasped the hook. Then he pulled her other feet in his lap and tied the second one out there.
When he touched her feet, shivers ran down her body. How could it be? She snapped her head to look at him but found him deep in focus as he tied the silver chains on her ankles. She thought that she was imagining it.
Warmly, he said, “Keep wearing these always. I don’t want you to remove them.”
She bobbed her head as he gently placed her feet down. The jingle chimed. River was startled by his actions and intimacy. What was it with the Lycans and jingle bells?
Alpha Hunter was a busy Lycan. Even though his people lived in the Veil, it didn’t mean that he didn’t have businesses in the human world. He had numerous businesses out there. In fact he was a tycoon in the business industry. It was just that no one really knew about it, especially the werewolves. The Lycans were a close-knit wealthy community who stayed in the Veil for reasons.
When he had come to the Crescent Pack to meet his breeder, he had gone directly to Alpha Maxim’s house where the exchange was supposed to take place. He had to sign a few documents, transfer a hundred thousand dollars in Maxim’s account and then take the breeder with him.
He was talking to Maxim when all at once, a mouthwatering scent of elderberry mixed with roses reached his nose. His eyes dropped to a half mast and his beast growled with pleasure. He gulped in the smell deeply and held it in his lungs, wanting to hold it right there forever. A soft moan caught in his throat, as the pleasure that he felt, tingled all the way down to his ***, making it painfully erect, and further down to his toes. His heart pounded against his ribcage, threatening to explode. He shuddered with anticipation.
At the same time, he heard a gentle heartbeat. It was like a metronome for him. A lullaby that was only created for him. Assaulted with too many thrilling emotions, he couldn’t sit in his place. He got up all of a sudden and walked to the window where the smell was stronger. He could now almost taste this mouthwatering smell on his tongue. Out of anticipation, he started to chew the temple tip of his goggles, watching people on the outside. Hunter felt like jumping out of the window and then reaching out to the person who was the owner of this smell.
His mate.
His beast howled inside him, ready to shift. But Hunter shoved him down for the fear that if they came to know that his mate was somewhere so near and in the Crescent Moon pack, they might take his advantage. He knew how depraved Alpha Maxim was. It was best to wait for the breeder to come. Then he would reject her and go out to find his mate using an excuse. All at once, the door of the room opened and his gaze locked with the most beautiful blue eyes he had ever seen in his life. His breath stuck in his throat. His entire world zeroed on the little, thin girl standing on the door in a bridal dress. She looked so pale and scared and malnourished that his heart squeezed. Immediately, he wanted to hold her and calm her.
The girl came with her parents towards him. “This is River,” Alpha Maxim introduced her.
Hunter looked at her as if searching for her reaction, but she didn’t react. She should have smelled him.
It was bizarre. But he kept this to himself.
From his sources he had heard that she was Hector’s mate, but the ***had sunk his fangs in his old school sweetheart instead of the mate the Moon Goddess chose for him. Hunter couldn’t deny that it made him happy. But the way Hector looked at her made him jealous as ****.
He had one more reason not to reveal to anyone that she was his mate. At least not until he took her to the Veil.
If Hunter didn’t have business in the human world, he would have never left her. And so he appointed his beta, Elijah and gamma, Asher to keep an eye on her. And thank God he did that. The girl was a runner.
When he had finished his business meetings, he had bought these anklets for her as his first gift to her. He clasped them on her and placed her feet gently on the car’s floor. He was so happy to be near her that his entire body was humming like a plucked guitar. But the fear that he could sense from her was not boring well with him. He wanted her to relax and be happy with him, but just the opposite was happening. He managed to scare her further.
In order to start a conversation, he said, “May I ask you one thing?”
“S-sure,” she was surprised by his politeness. River was sure that he would be very angry with her and might even beat her, but his politeness threw her off.
“Do you have your wolf?”
River’s eyes widened with shock. Now she was sure that he would also think of her to be weak. Panic bubbled in her chest.
“Have you ever shifted?” came his next question. Hunter knew that some werewolves shifted late. They were late bloomers.
River gulped audibly. “I have shifted.”
Hunter was shocked. If she had a wolf then why didn’t it sense him as her male?
“But right now, she has stopped responding completely.”
“Why…”
River didn’t know how to answer that question. It was so shameful that her mate rejected her and sank his fangs in someone else. She knew that Alpha Hunter would detest her, but she didn’t want to speak a lie. In order to hide her tears. that were a mark of her humiliation and hurt, she turned her head away.
In a hoarse voice she said, “She went off to sleep when my mate marked someone else and-” she choked.
