“Son.” I was a kid, lying on my mother’s bed, feeling her stroke my hair over and over again. “Darling, you need to wake up.”
“Don’t want to,” I grumbled, but for some reason my voice was a lot deeper than I remembered.
“Mack.” There was so much in the way she said my name: love, frustration, as well as an expectation that I do the right thing. My eyelids fluttered, but rather than see her, everything was a blur. “Sweetheart, it's time to get up.”
“Don’t wanna go to school,” I rumbled, my voice more wolf than human.
“You finished school a while ago,” she said. “Now isn’t the time to get to class.”
“So what then?”
It wasn’t my mother that was leaning over me, but Harper. I glanced down, taking in my adult body.
“I need you to come and get me, Fur Face,” she said, her wry smile twisting into something painful. “There is a teeny tiny chance I might’ve done something really stupid.”
“What?” That came out as a bark. “Harper, what did you do? Harper…?”
The room came into focus with a snap as I sat up, but my head wasn’t pulled from Harper’s lap. A grey cushion was what I’d been lying on, not her legs. Because as I looked around, I realised my mate was nowhere to be seen.
“Harper?” The dense walls of the bunker swallowed my shout. “Harper!”
I was up and off the couch, because this was my worst nightmare. To mark my mate, then lose her. Dax had gotten in, hurt her while I snored like a fucking baby. I swore I wouldn’t go to sleep until I’d dealt with him and look what’d happened. I tore down the hallway, checking each of the bedrooms and the toilet, but there was no sign of her. Harper’s scent had already started to fade. I took the stairs two at a time, stopping at the security system panel…
Only to find out the person who had used the security code last was Harper.
I watched the video playback, saw her input the numbers perfectly as she looked at her phone. Someone called her and…
Dax.
As if in response to that thought, my own phone started to buzz. I jerked it free of my pocket and stabbed the screen to answer the call.
“Where the fuck is Harper, you bastard?”
“Gone to meet your brother in the quarry.” It was Kieran, not Dax, though I barely made out what he said, my ears starting to ring. “She wanted to protect you from Dax.”
My phone slipped from my fingers, cracking when it hit the concrete stairs and then bouncing down, down, down, my heartgoing with it. Harper… She’d… I was moving before I could put together a coherent thought. Snatching the rifle off the table before checking it was still loaded, then slinging it over my shoulder before making for the garage.
My car was gone. Harper had obviously decided to commandeer it for this ridiculous plan of hers, but my bike still sat there. I grabbed the keys from the kitchen, shoved on my motorcycle helmet and then kickstarted the thing. The roar of the engine was a perfect externalisation of how I felt. I took off out of the garage like a shot, screaming up the road, not stopping for anyone or anything as I was forced to weave around one car, then the next.
Harper.The bond between us, it felt too new, too fragile to speak mind-to-mind, but I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out.Harper, I told you what would happen if you ran.
Mack?
I hated how small, how weak her reply sounded in my head.
What did I say would happen?I asked as I approached a red light, zipping through the space between cars, then revving my engine when I got to the line.
Wolves chase, she replied.
Damn right they do. Is that why you accepted the bond? Was this what you thought would happen?
I’m not sure if thinking is really my forte.I hated how grim she sounded.In my mind, I was being heroic, changing places with Daria.
Daria? What the fuck does Daria have to do with any of this.
So your brother took my best friend. That’s why I had to sneak out.
I shook my head, my fingers gripping the throttle tighter as I revved the engine.
