The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(48)

“Now, please,” Lenox says.

Smith takes a step toward me. Lenox drops my chin. My full weight goes to my numb toes again, and my legs quake as I desperately try not to move, not to stumble.

I don’t know how to call Darragh, and I can’t tell Lenox. The collar is too tight, and I don’t have enough breath. Lenox stares at my face, blinking like an owl, like he knows I can’t speak, and he doesn’t care. I close my eyes.

Ringing his bell. That’s what our older mated couples call it.

I never have. Obviously. I don’t acknowledge that the bond exists. It was a lot of work to ignore it at first, but like a car alarm or a chirping fire detector, eventually, if it doesn’t drive you crazy, you tune it out.

I haven’t let myself notice it in years. I scurry past it like it’s a graveyard.

I can’t do what he’s asking. I don’t know how, and if I could, would I really call Darragh here? Could I do that?

Would he even come?

With every second that passes, my lungs get tighter and tighter. My head feels overstuffed, like it’s close to bursting. How long before I pass out? Before I strangle myself on this collar?

I don’t want to die.

I can ring his bell. A distant memory flickers at the corner of my fuzzy brain. The lodge at dinnertime. Darragh by the dais. Me by the kitchen. My fingers tangling in a bright, glowing brand-new bond.

I can do this. I can do whatever I have to do to survive.

And if he doesn’t come—

I have to try. I close my eyes, and for the first time in four years, I search for the bond. At first, all I hear is the pounding of my blood in my ears and the wild thumping of my heart. A flare of panic rises in my chest. Maybe it’s gone, atrophied, shriveled into nothing.

My wolf whines. She’s inched closer to the border between us, worrying at something. She’s got something. She wants me to check it out.

I’m scared.

Even though I can’t get enough air, and my sides are on fire, and my shoulder bones are being slowly ripped from their sockets by the weight of my body, I’m scared to look inside.

What if it isn’t there anymore?

My wolf glances over her shoulder at me and whines again. I have no other choice. I let my mind go there, where she wants me to look. To the thing in my chest.

And as soon as I do, it’s like a veil falls and it’s there, and it’s loud, much louder than a car alarm. It’s blaring like an air raid siren. I scramble back, shove it away, turn my face. I don’t understand. How can that exist inside me?

I try to deafen myself, at least enough so I can think clearly, but now that it’s in my head, I can’t turn it down.

What do I do now?

I don’t know. It’s a torrent flowing into and out of my chest, the kind of flood that sweeps away river banks and turns houses into matchsticks. How do I call him? I’m so small in the face of it.

I reach out, tentative, trying to summon up the genetic wisdom to do this thing, but no instinctual understanding appears. So I say in my mind—

Darragh.

The bond roars, but other than that—nothing.

I teeter on my toes, the collar cutting into my neck. This time I don’t mean to, the name forms itself.

Darragh.

My fear swells, tears burning my eyes, and I know that I’m calling into the void, that I’m alone, and no one is coming, but I can’t stop crying in silence.

Darragh.

I don’t want to die.

Eventually, I’m too tired to call anymore. I go limp in my chains, my head lolling forward. I can’t keep my neck straight. There’s nothing left in me. He’s not there. He’s not coming.

Lenox’s gaze rakes my face, and the corner of his lip rises. “Begin phase three,” he says.

He reaches up and loosens the collar a notch. Air rushes into my lungs, and I sway.

“Let her down a few inches,” he says to Miller. The chain is lowered enough so that my soles can touch the ground. The evening is cooling off. The sun is low in the west and shadows are lengthening. As air rushes into my lungs, I begin to notice details.

The foothills rise in the northeast. We must be in human territory. Except for Lenox, I don’t scent any shifters, not present now or here recently. The two humans who went into the woods are close, but silent. Occasionally, I can scent them on the wind. What are they doing? Are they lookouts?

What happens to me now? How long before they give up on Darragh coming for me? What do they do to me then?

Whatever was in the drink, it isn’t calming me. Every time I push my panic down, it rears back up, as loud as the bond I can’t tune out. The drink is doing strange things to my stomach, though. I’m not quite nauseous, but my belly doesn’t feel right. It’s squirmy.

As the wind picks up, goosebumps rise on my arms, although I’m not cold. I’m clammy.

Lenox ignores me to go mess around with his gear. Miller and Jones cluster by the trunk of the tree I’m hanging from, muttering in undertones. I strain to overhear. They’re talking about basketball. Eventually, they grow quiet and still, waiting for whatever is going to happen.

Smith leans against an opposite tree and stares at me. The other two men keep their position on the perimeter, watching the woods, but they give themselves occasional breaks, lowering their rifles every few minutes to stretch and roll out their shoulders.