The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(54)

A hot, itchy prickling crawls across my skin. Darragh’s eyes dart to my face, concerned. How does he know? It must be the bond. I’m so used to ignoring it now that I do it out of habit.

A sharp curiosity replaces the crawly feeling. Back in the clearing, when they made me call him, everything was happening so quickly, and I was terrified and in pain. All I remember now about the bond is the loudness and that surge of energy.

Is the bond always like that?

I shouldn’t want to know. Nothing good can come from poking it. But Darragh’s over there, chained up and at a loss for words, and even though he’s always intimidating, he’s not exactly scary in this moment.

It feels like a risk I could take.

I focus inside—my wolf stirring with her own curiosity—and the second that I pay attention, the bond is there—bam— strong and firm and entrenched like an anchor. A sudden rush of fear thrums in my veins again.

Has it been like this since the beginning? Or has it been growing while I turned a blind eye? It’s not withered, not deformed. It’s—strong.

How have I been walking around this whole time, ignoring it? It’s like I’ve had a big-ass jungle vine growing out of my chest, and I’ve just been shambling around, dragging it along, oblivious.

The corners of Darragh’s eyes crease as he watches me. He knows I’m tuning in—because he’s been tuned in the whole time. I don’t know how I know, but I do.

Is the bond so strong because of him? Because he’s been tending to it all along?

How does a bond work? Is it like a vine, like an appendage, like a current? They call it all kinds of things, but there was never a class in school, and if it’s something your dam tells you, mine never said anything to me but “hush” and “shut the door behind you.”

I could ask Darragh. For a second, I’m tempted, but then another wave of heat erupts in my chest, and I lose my nerve.

“Tell me about the other books,” I say instead.

“The other books?”

I nod. And as I tuck my knees to my chest and wind my free arm around my knees, breathing through the stuffiness that’s getting more unbearable by the minute, I listen to the most garbled plot summaries I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

“Okay. See, there’s this one with a man and his nephew. And they journey to the center of the earth. And there are dinosaurs. And a tornado? Shit—” The brow furrows again. “It might have been a tsunami. Something like that.”

“A tornado in the center of the earth?”

“Yeah.”

“How was there enough air down there for a tornado?”

“There were caverns.”

“How do the men get down there?”

“Uh, they rappelled.”

“Okay.” I’m starting to feel woozy.

“And at the end, they’re spit out of Stromboli.”

“Like the food?”

“No, it was a volcano. Its name was Stromboli.”

“What’s the book called?”

“Journey to the Center of the Earth.”

“Makes sense.”

It’s the strangest conversation I’ve ever had, but I’m calming down again, and I’m not thinking about the spike in my temperature or the massive thing connecting this male to me. This complete stranger.

“Tell me about another one,” I ask.

He looks surprised that I asked—heck, I am too—but he starts on another without hesitation.

“So there’s this doctor. His name is Jekyll. He drinks a serum so he can do evil things.”

“He wants to do evil things?”

“Yeah. And he turns into a man named Hyde. He, uh, tramples a girl.”

“Tramples? Like a horse?”

“Yeah. And then he gets caught, more or less, and he transforms in front of this guy Lanyon who dies from shock.”

“An electrical shock?”

“No, an, um, emotional shock.”

That story reminds me of the taser, and I crane my neck to check out the burns on my sides. The pain has dulled, but if I wasn’t in emotional shock myself, it’d probably hurt like a bitch. Darragh catches the direction I’m looking, and for a moment, fury darkens his face.

“It doesn’t hurt much,” I tell him. I’m not sure why I feel the urge to reassure him. I just do. He’s angry, and even though it doesn’t scare me, I don’t like it.

“I’ll tear those fuckers apart,” he says. Other males would say it with their chest, but Darragh mutters it to the floor, furious and grim and utterly sincere, and then he spends the next five minutes straining against his bonds without me counting to three.

I don’t understand him.

In my head, I’ve built him up to be the world’s biggest asshole. He rejected me because he’s a tormented loner or whatever, which holds no water with me because my father tried to kill me when I was a baby, and my mother chose the freezing river over her only child. I’m tormented, and I didn’t give up on him without a second thought.

Or maybe it was because his wolf wants me dead, but who knows if that’s the real reason? He didn’t even bother telling me why. Clearly, he can be around people sometimes. But with me, he wasn’t even going to try.