The Alpha (The Lycans 4)

And the last thing that kept reverberating inside my head before I disconnected the call so I could have a proper mental breakdown was one sentence that Darragh said.

“He’s coming for you, Evelyn, and these males will never stop until they get their mate.”

Now I was at the stage where I was freaking out, feeling like I had been dropped into some kind of crazy book or movie. Maybe this was all a simulation, a slice of the Matrix.

“And now I’m going right down to crazy town like Darragh.”

I remember mumbling that I was going off the grid, although at the time I hadn’t known what I meant or why I even said it. Hell, I didn’t even know where I was going to go. But I knew I had to get out of here, out of the city, far enough away where I could clear my head and sort things out. I didn't know if Cian really was coming for me, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to stick around and find out. He’d lose interest when he saw I wasn’t around. He couldn't search for me for the rest of his life.

Right?

Feeling the strength and resolve fill me, I stood and mentally categorized all I had to do before I left the city. I didn't know where I’d go first, but I’d always wanted to see the mountains, so that was as good a place to start as any.

I grabbed my purse and house keys and headed out to get everything lined up.

I needed to withdraw money for my adventure—because calling it anything other than that would make me feel like a coward, and I refused to be labeled as one. Self-preservation was not the same thing as being weak. I needed to get supplies, food and water, and also rent a car. I’d get all of that, come back here to pack some shit, make sure my apartment was paid for the next month, and then I was hitting the road.

It was almost as if fate heard me, felt the ditch I was stuck in mentally and emotionally, and gave me the nudge I needed, that push I otherwise wouldn’t have taken.

I thought about Cian, a little flush starting to kindle in my body, a warmth I’d never felt before… until I'd seen him across the ocean in a pixelated video chat. I closed my eyes and swallowed the thick lump lodged in my throat. My body suddenly felt like it was on fire, my nipples beading, this heavy ache settling right between my thighs.

I breathed out and slowly opened my eyes before narrowing them, pissed that he made me feel this way. I didn’t like not being in control, having my body betray me with this potent arousal for a man I didn’t even know. It made me feel like my life wasn’t my own. And I wouldn't have that.

Anyone could stay hidden if they really wanted to. So that’s what I was going to do.

Besides…

If he was coming for me, if he thought he could just snatch me up and make me his, there was only one thing for me to do.

Run.

He’d have one hell of a chase on his hands, because I wasn’t going to make this easy on him.

If a hunt was what he wanted… I’d give him the greatest one of his life.

7

Cian

It was painful hearing the airport officials butcher the hell out of my and Odhran’s names. And of course the last-minute, Lycan-owned private jet I secured to the States from Scotland had been detained for a couple of hours, throwing a wrench into the time constraints I’d set for going after my mate. Not to mention we hadn’t acquired our private customs official once we landed, which meant we’d had to go the normal route of sifting through the red tape of landing on foreign soil.

So here we were, dealing with the bullshit of a human airport agent destroying the pronunciation of our names and looking at us like it was our fucking problem he couldn't say them right. Humans were behind and in front of us, the conversations all around obnoxious and loud, and the wail of children tired and done with this airport bullshit told me we weren’t the only ones ready to lose our fucking minds.

“Fooking hell,” Odhran finally muttered and stepped forward to glare down at the human male still trying to say the very Gaelic pronunciations. “Key-an,” he emphasized with a barely repressed growl as he pronounced my name. “And mine is Or-in.” He muttered it harder than necessary, then spouted off a slew of Gaelic curse words under his breath.

The human’s face turned red, but he didn’t say anything as he stamped our passports and handed them back to us, not making eye contact with Odhran.