What was he doing throwing it around like that? I wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or if he was so angry he was just having that much trouble controlling himself. Either way, it wasn’t cool.
I stared into Donovan’s eyes, not caring about setting him off anymore. “If you don’t want to have a reasonable conversation without the stupid power plays, then you can leave.” I strode to the door and flung it open. “Because this is so not happening.”
He sat up so slowly, so smoothly, it was eerie. Almost as if some other force lifted him off the bed. My heart picked up a pace or ten as I realized what I’d done.
Fantastic plan, Meredith. Way to piss off an already angry Alpha even more. So unbelievably stupid. I was trained better than to snap at an out of control Were. It had been drilled into me that keeping calm was the key to staying alive.
When Donovan stepped to me, I stepped back. He closed in on me again, and I couldn’t help but take another step back. It happened again. And again. Until my heels knocked against my closet door.
He placed a hand on either side of my head, and my pulse raced.
My mate was almost feral, but he wasn’t destroying things, so he wasn’t all the way feral. I just didn’t know why. Maybe he could be upset that I’d gotten caught up in more human drama, but this was ridiculous. It hadn’t been intentional.
Something else had to be bothering him. Getting on the news was bad, but unless everyone who was with me in those videos holed up in a cave for the rest of their lives, it was bound to happen. We lived in a world filled with cell phone cameras, social media, and live streaming. That was why we’d been exposed. Weres couldn’t hide anymore. Especially me. This wasn’t going to be the only time I’d get recognized. He knew that. So, I’d obviously done something else to set him off, but what?
We’d been fine before I went to the mall. We’d talked about what I was planning for my day, how his very long day was going…
Donovan brushed his nose against my neck, and I instinctively lifted my chin, showing him my throat in surrender. As a rule, I wanted to do that as little as possible. If we were going to have an equal relationship, I couldn’t be surrendering to him left and right. But this time was an exception. I knew when an Alpha was losing his mind and losing control of his wolf. It was better to show my throat than force him to lose what little control he had left.
His teeth brushed my neck. They were almost a wolf’s teeth—elongated and sharp. When he bit down, I gasped, but he let go before drawing blood.
He growled something indecipherable.
“I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Open.”
Open? Open what? The closet? A window? Sure. No problem. But he had me cornered. I couldn’t do anything until he moved out of the way, and I was pretty sure that wasn’t happening anytime soon.
I tried to feel along our bond to figure out—
And then it hit me. I knew why Donovan had gone crazy. I’d seen Dastien go through this. It had been worse then because he wasn’t as old as Donovan. He didn’t have the control that Donovan did. But when Tessa had gone onto coven land, the magical barrier that surrounded La Alquelarre’s compound had cut off their bond, and Dastien had lost his mind. We’d locked him up in the feral cages before he did something horrible.
I was such an idiot.
I closed my eyes and focused on our bond. It took me a second to find Donovan. I had to sort through my connections with both my pack and the St. Ailbe’s satellite pack. When I found the severed link that tied us together, I grabbed hold of it and tugged it back into place. The force of it knocked me against the wall.
Donovan’s terror ate at my soul. All the possibilities he’d been thinking raced through my mind at once. The fear that I’d been taken by rogue wolves or killed or worse—stolen by the fey. It was all too much. I almost shut him off again but didn’t dare. I could barely breathe until the bond settled down.
When I could finally open my eyes, I was sitting on the floor, wrapped around my mate. Donovan pressed his mouth against the side of my neck, and his hot breath heated my skin. I knew I should say something, but what?
Should I apologize? Probably best to lead with that. It seemed like apologies were going to be the theme for the evening. “I’m sorry that I closed off the bond. The cops were coming, and there was a mob scene outside of the bathroom, and I knew I’d epically fucked up. I had to focus on figuring a way out of it without making things worse, and I couldn’t do that while you were so upset with me.” I paused for a second. “But it was the wrong thing to do. And I’m sorry.”
Donovan shuddered, and I felt the movement echo through my soul. “Please don’t do that again. I don’t care what’s going on or how mad we are at each other. Don’t shut me out. Don’t leave. I can’t help you if I can’t connect with you. I didn’t know if you were okay. If the fey had hurt you. I didn’t know where to find you…” The little bit of whine in his voice broke my heart. I’d done this to him.
Being mated to someone so strong was an enormous responsibility. I had the power to upend Donovan’s control, and that was dangerous and more than a little intense.
He pulled away just enough so that he could look into my eyes. “It’s going to take time for us to learn how this works, but I want to share my life with you. So if I’m mucking the situation up in any way, just give me a moment to calm down.”
“I will. I didn’t know what I was doing.” I stared into his eyes, which still glowed wolf-blue. “But I won’t cut off our bond again.”
“Aye. That would best.” He gave me a half smile. “I scared a fair amount of people getting here.”
I laughed. “I bet you did.”
He closed his eyes for a second, and when they opened, they were back to their usual glass blue. “And now. You want to tell me what happened at the mall? And what you were doing with Cosette when you knew what was going on between us and the fey?”
I sighed. “I didn’t mean to make things complicated.”