Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
She’s run away because of the snobbery of the pack and my own failure to integrate her into it successfully. She should have felt more welcome here than anywhere on the planet. It should have felt like she had finally come home to a family she had never realized she’d always missed.
Instead, one out-of-control, unmated female has humiliated her, and the pack has treated her like an irrelevance. It is all completely unacceptable.
Abel stands next to me at the side of the road where her scent disappears. “I am sorry, brother.”
I say nothing. I am far too furious to speak at this moment. Abel mistakes my silence for openness and starts talking far more than he should.
“It may be for the best. The mate bond is typically regarded as inviolate, but there are times in which following instinct is not the most advisable course.”
Abel is speaking, but it is Linus’ words coming out of his mouth. This has been discussed behind my back extensively. I knew the pack at large were talking, but I thought my own brother would refrain from gossip.
“You mean I should let the woman who gave herself to me, who allowed herself to be forever transformed by being with me, go, not knowing what happened to her, so I can choose a more convenient mate for the pack?”
“That is not how I would phrase it,” Abel says.
I turn to my brother, looking him dead in the eye so he understands how seriously I mean what I am about to say.
“I am going to find my mate, and the rest of you can wait for us to return, upon which time, we will be married, and each and every one of you will smile and damn well like it.”
CHAPTER 9
Kira
I have never felt so guilty before in my fucking life. I feel like a runaway bride, but I also feel like a complete imposter who had to run away because she’d been discovered. I’ve managed to find my way home, just like I always do. No matter how many times I leave this place, I seem to end up here again anyway.
The rocking of the bus intensifies as the quality of the road degrades. The light changes. Gets dimmer somehow, warmer in some other ways. Dust makes everything look a little orange. The bus will be covered in it, and soon so will I.
The screech of the brakes followed by the hard rocking motion that comes with suddenly losing all momentum indicates we’ve reached my stop. I thank the driver, who grunts at me, and I go down the stairs.
St. Infernus is a town truly in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing here. Not even an actual bus stop sign. Just a bent pole in the ground where the sign used to be and a bunch of broken glass, which feels kind of intentional on account of there’s nothing glass here for miles. Doesn’t take a detective to work out the mystery, I guess. People get on or off the bus and instead of taking their garbage with them, they turn it into a danger for others.
Kids and animals could cut themselves on this glass. It’s a hazard, a stupid, selfish hazard. My eyes start to haze with tears of frustration that have absolutely nothing to do with broken glass in a remote country bus stop and everything to do with regret. I’ve gone my entire life without knowing anything nice, or having anyone nice. Then, for a very brief period of time, I got to know what it was like to be cared about. To have someone be nice to me, and to have nice things.
It makes coming back here so much worse. It makes everything so much worse, but maybe everything being constantly worse is just how my life is supposed to be.
The stop is six miles from my aunt and uncle’s place. I shoulder the small bag, wearing it like a backpack, and head out on foot.
Growing up, I promised myself I’d never come back here if I ever managed to leave. But now I’m grown, I realized there’s a part of me that will never be able to leave this place. I am stuck here.
By the time I get to what never really felt like home, I am feeling dehydrated and a little dizzy from misery. I rest against a fence post that used to be part of a fence years ago and look out over the place I could never really escape.
The farm looks like I remembered. Dilapidated. They’d sell it if they could, but it’s not worth anything, thanks to the runoff from the mines. Not much grows here anymore, just rough grasses and dirt patches that turn to mud wallows when it rains.
My uncle still tries from time to time, planting corn and sometimes beets. There’s a few scrawny sheep and cows doing their best to subsist on the poisoned land. This place is sick, and everybody in it is sick too.