Aric (The Boundarylands #7) - Callie Rhodes Page 0,31

adjusted. Outside the door was Aric’s bedroom—she'd been locked in his closet. Jocelyn couldn't speak—that ability had vanished when her heat had begun in earnest—but his nearness unleashed joy and relief, and a cry of pure animal want escaped her.

Aric stiffened at the sound. He was only inches away, but he didn't touch her.

"Shit," he muttered. "This is going to be a hell of a lot harder than I thought."

He gritted his teeth before loosening her bonds and scooping her up off the floor. Jocelyn experienced the blinding relief of his touch for only a few seconds before he deposited her on his bed.

She arched her back and whimpered, but Aric didn't join her. Instead, he quickly refastened her wrists to the headboard. Then he used a second belt to bind her ankles to the footboard.

Jocelyn watched him without comprehending or even considering what he was doing. It did not occur to her to question why he was imprisoning her again. It made no difference to her.

All that mattered was that he was with her again.

Her Aric.

Her Alpha.

All that was left to do now was to get back to fucking, taking his come, submitting to his knot.

But that didn't happen.

Aric stepped back from the bed once he was done lashing her down.

"I'm sorry," he said, reaching out as if to touch her face before reluctantly withdrawing his hand. "I have to stay vigilant in case he comes back. If something happened to you…"

Jocelyn pulled against her restraints. She didn't understand. Not his words. Not his actions. Nothing but the fact that he wasn't touching her.

She cried out for him as he slowly backed away, his face betraying a collision of powerful emotions. She thrashed and moaned, trying to impel him back where she needed him—where he belonged—but he ignored her as he began to cover the windows, blocking out the light. Then he dressed quickly in the dark and left without another word, closing the door firmly behind him.

Jocelyn's stomach twisted at the realization that Aric had left her. He hadn't returned to be with her after all. The brilliant light of his presence faded into the distance, trailing the ragged threads of their connection behind it.

And everything inside her broke apart.

It nearly killed him, but Aric stayed away.

His only sense of the passage of time was the movement of the moon across the night sky, viewed through the picture window in his living room. At times he thought he couldn't hold out another second, that he'd rush back through his bedroom door to the omega who hadn't stopped crying out for him, but then he would think of the danger she was in and somehow found the strength to steel his resolve.

Dawn came, and the sun rose. The house warmed; birdsong came through the windows. Aric felt no hunger, no fatigue, no thirst—only the raw wound of separation, the pain of ignoring his omega's pleas to the deepest part of his alpha nature.

The sun set again, but still he did not waver. Somehow, Aric endured two endless days and two excruciating, sleepless nights of his vigil.

There was no other way. If he gave in to his omega's pleas, to his own yearning, and the sniper came back onto his land while he was deep inside her, oblivious to everything else—

Well, he would never recover.

And that was no exaggeration.

Jo's essence mingled with his own deep inside of him. All that was left to seal it was her claiming bite, but even without it, the bond was permanently set. If she died, Aric knew that he would follow.

So he stayed outside her door. He drank gallons of black coffee and the occasional swig of moonshine to dull the roar of his primal lust, and somehow he made it through.

By sunrise on the fourth day, the overwhelming scent of Jo's slick started to wane. Her keening settled into a hoarse whimpering, eventually becoming the occasional ragged sigh. By afternoon, her scent had almost completely evened out again, and she was back to her old self.

Although not entirely. Aric could tell that something inside her had shifted. She was still beset with a steady thrum of fear and anxiety, but the constant impulse to run had lifted.

Aric tried to be grateful for that small mercy, but could not get past his frustration that he hadn't been able to screw that urge out of her as he'd intended. He'd wanted to be the one to break down her skittishness and reluctance—not her nature or