If he let go now, she was in danger of hurting herself in an effort to flee.
"Calm down," he told her. "Panicking won't help."
"What the hell do you mean, calm down? There is a mafia hitman out there trying to kill both of us. If anything, we should be panicking more."
Aric regarded his omega, at a loss as to what to do next. She was so beautiful, so vibrant—but so damned afraid.
"What do you want me to do? Leave my property? Leave the Boundarylands? Run and hide because some fucking beta has a rifle and a grudge?"
"Yes. That's exactly what I want. It's what anyone with a working survival instinct would do."
"Oh, my sweet little omega," Aric sighed, bemused. He might not have been able to tame the fear out of her yet, but there were still things he could teach her. "You're still thinking like a beta. I am an alpha—your alpha. We don't run or hide. We protect what's ours. And we sure as shit don't worry about surviving run-ins with shitbags like John. If he's got any brains at all, he'd better be worrying about surviving me.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jocelyn tried over and over to warn him, but Aric refused to listen. And now he was going to get his stubborn ass killed.
It wasn't her fault, she knew that…but it wouldn't matter whose fault it was when Aric was lying dead on the ground, and John was holding the gun that killed him. Then there would be nothing to stop him from finishing her off too.
Damn her omega nature for cursing her like this, giving her everything she'd given up hoping for—a man who'd never leave, who'd never stop wanting her, not to mention the incredible sex—but then making him a stubborn ass who refused to listen to reason.
No matter what she said, Aric kept repeating that John was the one who was in danger, not them. It was as if he saw something completely different in the two bullet holes above the bed in this room where they'd spent the last four days.
Or at least where she'd spent the last four days. According to Aric, he'd been present only for two of them.
Jocelyn's own memories were fuzzy. She could recall certain moments and sensations—breathtaking, magical sensations etched forever in her memories—but they were all…fractured, like the beautiful colors and patterns in a kaleidoscope, shifting in her mind.
Even now, thinking about those sensations stirred the longing that had become a permanent part of her. Not like during her heat, when it raged so intensely and obliterated rational thought. Now it was more like a constant low flame that could kindle a fire with the slightest change in the wind.
For a woman who'd never thought of herself as particularly sensual, who'd never achieved orgasm with a man, Jocelyn wasn't sure how she felt about the fact that she could match her alpha's sexual hunger.
Before, during the long hours when she'd waited alone in the dark closet, Jocelyn had burned with the painful shame that she hadn't been enough for Aric. That despite hitting one sexual peak after another, the experience hadn't been enough even to keep him close.
Then he had returned and erased her doubts and convinced her she was enough for him. The relief she'd felt was overwhelming, briefly overshadowing even her terror of John.
But Jocelyn still didn't fully recognize that part of herself. Every cry, every moan, every wild ride she'd taken on Aric's cock seemed like it had been some other woman.
Except for the splintering, explosive pleasure...that had definitely been all her. She'd hungered for it, fought for it, begged for it, until she'd turned into someone she didn't know.
And what was worse, Jocelyn was realizing she'd become a stranger to herself even before she set foot in the Boundarylands.
If anyone had asked her a month ago—even two days ago—if there was anything that could make her give up her old life, her home, her family, she'd have thought the question ridiculous. But Jocelyn kissed all of that goodbye the moment she made the decision to turn John over the feds. As naïve as she'd been, even she knew that a person couldn't do such a thing and then expect to show up at Uncle Peter's for the holidays.
It would be so much easier to lay the blame for all her burnt bridges at Aric's feet. But the truth was that she'd burned them all down on her own.
As Jocelyn admitted the truth to herself, she realized