creature. He looked down at me and I could see the purity of his anger. His eyes were gold.
Maybe a hint of disappointment, as well.
I jumped up and grabbed at the shattered remnants. There was no way to save it, yet something in me screamed out for it, to grab it from him and hide it. I made a move to snatch it away from him. He pulled back, his wolf still at the surface.
“What did you do?” I asked in disbelief. I looked at Hunter. His fists were clenched tight, his face was turned to the side. The muscles in his cheek rolled as he held back the shift.
“I came in here last night to see if you were okay.”
He could barely get the words out. They were gritty and barely recognizable.
“So you destroyed my phone?”
“You called him. You are still relying on him,” his voice quieted.
I bit my lip and looked down.
“I waited for you last night. At dinner, you never showed. What did you expect me to do?”
“You lied to me first, Colette,” Hunter bit out.
“When?”
“I asked if anything was wrong. You lied to me. I needed to get out. I needed to run. When I came in here last night you were in there, hiding, talking to him. Fuck!” Hunter pushed off from the door frame and paced the room. I untangled myself from my comforter.
“So you’re punishing me?” I shoved him to a stop, not knowing what else to do with the rage flooding my system. My wolf protested all the while. She didn’t understand the anger that I was feeling. She only knew that Hunter belonged to her.
“No,” Hunter snarled, “I am going to punish him. You’re mine. You should have come to me.”
“No! Don’t blame this on me. I could not have ‘come to you’ I don’t even know where you are half the time. And I’m stuck here in a place I don’t know anyone. Dammit, Hunter, what do you expect me to do?” I asked pissed off.
“I want you to try to trust me. To treat me like I’m you’re mate,” Hunter said.
“If you want me to come find you, maybe you should start acting more like a mate,” I glared up at him.
Hunter didn’t move. I didn’t know what he was planning, but fur was beginning to sprout from his pores. He shook off the shift for a second, but I knew it wouldn’t last. He turned on his heel and left my room, slamming the door shut behind him.
I felt exhausted and moved to sit on the bed. I couldn’t get the sound of my phone breaking out of my head. Plastic crinkling and crackling.
I sat there for a while letting my heartbeat slow to its natural tempo. I knew that during our entire fight he was fighting his wolf. I had lived with weres my entire life, yet when it came to someone I could love, I seemed to be throwing everything I knew about them out the window.
He had smelled my lie last night. I had done this.
No, I shook my head. Hunter could have handled it better. We were both to blame. I could hear the wolf in me whine at the thoughts running through my head. She wasn’t happy last night when I called Griffin instead of searching out Hunter, but this was an old fear and I wanted someone who understood it.
Sometimes the comfort of home is a need.
****
Two weeks passed. Hunter and I were still giving each other one word responses. We made an effort to have dinner together, but that was the extent of our trying. I spent more time with Jen. The more I did, the more comfortable I felt. I felt safe in the knowledge that my powers were bound, and there was no way any in this pack would find out unless I told them. And fat chance of that happening. I had felt the need to tell Hunter before our fight, but not anymore.
I was sitting in my room I thought that any day Hunter would come in and tell me that we were moving out of the house. He seemed pretty intent on doing so when I we arrived. Instead, we stayed at Damien’s.
Damien was around sometimes, but mostly he would disappear into his office for the day. Or he would go out and spend time with the pack. The full moon was in a couple days, and I was getting jittery. We all were. It was