Seduction (The Journal of the Wolves of Spruce Hollow) (29 page)

Why were we suddenly going home?
I thought I had to be here for at least a month or more? What had happened to change his mind? Knowing Roan, this was probably one of his little “Were training” exercises. He liked to throw me off balance.

I felt a combination of disorientation and also disappointment at myself for not saying one single thing that I’d planned on saying to Roan the moment he’d untaped my mouth.
“Way to go, dummy,”
I thought bitterly.
 

At least he hadn’t put the wrist shackles back on when he’d left the room, I guess that was one thing to be thankful for. I couldn’t get off the bed and move around the room but it was still a lot better than being completely tied down on all fours.
 

It was weird, Roan had been anger personified when I first phased back. He was all full of piss and vinegar but now he was suddenly subdued and giving me the silent treatment. I wondered if he was just taking a short breather before he morphed into bossy, control freak Roan again? I guess I’d find out when he decided to come back upstairs and grace me with his presence. But I would be ready for him this time.
 

My stomach was pleasantly full and I was feeling sleepy. Even though my wolf had slept all night on the couch with Roan, I still felt mentally and physically exhausted, as I’d stayed up long after they both fell asleep. It was an odd thing to be split into two different entities, each with their own consciousness and personality.
 

Huffing with irritation at my current predicament, I grabbed a pillow from the top of the bed and, as best as I could, I pulled the blankets over my chained legs. I curled up into a ball with one arm tucked in like a wing. Blessedly, sleep came and claimed me almost as soon as I closed my eyes.

I am running.
 

Terror bubbles up from my throat but I cannot scream out for help because my throat is swollen shut.
 

I am panic stricken as I know the terrible things that will happen if he catches me.

The black specter at my back has whispered his intent in my ear, in another time, in another place as my blood mixed with the earth.
 

He is getting closer and my heart pounds like a drum in my ears as he reaches out and grabs a handful of my hair and pulls me down.

I woke with a start as disoriented thoughts of running through the woods with Jude at my back rushed in and filled my head. Trembling, I quickly sat up and saw Roan sitting at the opposite end of the bed with my feet in his lap.
 

His gaze was sharp and steady as he watched me quietly. I looked at him, wild eyed and dazed, with sleep swollen lips and mussed up hair.
 

“Roan,” I cried out with a half choked sob as I reached out to him, needing the reassuring comfort that only the protective circle of his arms could bring me.

Launching myself into his arms, the ugly, hurtful words that had passed between us were momentarily forgotten as Roan swallowed me in his warm, comforting embrace.

My breathing was hitched and broken as I trembled in his arms, too dazed to form coherent sentences.
 

“Shhh, it’s okay. It was only a dream, little girl. No one will hurt you ever again. I’ll protect you with my life, I promise,” he said soothingly as he smoothed my hair and coddled me like a small child.
 

I don’t know how long I had been asleep and living in Jude’s nightmare world but Roan’s words wrapped themselves around me and provided a buffer against the darkness.
 

In my dazed state, I felt that Roan spoke the truth and believed him when he said that he would protect me with all that he had, even his own life. Of everyone I knew, only Roan could be counted on to keep me safe against those who would hurt me. Sighing in blessed relief, I melted bonelessly into him with my cheek pressed tight into the crook of his neck.

Roan stroked my back gently, running his fingertips from the sweaty nape of my neck down the entire length of my spine until I started to shiver.

I was safe, warm and happy in his arms. That is, until I came back to reality and regained my faculties. Words, pictures and emotions came flooding back to me and ruined the tender moment between us.

“Let me go, let me go,” I whimpered pitifully as I was overcome by the need to be as physically far away from Roan as possible. Running to the safety of his arms had been instinct
only. Nothing more.
It was my memories from a safer, happier time that had driven me to him.
 

I repeated this mantra in my head over and over again as I brought my hands up to his chest and pushed against him to break his hold on me. To my surprise, he didn’t fight to hold on to me or try to convince me to stay. He just simply released me and let go.
 

Scrambling to the other end of the bed, I huddled against the headboard with my arms and legs pulled in tightly against my body. Wild eyes peered out from underneath my disheveled mass of curly hair and searched Roan’s handsome face as I waited for him to say something.
 

Anything.

A sarcastic remark about how I’d played him so hot and cold. A chilly rebuke. An angry threat.
 

Something.

But nothing came as I waited for the words to spill from his mouth His eyes were blank and held no perceptible emotion in their cerulean blue depths.
 

They were empty…just like my heart.

Finally, he spoke, his voice steely and cold.
 

“It’s time to go home, Aspen.”

Chapter 34

~Aspen~

Roan was even more withdrawn and brooding than usual as we hiked through the woods. Our destination was the clearing near the logging road where we’d parked his truck. It was quite far from the training camp and I was already tired even though we’d only been hiking a short time.

Thankfully, a lot of our supplies had been left behind at the camp and as a result, my pack was almost completely empty. It was a relief not to have to carry such a large, heavy pack as Roan’s truck was miles away and I still hadn’t recovered from my mad dash through the woods in my wolf form. My muscles ached and I felt a bottomless exhaustion deep in my bones. Being in wolf form sure took a lot out of you.
 

Roan led the way, and I obediently followed behind him like a prisoner being led to the gallows. Not that I had much of a choice in the matter as Roan had handcuffed one of my wrists to a chain that was attached to his belt. He’d said he didn’t want me to get any bright ideas and run off and get lost in the woods.

I didn’t even try to argue with him when he’d grabbed hold of my wrist and cuffed me. I just didn’t have it in me to argue with him anymore and therefore felt pretty resigned to my fate.
 

As we walked along in complete silence, I’d had an epiphany and had figured out why Roan was taking me back home so early. It certainly wasn’t because my Were training was complete, that’s for sure. The truth was pretty simple if you sat and thought about it for a minute.
 

We were going home because everything that he’d said to me during our argument yesterday was one hundred percent true.
 

Roan didn’t love me.
And he never had.
 

The only reason that he’d stuck around all these years was because he felt obligated and pressured by the pack to accept me as his mate. I could see the regret in his eyes whenever he looked at me now.
 

He hadn’t wanted Valerie to adopt me because hadn’t wanted me to come to Spruce Hollow. It was the pack that’d brought me there. Not him. I was nothing but an inconvenient burden and the only reason he’d chased me down when I tried to run away from him was not because he loved me but because my wolf was in heat and his wolf wanted to mate with her.
 

Swallowing back an errant tear that threatened to squeeze itself from my eye, I sniffled quietly into my mittened hand. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply saddened and desperate I felt about this revelation. The pain was such a heavy burden that I wanted to fall on my knees in the middle of the woods and beg Roan to love me.
 

There was no way that I could wrap my head around the prospect of my life without him in it. I’d loved him desperately since I was a kid and would never be able to love another man the way that I’d loved him.
 

 
It looked like I was fated to die with a broken heart instead, just as both my mothers had.

We walked through the woods for hours, with barely a word exchanged between the two of us.
 

Other than Roan telling me that we were stopping to take a break or passing me the thermos of water from his pack and telling me to drink, he would not speak to me.
 

Actually he’d had a hard time even looking at me. He’d looked deeply troubled and immersed in thought. I figured he was probably trying to plan out what he would tell the Alpha upon our early and unexpected return to Spruce Hollow. The fact that he was abandoning his mate, especially one that he’d blood bonded with, would be looked at unfavorably by the rest of the pack.

Good.

It was no less than he deserved for tearing my still beating heart out of my chest and crushing it under his boot.

Every time we’d stop, I’d boldly stare at him, trying to catch those perfect blue eyes but there was no emotion in their depths and he refused to meet my gaze.

Fighting back the urge to lash out at him, I continued to stare at him from behind as we walked. He was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans that slung low on his hips and made his ass look fantastic.
 

Roan was a man born to wear jeans; he filled them out in all the right places and when paired together with boots and a t-shirt that clung to his sculpted body, he was damn near model perfect.

Unfortunately, the winter jacket underneath his pack obscured all this manly perfection. But I knew it was there. My hands and mouth had touched and tasted every single square inch of him.

Roan’s backpack looked bloated and laden down with supplies. I wonder what was in there to make it look so big? Mine was nearly empty because Roan had said that we were leaving a lot of things behind for the next time he had to come up here with a new Were.
 

As we trudged along through the frosty morning air of the forest, my gaze fell to his legs and ass again and suddenly I felt like such a short, ugly girl. How could I have ever thought that someone so physically perfect and as beautiful as Roan could ever love someone like me? I wasn’t exactly the hot, leggy, model type.
 

I’m sure that if we’d met in a bar as adults, instead of at the swimming pool when I was six years old, he wouldn’t have given me a second look.
 

I’d seen his girlfriend Stacey, so I knew what his type was -and I wasn’t it.
Not by a long shot
.
 

Stacey was beautiful and physically perfect too, just like Roan was. She was tall with the face of a model and a killer, sexy body. The thought of Roan going back to her as soon as we got back home made my heart clench painfully.
 

Why couldn’t I have him? Just this once, Lord, please? Couldn’t I have a man in my life to love me?
 

When Roan had appeared, after my own father had died, I truly thought that the sun rose and set on him.
 

He’d done all the things with me that a father would do with their little girl and I ate it up like crazy. He’d paid attention to me and built his life around me. I was important to him then, I had felt it.
 

But apparently I’d been young and foolish, because it had all been a ruse to fool the pack into thinking that he was eventually going to take me as his mate.
 

In reality, I was nothing but the butt of a cruel joke played out by the one person that I’d loved almost my entire life.
 

The situation was so surreal that I still couldn’t grasp the reality of the fact that Roan was returning me back to Spruce Hollow in order to abandon me once again.
 

Silent tears fell down my face in big, fat streaks as the sharp pain filled me once again. But if Roan heard me sniffling, he gave no sign.
 

I wiped the silent tears with the backs of my mitten clad hands as Roan continued to stare straight ahead. He pulled me through the forest until we blessedly arrived at our destination.
 

Roan’s silver pickup truck was exactly as we’d left it. It was parked at the end of a dirt logging road, deep in the woods. I figured it would be perfectly safe because we were in the backwoods and no one ever ventured up here.
 

As we stood next to the truck box, Roan unhooked my wrist cuff from his belt and squashed me between his body and the side of the truck. He held me there while he shrugged off his pack and threw it in the back.