Denied by Destiny: Trapped in the Shadows of the Mate Bond

- Josie -

"What's going on?"

Knox approaches me as I step out of the front door with Lobo, he has his spare motorcycle helmet in his hand.

"Let's go for a ride!" A charming smile lands across his face, his brown eyes the strongest they've looked in days.

"A ride, right now? Dad would have a fit!" I laugh out only to stop myself when I realise he is being completely serious. "Knox, the borders aren't safe."

"Then it's a good thing I want to take you out of the borders." He places the helmet in my hands before heading back towards his bike.

The engine roaring to life under his touch.

I start shaking my head at him, only to see that determined look in his eyes return and the alpha office door open hastily from behind. If I was to go, it would be now.

Chewing on my bottom lip, I place the helmet over my head and follow in his footsteps, placing my leg over the back of the motorcycle and adjusting my hands around his waist. Tightly.

"That's my girl!" He turns his head to wink at me before placing his own helmet on.

The bike kicks into life, I don't dare look behind but judging by the way Dad is pushing on my mind-link, he just missed us. I push back, I knew I shouldn't be leaving, but I knew I would be safe with Knox. I let him unwind, let the tension in his back and shoulders release as he drives us through the open road.

We haven't gone far, I can still feel the pull to the pack link, if I needed to, I could mind-link still...a fact I'm sure Knox was fully aware off.

He takes us off the main roads and onto the country lanes where we are surrounded with woodlands...trees that go on for miles.

The bike pulls up in a layby where his hands move on to me, his fingers snaking around my hips as I find myself lifted and placed in front of him...now straddling him on the front of his bike.

He removes his helmet, his dark brown eyes brooding with unsaid emotion. Air chokes at the back of my throat.noveldrama

"Do you know how much I love you?" His words knock the wind out of me.

Speech failing me his fingers move from my hips up to my neck where he untightens the strap to my helmet, before removing it completely.

My hands automatically feed through my hair, his eyes watching me with sultry desire.

"I never wanted a mate..." The contradiction to his last sentence forces a scoff out of me.

“Charming.."

"Hear me out. I never wanted a mate, I never wanted to feel a connection to someone that was so strong. That I would spend the rest of my life living in fear of something happening to them, and then trying to survive after losing the mate bond." "You won't lose me."

"But I nearly did Red, you died in my arms. I can't even tell you how that felt, to be completely useless. To not be able to help the woman that I loved. I've mourned an entire pack Red, my entire family were killed before my very eyes...I don't think I can survive that again." I'm frozen, both through choice and involuntarily. If I made any sound I would scare him off, he would close down on me. He was opening up his soul to me, letting me see inside of him, letting me know all of him.

"I was around ten years old, my pack, my family wiped out in a day. I witnessed it all, I was useless, I couldn't help which is why I help others."

Which is why he has the alpha training programme. To prevent other packs falling for the same fate.

I knew he had been hiding things, but I had no idea it was this. An entire pack gone, his entire family. My heart was shattering for him.

I wanted to hold him, protect him from what he must have witnessed, what as a child, must have been seen by those innocent eyes.

My hands move to his chest, I need to touch him but not scare him away.

"I didn't want the same fate for my mate. But you are different, you are strong...a little irresponsible with your own welfare..." He playfully rolls his eyes at me.

"...but I know now why I have been mated to you. It's to protect you."