Chapter Four

She was still fucking beautiful. Maybe even more so now that she'd gone from girl to woman. All his past mistakes flooded through him. All the terrible shit he said to her. The degradation he had given to their moon-fated bond. She was absolutely right. He wa s— i s— a selfish prick.

Miles searched her eyes for any hint she might still feel about him the way he felt about her. If he'd have blinked, he might have missed the flash of pain in her baby-blue eyes, but for a split-second, he saw the love she was trying to deny. It slayed him that he had done this to them.

That he had forced her to walk away from her life in the Shadowhide Pack.

That he had broken her heart.

That he had shattered her trust.

"Please, Circe," he begged again. "There've been a lot of changes. I've changed. I'm no longer that asshole who disrespected you."

She hesitated, and that gave him hope.

"Can we sit down and talk?" he asked. "Just … let's catch up."

Wariness tugged down the corners of her mouth, giving her a pinched look, and he honestly thought she was going to say no. Then she gave one slow nod of acceptance, before turning to sit on the sofa. He followed, sitting in the recliner.

"So, talk," she ordered, crossing her arms in front of her chest. The move placed an invisible barrier between them.

"I didn't mate with Melissa," he said, deciding to get that important fact out of the way first. "When I realized you had left, I told her about you in a drunken haze. She was horrified. See, she had lost her mate in the war, so she knew how much you must have been suffering. She said she couldn't take away another woman's mate."

Circe's mouth dropped open. "What about the peace treaty?"

"It was honored," he said, and gave a rueful grin. "She married my father."

It was almost comical how Circe blinked in shocked surprise.

"Uh," she said. "Are you kidding?"

He shrugged. "Both their spouses were dead, and the High Luna doesn't offer second-chance mates. It made sense."

"Let me get this straight. Your ex-fiancée in now your stepmother."

"Yeah, that sums it up nicely."

Her arms dropped away as she sat forward. "I admit, I didn't see that coming."

"None of us did," he said. "We have naturally long lives, so at least they won't be alone anymore."

"Shit, it's just, well, unbelievable."

"I know."

"Wait," she said, frowning. "Are you the alpha?"

"I am," he replied. "When they had their mating ceremony, he took over her pack as Alpha because her father had the wasting disease. I became Alpha for the Shadowhide Pack."

She shook her head bemusedly. "I still can't get over this."

"After the dust settled on that, I went searching for you." He tumbled back into the memories. "I visited every pack. Tracked down any lead that came my way. I emailed the packs overseas. Each and every response came back with a no. I thought maybe they were lying so I offered a reward for information."

"You put a bounty on me?"

"I did," he said unapologetically. "Yet each year passed without a word. Until a few days ago. I got a phone call saying you were with the Sheridan Pack, so I came right away."

"Did you get permission from Alpha Jericho?"

"Not exactly."

"Are you crazy? He's going to read this as a challenge."

"If you leave with me now, he never needs to know."

She jerked back as if slapped. "Leave with you? I'm not going anywhere. This is my home and I can't abandon my students."

"You're a teacher?"

"Yeah, I went to Florida for college."

It made complete sense now. "You went to the human world. That's why no pack had heard of you."

She shrugged. "I taught human children for years, until I read about the need for a teacher here in Colorado. I decided it was time to rejoin my kind."

What could he say about that? Nothing, really. He drove her away and he couldn't fault her for trying to build a life away from shifters. It made him wonder if love could survive the bitter years between them.

"I want you to come home."

"I am home," she stressed angrily. "You don't get it, Miles. Shadowhide is not my pack any longer, just as I'm no longer your mate. This is the path you chose for us instead of trying to find a way that worked for everyone."

He shook his head, unable to accept her words. The mate bond between them still pulsed, so he knew she had to feel it as well.

"You walked away from me so easily," she continued, a sob straining her voice. "There is nothing in this world that would make me trust you again. Now, if that's all, you need to leave, and by that, I mean you need to go back to your pack. Leave me with mine."

He stood up and stared down at her. Her beauty still took his breath away.

"I have loved you all my life," he said, his voice shaky even to his own ears. "I will never give up on us. I make a vow right now that I will love you until my dying day. So, if you think I'm leaving you here to go back home, you clearly have forgotten how stubborn I can be."

He wasn't going anywhere. Guess it was time to talk with Alpha Jericho because he had to make a plan to woo his runaway mate.