The bar was full. The usual patrons in various stages of intoxication occupied every available table and space. Mia assessed this in a split second. Calculating the probabilities and chances of escape. Small, seemingly insignificant, and very crucial facts aligned themselves in her head. One, the packed small bar would buy her some time. And second, the entire place smelled of alcohol and like a poorly ventilated sweaty room. But she knew if she could catch his scent, it wouldn’t take him long to catch hers. In conclusion, her chances were not good at all.
Connor stood at the door. His muscular build and tall height put him well above the majority of people in the bar. He hadn’t yet looked her way. His wandering, studying eyes had his face turned towards a small table of noisy drunks in the back, but Mia knew it was him. Not only from his scent, but she could never forget that face.
The head enforcer of Blue creek pack was one of those people a person just didn’t forget. Especially if they were on the run like her.
Mia had known Connor from the time she was born. He was pack; he was family. She knew him as well as he knew her. He wasn’t hideous to look at. In fact, he was quite handsome. Connor had a firm, square jaw that was usually dusted with a five o’clock shadow. A straight nose and piercing gray eyes when they did not glow with his wolf; that, by the way, was not often.
Mia had always believed, unlike most werewolves, Connor kept his wolf closer to the surface. It may have been because of his job description or just his natural compulsion for brutality. Whatever it was, it made him the wrong person to piss off.
To her misfortune, the Alpha had sent Conner after her the very second they had realized she had taken fate in her own hands and run. She found out when she had a near run in with him in the first week on the run. It had been such a close call; she had seen her freedom flash before her eyes before it had even begun. The man was nothing, if not efficient at his job.
But she had gotten away, and she was very determined to get away again. He hadn’t yet seen her. If the moon goddess was on her side, he didn’t even know she was there. He had probably just wandered into the bar or was just checking, but he didn’t know, she hoped. Her thoughts traveled to the mistake she had made to howl in the woods earlier that day. Maybe that was what had brought Connor into town, but she still doubted he knew she was there.
His body language confirmed her thoughts. He looked too relaxed for someone who was hot on her tail, hunting her down. With this in mind and a silent sigh of relief, Mia took a step away from the counter.
She had to get into the back room to get away. She couldn’t move abruptly, it would draw attention to her. And she couldn’t panic. A sudden pick in her heart rate and Connor would be on to her like a rash. Werewolves had great hearing, and something suddenly irregular would draw his attention in a heartbeat.
In short, she had to stay calm but get away. She also had to do it fast before Conner spotted her or some other patron called out her name. She never changed her name when she got away from the pack lands. It had probably been a stupid move on her part; she thought. It was obviously impossible that she was the only Mia in the world, but she wasn’t naïve enough to believe that the mention of her name wouldn’t bring Connor’s attention to its peak.
Every step she took was like walking in a minefield. Any second and things could blow. She took another step, exiting the area of the counter and almost at the entrance that would lead to the back.
Jim caught her eye and raised his empty glass. Mia’s breath caught in her throat. Jim was about to call her for a refill. She could see it in his eyes. He was already drunk. She knew without a doubt, if he said anything, it would be loud. Sweat broke out all over her skin; another bad thing. It meant her scent would be stronger.
Fuck it. Playing it safe was about to get her caught, she realized. Mia turned and went through the door that led to the back of the bar. She didn’t hear Jim call out or anyone chase after her, but then again, the only thing she could hear was her blood rushing through her ears. Her wolf clawed and scraped at her insides, demanding to be let out.
She had a serious battle within herself. Part of her wanted to shift into her wolf and fight Connor. The other part of her wanted to turn into her wolf and run away as fast as she could. Since she wasn’t sure which option her wolf would go with, she didn’t dare let it loose even when she stepped into the dark back alley.
With a few brisk steps, she was out of the alley and away from the bar. She paused a block away to observe whether she was being followed. She saw and smelled nothing. Mia ran to her apartment. She didn’t let herself think about it, but she knew that would be the last time she worked or saw the inside of Red eyes bar. She was now out of a job.
***
“She was here,” Connor reported to his Alpha on the phone.
A growl rumbled through the line. Alpha Levi seethed. “How could you have allowed her to get away?”
“I didn’t expect her to be there. By the time I realized and caught her scent in the air, she had already left... She must have spotted me first and took off.”
“Connor,” the alpha roared. “Those sound like excuses. I gave you a task. I expect results... the pack is depending on you.”
Connor straightened his back to his full, imposing height. “I will not disappoint my Alpha or the pack. I will bring Mia back.” He said it with conviction. Every inch of him was determined to please the alpha and the pack. Connor tightened his jaw. He would bring Mia back kicking, screaming and tied like a kill if he had to, but he would take her back to the pack lands, of this he was certain. He was determined to make it happen. His honor was on the line. Failure was not an option.
He ended the call after reassuring the alpha again that he would deliver Mia back to the pack soon. Then he looked around. He was outside the bar. It was the middle of the night. He could still catch her faint scent in the air. He couldn’t believe he had missed it at first. Shit. He could have had her and put an end to all this nonsense once and for all.
He raised his nose to the air and took another whiff. She couldn’t have gone far, he mused. Connor turned and started walking. He had to find the others, then they would go after her. He was sure she was near.
Was it wrong that he hated her as much as he desired her? Asher wondered. His thoughts floated in and out of his head as his heart pounded at the rhythm of his feet on the treadmill. When he thought about it, he actually hated Mia for the desire she had awoken in him. A desire so strong and consuming, it made him crave her more than his next breath. He had never known such a desire in his life; it pulsed in his blood with energy. Never knew it was possible to want someone so much, someone who didn’t even want him and had made it painfully clear on more than one occasion. He replayed their last encounter several times in his head. “... there could never be anything between us. So, you should go back to wherever you had disappeared to...” her words repeated themselves in his mind. And each time they hurt, just as they had the first time, he heard them from her lips. Lips he wanted to taste. Lips he imagined wrapped around other parts of his anato
While Asher had been back in the city, he had thought his mind had exaggerated the state of the building Mia lived in. But now Asher realized his mind had sugar-coated it. His mind had tried to make it less horrifying. The sight of the dilapidated two-storey building in front of him made him shudder involuntarily. To make matters worse, unlike the first time he had seen it, there was no security light in front of the building. That gave the entire place an eerie look. Forget horror movies and ghosts, Asher thought. He was almost expecting a cannibal serial killer to jump out of the shadows and send him into the afterlife in a heartbeat. It still failed to make sense to him how any sane person would live in such a place. He understood financial constraints and hard decisions, but where did self preservation and survival instinct feature in this equation? He remembered something he had learned in school about Maslow’s hierarchy of n
He waited for her to let go of her control; she was halfway there, but then her sanity came back to her. How could she let go when letting go meant so much more than he thought? He didn’t have the barest idea what being intimate with her would result in. Unlike humans, werewolves bonded with their partners on a far deeper level than he would be able to understand. And she couldn’t exactly explain it either. She couldn’t exactly start an explanation about mating bonds just like that and definitely not while she was naked, lying beneath him. He couldn’t claim her or bite her, but she still knew sex with Asher Deavan wouldn’t be just a roll in the hay. An act that could be dusted off the next morning and forgotten. She shouldn’t let it happen. Asher kept a close eye on her. When he saw that she continued to hold back, lost in her own troubled thoughts, he brushed his lips against her skin in a light kiss. His warm breath fanned over her skin. He f
Asher blinked. It must be a trick of his eyes. It was not possible for her eyes to glow like a cat; he thought. But even though he reasoned it out in his head, he raised himself on his elbows and stared at her. “Your eyes…?” The words died in his throat; he couldn’t finish the question. He wasn’t even sure what he was asking. Asher gave his head a shake. When he looked again, her eyes were normal. He blinked again. What had he seen? “Mia?” he started, but she interrupted him. “Sorry I woke you.” Something in her voice got his attention. She sounded panicked. And now that he wasn’t wondering about the strange glow in her eyes, he realized she looked rather nervous. Her hands were clenching and unclenching repeatedly. She bit her lip and stared at the window before looking back at him. She looked like someone about to bolt. He sat up properly. “What is going on?” Every nerve in him became alert to the need to protect Mia.
The jet ran down the runway, gaining speed and getting ready to take off. Mia Held on to her seat with a tight grip. It was her first time on a plane. Werewolves preferred to keep their feet closer to the ground. And who could blame them? Something about the small tube shaped tin floating in the air thousands of feet above the ground made her wolf agitated. She wouldn’t want to imagine what would happen if she lost control of her wolf for even a second in the tight sealed space they sat in. Mia took a deep breath and tried not to think about it. She had to remind herself that this was an escape. The jet took off and after a few minutes; it leveled and the seatbelt sign went off.Mia released the breath she had been holding. Asher unbuckled himself and looked at her. “Hey, are you ok? Why didn’t you say you were a nervous flyer?” Sure, let’s go with that explanation, Mia thought. It was far better than the one about her wolf clawing
Connor felt like a dog chasing his own tail. He didn’t want to even imagine what the other werewolves with him were thinking or whispering behind his back. He had a group of four of his pack wolf shifters with him, ordinary betas who served as soldiers of the pack. The five of them had been tasked with finding Mia and returning her to the pack, but he was in charge. It was him that made the decisions, and him who got the unpleasant task of informing the alpha every time their lead went cold. And another lead had definitely gone cold. He felt like breaking something. He would have preferred to be in a bloody, gruesome, bone breaking fight right about now, then to accept that the alpha’s daughter had yet again outsmarted him. He had been so certain that he had her after catching her scent in the bar. That had been two nights ago. They had searched every inch and under every rock in the town they thought she could hide in and had come up with noth
Mia reached for her bag, which she had dropped by the door at the same time Asher’s hand wrapped around her arm to stop her. She was so angry; she was literally vibrating with the effort it took to hold her wolf back. “Let go,” she told him harshly through her clenched teeth. “Give a guy a chance to explain before you shoot him,” Asher responded quietly. He positioned himself so his front completely made contact with her back and cornered her against the wall next to the front door. It was a daring move, considering what he had seen her do to the two guys who had attacked her outside the bar the very first night he had met her. He had little doubt she could push him back and leave any second. The fact that she didn’t do exactly that gave him a tiny glimmer of hope. He sighed quietly and tried to reason with her. “Let me explain, it’s not what you think.” “You want to explain that?” She jerked her head in the direction of the kit
At her request, and against his strongest and deepest wish, Asher set Mia up in one of the guest bedrooms. Needless to say, he had picked the closest room to his own, and he spent hours straining to listen to whatever she was doing in the room next door. By the end of the night, he felt like a creep and he was exhausted to the bone. To add to his frustrations, Asher had to leave her alone in the house that morning because he had neglected his workload long enough. It was beginning to worry some of the investors and colleagues he dealt with. It always irritated him how fragile the business world was, but there was nothing he could do but reassure everyone that he was fine and his companies were not about to drown like the titanic. His only consolation was that she was in his house and he would see her in just a few hours. Asher sat at his desk and tried to plough through as many of the documents as possible. He was doing an impressive job