Bonus Chapter 3

His name rips out of me like it’s been trying to claw its way through my throat since the day I left.
I’ve been choking on for two fucking years. Like it was trapped behind every damn breath I held every time I thought of him and told myself *you don’t miss him*—even though I did. I always did.
The Moon Goddess could have done so much better than me for him.
I’m not going to cry. I’m not. I’ve cried too much over the past two years.
I look into Azrael’s eyes. Those stupid beautiful green eyes that never stopped haunting me. 
They make everything worse, because I can see and feel it in them—the ache, the betrayal, the sadness. 
And fuck, it hurts. 
This is the moment I’ve played out in my head a thousand different ways. I just never thought it would feel like this—like someone’s taken a serrated knife to my ribs and started carving out every second we spend separated.
And just like that, I freeze and my mind drags me back. Back to when we were kids. I remember sobbing so hard it felt like my lungs would collapse, after Auntie Allie left the pack and my world tilted sideways. 
I ran to *her*—to my so-called mother—and begged her to do something. *Go after them, bring them back, please, please, do something!* 
For days. For months.
But of course, she didn’t lift a fucking finger. Didn’t make an ounce of effort. Because that’s who she is. A black hole of empathy, orbiting around her own needs, her own desires, her own *perfect little life* that never had room for me.
She didn’t even pretend to go after them. Didn’t even *fake it* for me.
I cried until my eyes bled. And months later, when Az came back, we held each other like lifelines, and I made him promise me—*swear to me you’ll never ever abandon me again.* And he did. And I believed him. Because he meant it. He *always* meant it.
But nothing ever mattered when my mother decided what she wanted. The second she got some selfish urge, she bulldozed right over everyone. That year, before Wren was born, she just *decided* she didn’t want to live in the packhouse anymore. 
No warning. 
No conversation. 
She took one look at the life we had—*my* life—and flipped it upside down without blinking. Making me live without my fated mate.
As if it were some minor errand, that we’d be living separately from now on.
She didn’t even care for what it would mean for me.
I loved living with him. And she knew that. 
She *knew* it. And still, she tore me out of it like it meant nothing.
If it wasn’t Cedar... I swear, I’d have left that house.
He was there helping me. She didn’t care or was there when I cried for weeks after we left, but Cedar was. Or that I’d stare at the door every night hoping she’d change her mind and take me back, but Cedar comforted me.
It was always *her*. 
Her peace. 
Her needs. 
I wasn’t a daughter to her. 
I was baggage. 
An inconvenience.
I was used to live with my fated mate. It was so unfair to me!
I bet she would have never done that to precious Wren.
Good Goddess! Mother could never!
No. Sweet, perfect Wren would never be ripped away from the people she loved. 
Wren gets choices. 
Wren gets comfort. 
Wren gets *the mother I never had*.
Oh, Goddess forbid she ever put Wren in an uncomfortable situation. No, she’d burn the whole pack down before letting Wren suffer like I did. But me? She didn’t give a shit if I was ready or not.  
Seventeen fucking years have passed, and that grudge is still alive in my chest, pulsing like a wound that never closes. 
But now, I’m here paralyzed, staring at the man I threw away like a goddamn coward, and all I can think is—*I’m just like Mother.*
I guess I inherited my parents’ skill for making mistakes. From both of them.
That’s the part that eats me alive. I did exactly what she did. I made a selfish decision and didn’t care who it hurt. I ran. Two years ago, I left Azrael with nothing. 
No warning. 
No letter. 
Not even a whisper of why. 
I didn’t say goodbye because I couldn’t. Because if I saw his handsome face—if I heard his deep voice—I would’ve never gone through with it.
I *abandoned* him. Just like I swore I never would when we were kids.
I hate myself for that. I hate that I broke the one promise I ever made that mattered. I hate that I became everything I swore I’d never be.
I can’t change the fact that he probably hates me—and he should.
I would.
I do.
And here we are.
We stand unmoving. The world drops into silence.
The air smells of him. That same scent that used to soothe the fire under my skin. And now, it pours over me like a wave. It’s fucking familiar and devastating. 
Most of my life was spent with him.
Azrael doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. He watches me like I’m going to vanish again. Ready to act.
And maybe I would. If he didn’t look like he’d carved every second of the past two years into the lines around his mouth and the strain in his jaw.
But I *don’t* run this time.
I launch myself forward.
The world blurs, and then his arms are around me, catching me with a thud. His body is warm, solid, and *home*. 
I bury my face in his strong chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his white shirt. I’m so fucking afraid he’ll disappear if I let him go.
“I’m sorry—I’m *so* sorry,” I gasp into him, my words breaking apart. “I missed you—Azrael, I missed you so much, it fucking *hurt*—”
He grips the back of my hoodie and crushes me to him like he’s afraid I’ll slip through his fingers. His scent floods my nose, my lungs, my *bones*.
My wolf howls in my mind.
“Thank fuck,” he breathes relief, his deep voice, low and raw. “I’ve been looking for you every damn minute, Lil. I *never* stopped looking.”
He claims my mouth.
Our kiss isn’t soft and gentle like the ones my lips do with my angel. 
It’s teeth and heat and hunger and two years of fury and ache colliding. His big hands are in my hair, down my back, on my waist like he’s trying to memorize every inch of me all over again.
Like he’s making sure I’m still whole.
I kiss him like I’m starving and he’s the last breath I’ll ever take. Because that’s exactly how I feel. How I’ve been feeling.
Oh, Goddess! Az is here! My Azrael!
Like they have their own accord, my legs jump and then wrap around his waist without thinking. His grip tightens under my thighs, holding me up like I weigh nothing. I can already feel his hard cock against me.
He fists my hair. “You left,” he growls against my lips. “You left me, Lily!”
“I *had* to,” I sob, forehead pressed hard against his. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t take her. The way she looked at me. Like I was *him*.”
“I would’ve come with you, Lil.” His grips tighten. “I’d never let you be by yourself. Alone. *Goddess*!”
“No.” My voice cracks. “You would’ve tried to fix it. You always try to fix things. And I didn’t want fixing—I wanted *out*.” I kiss him hard. “I couldn’t separate you from your family, Az. From your pack!”
“It’s your pack, too, Lily!” He growls. “It’s your family too. We love you. Goddess! I’ve been worried sick. I thought—”
I cut him off with another senseless kiss. I can’t get enough of him. 
He is here! He is here! He is here!
I’ve wondered all this time how I’d react if I ever saw him again, and I thought I could be stronger than this. But no. I’m desperate for him.
He fucks my mouth with his tongue, devouring my lips, biting my bottom lip. Goddess, I feel sparks everywhere.
Drawing back, just enough to look at me with eyes half-open, his eyes flare gold and green as our wolves communicate with each other in our minds. To me, he breathlessly says, pressing our forehead together once more, “What about now, Lil?”
I press my forehead harder to his, breathing fast. “Now I want *you*.”
He kisses me again—deeper this time, like he’s drinking in every word. His mouth bites my jaw, kisses my neck, and licks it with his tongue. I tilt my head back to give him more room. More room to lick his mark where my shoulder meets my neck.
“I was so lost without you, Az,” I whisper, feeling my eyes sting with more tears coming. “I thought I could live without it. Without this bond. But it felt like—like my heart had been ripped out and buried somewhere only you could reach.”
He groans against my skin, hands tightening on me. “You think I didn’t feel it too?” His green eyes meet mine. It’s sharp and feral and so fucking broken. “I woke up every day thinking it was the one you’d finally come back.”
I cry then. Silent, broken sobs into his shoulder.
He holds me bruisily tight that hurts. Just the way I like. Just the way I need to feel safe, he does it without me even needing to ask him to. I love so fucking much this male. Our mate bond.
I kiss him hard again, my hands gripping his soft blond hair tight as he carries me.
His arms locked around my back. My legs still wrapped around his waist.
He walks us back through the trees. Every step slow and heavy. I can feel his relief. I can feel his joy, his possessiveness.
We don’t speak. We don’t *have* to.
My head turns violently to the side as I kiss him like it’s the air I need to breathe.
When the house appears, I see it differently. Like it’s a place I’ve only been waiting in, holding my breath for this exact moment.
He kicks the back door open without breaking stride or our kiss.
Inside, everything smells like nothing, the scent blocker in the air masks everything.
It doesn’t matter how fast and far I ran, I still feel like my life could never be whole.
Because it couldn’t be, not without him too.
He lays me down on the thin mattress and kisses me again. A little tender now, but still fierce. Like I’m something precious and still completely his to do whatever he wants. 
He isn’t wrong.
I grip his face, my hands trembling. “I thought you’d hate me, Azrael.”
“I hated not *having* you.”
I shudder, my hands moving over his broad chest, his strong arms, the scar near his collarbone where he was hurt when they turned him into a Werewolf. I still remember tracing it when we were teenagers. “I didn’t know how much I needed you until I lost you.”
He presses our foreheads together again. “Then don’t lose me again.”
“I won’t,” I whisper. I sob. “I-I can’t.”
He kisses my tears away one by one, and I let him.
I don’t know how this will work now. I can’t go back to our pack. 
But I know I won’t run from *him* again.

🐺 🐺 🐺
***Azrael***

My fated mate’s sobbing, clinging to me like her body’s trying to fuse with mine. I can’t deny I’m fucking scared that she’ll vanish the second I let her go.
“Azrael,” she whispers my name against my jaw, breath hitching. 
I press my forehead to hers harder, grounding myself in the heat of her skin, in her scent—faint under some kind of masking spray, but now that I’m this close, I can scent that it’s still there. Still *her.*
“Shh. It’s all right. I’m here. I have you. I have you, baby.” 
I kiss her tears, one by one, tasting salt and two years of hell.
“And you’re never going to leave my sight again, my little hurricane.” 
She nods like a promise.
“I’m going to glue you to me, Lil, put a leash on you, fucking something!”
Her lips find mine again, and this time it’s like the dam finally breaks. 
There’s no room for air. We crash together like when she’s in heat.
She pulls me closer with a fever I match beat for beat. Our kiss turns wild. Ravenous. My hand fists in her hoodie and yanks it over her head, and her nails rake down my back like she wants to carve herself into me.
The bed groans as we fall into it, our bodies tangling. Her skin is fire beneath my hands, her moans like prayers. Desperate. Raw.
*Fuck*!
“I missed you,” she pants against my neck. “So much. It killed me—every day without you.”
I crush her to me. My wolf claws under my skin, howling in unison with her grief. My lips find her shoulder, her collarbone, her throat, branding her like a madman trying to reclaim what’s his.
“You’re my life,” I breathe into her. “My everything.”
Her hands are everywhere—my chest, my jaw, tugging my face back to hers. She kisses me like the hurricane my Lily is, and I let her wreck me. Again and again.
She pulls back just enough to look at me, cheeks flushed, lips swollen. Her eyes swim with emotion, with guilt, with something deeper. “Goddess... I love you so fucking much!” she says. “I love you, I love you!”
The words hit like claws to the ribs. Not because I doubt them—but because I *need* them. I’ve needed them for so long.
I kiss her like I’m answering. I can’t use words right now. My mate. My hurricane. My Lily.
I tighten my grip around her, desperate to rip her clothes apart and shove my cock inside her tight pussy—
*Click.*
A metallic rattle from the front door.
I freeze.
Her mouth still moves against mine, fast and drunk on need. But I’ve gone stiff. I lift my head and tilt it. The latch. The scraping hinge.
Someone’s coming in.
Her eyes flutter open, and it takes her a second to process. But when she does, they widen. Like a slap to the face.
“No—wait—” she starts.
But I’m already looking around the room. For the first time since I got inside.
Something’s off.
Two pillows dented.
Two toothbrushes in a cup.
Two chairs in the small kitchenette.
A folded blanket—neat, tucked, not hers. Lily’s skin is too warm to use it.
Pairs. Fucking pairs. Not the disarray of someone living alone. Someone’s been living here *with* her.
I rear back.
My pulse punches through my neck. My fingers twitch like claws want to rip free.
I growl, my wolf begging me to set him free.
I stare at her, betrayal slicing clean through the high of our so-waited reunion.
“Are you *cheating* on me?” I spit the words like venom.
I can’t believe this.
Her face crumples. “Azrael—please—I can explain—”
I don’t let her. I’m already at the door, storming past her, my blood boiling. Whoever’s on the other side—whoever thinks they can take *what the fuck is mine*—they’re about to learn exactly what a feral, bonded mate looks like.
The latch jerks, clatters. Whoever it is on the other side struggles against the warped frame.
I grab the handle, fury running through my blood. 
I rip the door open.
And freeze.
A tiny woman stumbles inside, face flinching at the dark inside, her hand still raised to push the door. Her scent is almost imperceptible but it still hits me like a freight train. 
Not Lily’s. 
New. 
Sweet. 
Earth and floral and wind and moonlight.
Everything stops.
My lips part.  
“Mate,” I breathe.