Chapter 18
Shit! I went too far….
“Allie, I’m sorry!” I said, but I knew it was too late for apologies. I knew Maddox wanted to mark her, but I couldn’t hold him back. Who am I kidding? I wanted to mark her just as much as Maddox. We had waited so long for her, I wanted the world to know she is mine, and I am hers. When I woke up to her kissing me, I couldn’t hold back. I got carried away. Sinking my teeth into her sweet, soft neck was incredible. I felt the bond strengthen immediately, but as soon as I released her, I knew I had crossed a line.
And now I was pounding on the bathroom door, which she had cleverly locked, like an idiot begging her to let me in. I’d broken her trust, I knew that. I should have waited and ignored Maddox. It was a stupid move, and now she won’t let me near her. I heard the sound of the shower running and stopped banging.
“Great job, genius!” I said to Maddox.
“What?! Don’t try and pin this on me. You wanted to mark her too!,” he said.
“Yes, but we should have waited until she was more comfortable.”
“It doesn’t matter now, it’s done, and it can’t be undone. As soon as she marks us, the bond will be unbreakable.”
“Whatever,” I said, and blocked him out. The shower stopped and I sat on the edge of the bed, feeling stupid. She wasn’t going to let me in, but she had to come out eventually. I needed to make this right; I just didn’t know how. I had planned to spend today getting to know each other, but she won’t want to do that if she’s angry with me. I’d really screwed things up. I went over to the bathroom door again and leaned up against the frame, one hand either side of it. The door suddenly opened. Melissa stood in the doorway, I stood up straight and backed up a little.
“Allie, please let me explain,” I said, looking past Melissa to Allie.
“I’m leaving,” she said bluntly. She may be tiny, but her tone told me she meant business. I could see by the firm set of her lips that she was determined to leave. It would be pointless to try and get her to stay. Panic rose in my throat, and a million protests whipped through my head. Leaving the safety of the pack house now would be extremely risky. We didn’t know when another attack might happen. I couldn’t protect her if she wasn’t close to me.
“Where are you going?” I said, “It’s not safe to leave yet!”
“I’m going to the pack house with Melissa,” she answered, calmly.
Oh. Relief erupted and squashed the panic. I was shamelessly elated that she wasn’t going back to the cottage she shared with Melissa. When I opened the bathroom door to find Melissa had orbed in, I was sure Allie was going to reject me and return to her home with Melissa. Maddox had started to whimper, and my life felt like it was falling apart.
“Oh, good,” I said, “I will walk with you and show you the way. I’ll let Doc Stevens know you are leaving.” We left the hospital wing and I led them down several corridors until we reached the main lobby. Melissa said goodbye to Allie, and I headed up the staircase to the rooms on the first floor. I’d made it up a few stairs but couldn’t hear footsteps behind me. I turned around to check where she was. She hadn’t moved, glued to the spot watching Melissa walk away, a sadness across her face that I’d never seen before. She looked so small standing there alone. This was hard for her. Melissa is the only family Allie has ever known. For a horrifying moment, I thought she might follow her.
“Allie?” I asked, “What’s wrong?” She didn’t answer or move. I walked towards her and took her hand in mine.
“Everything will be ok. I promise,” I said, squeezing her hand gently. I led her towards the staircase up to the guest room and she followed me. I wasn’t happy about her staying in the guest room, but I wasn’t going to push it after I marked her this morning. And at least she was in the pack house, and the guest room was right next door to my room, our room, so I would be close if anything happened. I’d asked Melissa for some help bringing all of Allie’s things over to help her with the transition. She looked around the room and walked over to the walk-in closer.
“How did all my stuff get here?” she asked, stunned.
“I asked Melissa to bring it all here. I wanted you to feel at home and have everything you need,” I told her.
She smiled.
“Do you like it?” I asked.
“I love it,” she said, “It’s beautiful. Thank you.” She smiled.
We stood next to each other for a few minutes, not knowing really what to do now. Things still felt strained after marking her. She broke the silence first.
“So, what now?”
What I really wanted to do was kiss her again, but that might not be the best plan after my screw up earlier. The more I thought about it, which was constantly, the more I can’t help thinking how far things would have gone if I hadn’t marked her. After all, she hadn’t asked me to stop and by the sweet smell of her arousal I could tell she was enjoying it as much as I was. Maddox was pushing me to mate with her and it was getting beyond hard to resist her.
“Well, training sessions are taking place all day over at the training centre. Brad is leading them for now, but I will need to take over from him in the next few days. Did you want to start your training today? Do you feel up to that?” She nodded, happily.
Once we were both ready to leave, a violent growl filled the room, coming from Allie. Breakfast! We forgot breakfast. I took her to the kitchen for some fuel and then we went to the training centre. When we arrived, Brad was leading a session in full swing. When he spotted us he nodded, and excused himself politely to the group, giving them some group work to be getting on with. Allie was taking it all in, looking around eagerly at the facilities and the gym equipment, her eyes as wide as saucers. I was pleased she was so enthusiastic about learning some moves. It was important that she learnt to defend herself. Brad walked over to us and bowed his head.
“Luna,” he said, addressing Allie and bowing his head, “Glad to see you have recovered.”
Snapping herself out of her daydream, she smiled shyly. “Um, thanks,” she said quietly.
“How’s the session going?” I asked him.
“All good,” he said confidently.
“Great, Allie and I are going to work on some self-defence in one of the training rooms.” I said.
He nodded. I turned back to Allie, who was still looking around in wonderment. I’d never seen a reaction like this before to our humble training centre!
“Allie, why don’t you go and find us an empty training room we can use and start doing some warmup stretches?” I said, pointing in the direction of the rooms. “I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
“Ok,” she said, and practically skipped down the hall in search of an empty room. She seemed happy and excited for the first time since I found her, but it didn’t feel as if it was me making her happy. In a weird way, I felt a bit redundant.
When she was out of earshot, I turned to Brad.
“I see you marked her?” he asked.
“Don’t ask,” I said, gloomily. Knowing me for most of my life, of course he ignored me and asked.
“What happened, man?” he said, sounding genuinely concerned. I rubbed my face with both hands and told him everything.
“She didn’t want me to mark her, but things got out of hand this morning and I ended up marking her anyway,” I explained, “Not my finest moment.”
“Ooh,” he said, grimacing, “And she wasn’t happy about it?”
“Nope. She upped and left the hospital before the Doc could release her.”
“Wow,” he said, “But she seemed happy enough just now?”
“I know,” I said, confused too, “I’m still trying to work her out”
“Good luck, man,” Brad said, slapping me on the back, and returning to the group.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said to myself.
I went to find Allie and found her in one of the gym rooms checking out the equipment.
“Hey,” I said, catching her attention.
“Oh, hi,” she said, “sorry I haven’t found a free room yet. I kind of got distracted a little.”
“No problem. I think there’s one just next door.” She followed me there and she took off her shoes. “Let’s get started then.” I pulled out some mats and threw them on the floor, sliding them together to make one big mat.
“Ok, let’s start with some basic defensive moves,” I said. She nodded. “I’m going to pretend I am your attacker by grabbing your arms, like this.” I gently, but firmly, held both of her upper arms.
“What would you do to get out of this situation?” I asked.
“Well,” she said slowly, “I would probably do this.”
Before I knew what was happening, she had brought her arms up somehow, and pushed mine away. She slinked out of my grip with lightning speed and twisted my left arm behind my back, swiping my legs out from underneath me. I was left with my face firmly planted into the gym mat, and Allie’s knee jabbed into my spine. What the fuck just happened?!
I felt her knee move and release me. I rolled over onto my back still in shock and heard her giggling. She was enjoying this! I propped myself up on my elbows and looked at her in disbelief.
“What was that?” I asked her lightly.
“What?” she said, feigning innocence, “Did I do it wrong?”
“Do you know how to fight?” I said, smiling.
“Maybe,” she said, grinning.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“I told you I could fight. You didn’t listen,” she said, softly.
I frowned. She was right. She did tell me, but I dismissed it. I was acting like a jerk.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, sweetie. I should have listened to you properly,” I said, sincerely. “I promise you; I won’t do that again.” I meant it. I was trying hard to rebuild her trust after this morning but was doing a crappy job so far.
She came over to where I was on the mat and held out her hand for me. I grabbed it and she helped me onto my feet like I weighed nothing. Towering over her, I looked down. I had the feeling that there was more to my little mate than meets the eye. She looked up to me and I pushed a stray strand of hair off her face and tucked it behind her ear. I wanted to kiss her. So much. I lowered my head and landed a soft kiss on her lips. Just a small one. It was enough to leave me wanting more. After this morning, every single touch had me wanting to tear her clothes off. And Maddox wasn’t helping. I was struggling to hold him back and I honestly didn’t know how long I could keep him under control.
I had to get my head in the game, or I was going to make another stupid mistake again. With unimaginable restraint that I never knew I had, I stepped back from her. I saw confusion in her eyes and then a little hurt. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her, and that’s why I moved away. I decided my best bet was to focus on the training and, after the meeting, I would take her somewhere for lunch.
“Let’s see what else you can do,” I challenged her. Without warning, I lunged at her, and tried to land a punch. She dodged the strike quickly, so I tried again, this time spinning into a kick. This time she blocked my attack and managed to land a cheeky kick to my abdomen, sending me sailing backwards. I recovered quickly and looked at her. She was grinning again. She thought she was better than me!
“Hmm, not bad,” I offered, “What else you got?” I lunged again and again, trying to land kicks and strikes. But she was too fast, dodging every single one. All I could hear was giggling. We stopped for a quick water break and then carried on. I tried every attack move I knew, and she dodged or escaped each one with ease. I got the feeling she wasn’t even trying! I tried a swiping kick to take out her legs. She jumped clean over them, almost in slow motion. She was seriously enjoying herself. She backed up from me and slowly moved her body into a martial art fighting stance, ready for battle. It was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen! She stretched out one hand, palm facing up, and gently flicked her fingers towards her signally for me to approach. Her face erupted into an irresistible grin. I was playing with fire! She knew much more than self-defence.
I adopted the same stance as Allie and made the first move, lunging forward. She immediately blocked it. She blocked every strike and then spun around lightning fast, ducking under my arm and landing a strike on my back. I spun around to face her, flicking my leg out, causing her to stumble back. As she regained her balance, she wasted no time in darting towards me and, before I knew what she was doing, she was launching into a roundhouse kick, hitting me hard on my left side, squeezing the air out of my lungs. I literally flew across the room with the force of her kick and hit the wall with a loud thud. I landed in a heap. Her strength was incredible. It had knocked the wind out of me, but I was uninjured.
“Oh no!” I heard Allie squeal. She came running over, kneeling down beside me. “I’m so sorry, Reece. I didn’t think I kicked that hard. I’m sorry. Are you ok?” she rambled. She grabbed my arm gently. I wasn’t going to let this chance pass by and flipped her down on the mat on her back, pinning her arms to the floor and straddling her small frame with my body.
“Never let your guard down,” I said, smirking. “Ever.”