Chapter 87
Chapter 87
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I hadn’t seen the Goddess, not directly, but a part of me hoped she had been pleased by my attempt to connect with her. Even if I was just a silly wolf-girl standing in the forest without her clothes on, I felt like I’d done something that connected me to my culture, to my ancestors.
I breathed out a thank you and turned to get dressed.
And that’s when I became distinctly aware of the man standing at the edge of my ritual clearing.
Gideon’s POV
I wanted to punch my brother.
Hudson had known exactly what he was doing when he’d casually mentioned how Avery had “come to him for advice on mating p>
He’d known how I would take that, how it would get under my skin and itch like a bite. His poison was insidious.
And effective.
So now, like an idiot, I was hunting for my fiancée in the village, and feeling strangely panicky that she didn’t seem to be anywhere I had looked.
And the darkest part of my mind was telling me that she was in Hudson’s office. Laughing at his jokes. Letting him ‘examine’ her. The way he’d done so many times before.
The close call that had happened in the woods a few nights earlier didn’t make me feel any better. Lieutenant Quinn assured me that our triple patrols had encountered no further signs of rogue activity in our territory, but it had still been a close call.
So, it was those dark thoughts keeping me company as I began the hunt for Avery in earnest.
I knew she wasn’t in her room, or in my office. She wasn’t in the mess hall or the garden.
If she were in her wolf form, it was possible she was out roaming the woods, though to what purpose I certainly couldn’t guess. Finally, I transformed and let my wolf take over the hunt. Holding him back when the moon was full was draining anyway.
He wanted to run. He wanted to hunt. Embarrassingly, he wanted to mate. All his desires flooded through me as we switched.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, as he stuck his nose to the ground and took off at a ground-covering lope.
“Finding her p>
“Who p>
“Her p>
Infuriating beast. I wondered if he longed for the girl in the forest the way I did. She had been his mate, or at least housed the wolf that he had claimed as his mate.
But for me, the memories of that time were a haze of pleasure and sensation, and little else.
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Chapter 87
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Still, when we came across her in the forest, it reminded me viscerally of that time.
My wolf huffed, though I wasn’t sure if it was in satisfaction or disappointment, for the girl in front of us was in human, not wolf, form. Then he switched us back, so now I was the one staring at the girl in the moonlight.
It was the strangest sense of deja vu.
There was a lovely woman in the center of the forest, bathed in moonlight. Her hands were lifted to the sky, her face upturned. Long hair cascaded down her back. She was like the Moon Goddess herself, come to life.
Her curves were gilded in silver, as though she was molten starlight. I watched, mesmerized, as the light faded and she turned to face me.
Was this her? The one we’d been looking for?
I stepped forward, as if in a dream. It felt so similar to that time… to the last mating moon…
And then I realized it was Avery.
Avery.
Not our mate.
“Are you sure?” My wolf asked, disappointed.
I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure of anything.
“Gideon?” Avery had paused, eyes wide in the moonless darkness. “Is that you?” I heard her rustling in the leaves, saw her pulling on a robe.
I shook my head to clear it, still feeling dazed. It was like I was walking through my memories.
But this girl did not bear my mark. The absence of it on her neck wounded me more than I cared to admit.
I had to make certain.
I stepped forward, closing the distance between us, and swept her hair off of her neck. She made a soft noise a leaned against me.
Her neck was lovely, but unmarked. I felt the urge to bite and bite deep, to mark again and again.
But no, she wasn’t the one.
I pulled back with a rough sound.
“You need to stay away from my brother p>
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