Friend of the Pack: fated mates, slow-burn, paranormal, wolf shifter romance by Gabrielle Marie

Author:Gabrielle Marie [Marie, Gabrielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Eva

As much as she tried to erase thoughts of Sky from her mind—they snuck up on her.

It didn’t help that nearly everything in her life reminded her of him. So much of who she was lay inherently wrapped up in shared experience.

When she first woke up that morning, the sun caught on something sitting on her desk. Light shimmered off from the small hunk of rose quartz.

She picked it up and it felt warm on her palm.

Its twin was missing. As children, they played in the snow and searched for colorful stones to add eyes on a snow-wolf they made. He came back with red cheeks and raw hands as he placed a gemstone in her hand with a bashful smile.

Her mother saw the way they stood close together from the window and forced Sky to go home. “It’s unwise to get too attached to that boy.” She told Eva as she fixed them both lunch. “He’s human, Eva. Remember that. Humans and Shifters cannot live together. There is no future with that boy. He will leave you someday to join the human world—it’s better if you let him go first, before that happens.”

While she ate, she had tried to imagine a world where she didn’t know him. A world without Sky, but it was too awful to even think about.

Disregarding her mother’s warning, she snuck away to his house through the window he always left open for her. When she found him sleeping peacefully on his bed, she watched the sunlight play across his cheeks; the way his dark, wavy hair curled over his eyebrows; and she realized that she liked looking at Sky.

An unfamiliar sensation bubbled up from her gut, growing stronger as she carefully held his hand, resting her head on the edge of his mattress. His chest rose up and down and the sound of his heart beating comforted her until those thoughts circled back and she clutched his hand.

“Please don’t leave me for the human world someday.” Her voice shook in desperation. “I need you more than they do.”

His fingers had curled around hers comfortingly; she’d accidentally woken him up. When she explained what her mother said, he stared at her for a long minute before rustling around in the drawer of his side table and pulling out a pocketknife. He held the edge to his thumb until a bead of blood appeared and Eva gasped, reaching for him, but he just shook his head and nodded toward her.

She knew what he was asking the way they always knew each other back then. It was an old Shifter ceremony, to mark a promise in blood. Reaching up, she pierced her thumb on the end of her sharp, canine tooth and held it out to him.

“Human or Shifter, I vow never to leave your side.”

After she repeated the words, they’d curled up on his bed and fallen asleep with their hands still clutched together. And she’d never slept more soundly.

The shards of that broken promise sliced her wide open until she was exposed and forced to staunch the bleeding.

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