The Warrior’s Broken Mate novel Chapter 29

Elias and I were lying together in bed. I could feel his hands moving softly over me, and although he was being very gentle, I could also sense how excited he was becoming. That made me feel nervous and a little scared, so I stopped him from going any further.

I quickly sat up and couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I kept saying sorry again and again. I just wasn’t ready for things to go that far between us. But he sat up behind me, rested his chin on my shoulder, and told me not to apologize.

He told me there was nothing for me to feel sorry about. He admitted that he shouldn’t have assumed I was ready. He said he wouldn’t assume again and would let me decide when I was ready to take that step. I just nodded.

We stayed in the motel for the rest of that night, but the next morning, we checked out and headed to a diner in town for some breakfast.

We chose a booth by the front window, and after we sat down, Elias went to use the bathroom. I was reading the menu when I noticed two guys around my age with a rough look come in and sit at the booth behind me.

“Hi there,” one of them said to me.

“Hello,” I replied over my shoulder, then quickly turned back to the menu.

“We haven’t seen you around before. Are you new around here?” he asked.

“Just passing through,” I answered.

“That’s a shame. There’s a party tonight. We’d love for you to come,” he said.

“Sorry. We’re leaving right after breakfast,” I told him.

“And who’s we?” the other guy asked.

“My boyfriend and I,” I said. I was a bit surprised at how naturally the word boyfriend came out. I mean, he basically was my boyfriend, but I’d never said it out loud before. It felt a little strange to use the title.

“Well, maybe he’ll want to stick around too,” the second guy added.

“He doesn’t,” Elias said from in front of me. The two guys looked up at him, taking in his size and the strong muscles that marked him as a werewolf warrior. And with the glare he gave them, they backed off immediately. They could tell he was ready to take them down just for speaking to me. So they said nothing else to me, turned around in their booth, and started talking to each other instead. Elias slid back into the seat next to me.

I just smiled at him, and when the waitress came over, we gave our breakfast order. As we waited, I looked outside to see what was happening on the street.

“How far is it to where we’re going?” I asked.

“It’s still a bit of a hike. Sorry about that. We had to keep the locations pretty far apart to make sure no one could track them,” he explained. I nodded, understanding.

After we finished our breakfast, Elias paid the bill and we left the diner, walking through the rest of the town. People were staring at us a lot, which made me feel a little uncomfortable. But Elias told me it was just because we were strangers in a small town where everyone knows each other. They didn’t recognize us, and Elias’s size probably didn’t help. It was hard for him to blend in.

Once we got out to the highway, we headed straight into the woods again so we wouldn’t be easily spotted from the road. And if we got attacked, we’d have the upper hand. I was feeling more rested now and had no trouble keeping up with Elias, though I didn’t know how long that would last.

I started to think of this as the start of my training. These long hikes through the forest. And when I told Elias that, he actually thought it was a great idea. It was a form of training, and at the same time, we were making our way to where we needed to go. I was getting a bit of physical activity, which I’d need for training anyway.

Elias made sure to keep holding my hand the whole time. He didn’t want to let go in case we got separated. And in these woods, that could happen easily–they were dense and tough to navigate.

We had been walking for close to three hours when I began to hear something in the distance. I came to a stop, and Elias halted beside me. It felt strange to me, because I hadn’t had any werewolf abilities until I turned sixteen–just a few days ago. But now, I was hearing everything. I had the enhanced senses, like sharper hearing and better vision. I could tell I was stronger than I used to be, though still nowhere near as powerful as Elias or the rest of his pack.

So when I suddenly stopped in the middle of the forest, Elias grew worried.

“I hear something,” I said.

“Crap,” he muttered under his breath.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’ve been hearing it too, for a little while now. I was hoping you hadn’t noticed,” he admitted.

“Someone’s following us, aren’t they?” I asked him.

“Yeah. But I have no idea who it is,” he replied. I stood there, staring toward the source of the sound, but Elias kept nudging me to keep moving. He didn’t want us to stay in one place and make ourselves easy targets.

“Elias, if we keep going like this, we’ll end up leading them straight to the new location. We have to draw them away,” I said. He looked at me like what I’d said had just registered. He realized that I was right–it meant taking a different path and extending our trip, but we couldn’t risk bringing the followers to the safe spot.

“Alright,” he said. Then he turned and began heading back toward the highway, and once we reached the road, we stayed on it for about thirty minutes before we found a dirt road and followed it instead.

We eventually came across a farmhouse and looked around to see if anyone was nearby, but it seemed abandoned. I walked over to a faucet near the house and got a drink from it. I was incredibly thirsty, and we didn’t have any supplies with us.

We were far from the forest now. Instead, we were surrounded by open farmland, which meant there weren’t any good hiding spots for whoever might be tailing us. It made it harder for them to sneak up on us, though it also left us exposed. They could spot us more easily–but at least we’d be able to see them coming too.

As we kept going along the dirt path, I started to hear the sound of heavy paws hitting the ground. I wasn’t the only one–Elias kept glancing behind and around us. The steps sounded heavy, like they belonged to something huge, but we couldn’t see anything. We could hear it, but even in this open space, nothing was visible. Elias held my hand tighter and we quickened our pace. He wanted to put more space between us and whatever was behind us. But no matter how fast we walked, it didn’t help. So we broke into a run down the dirt road.

We had already passed the farmhouse, and there weren’t any other buildings in sight where we could take cover. Not that Elias would’ve gone into one anyway. He wouldn’t risk humans getting caught in a werewolf conflict. One of the most important rules among werewolves was that humans were never to find out about them. And we definitely weren’t allowed to involve them in anything unless a werewolf was mated to a human, which was extremely rare.

Whatever was following us was getting closer–we could both tell. It was directly ahead, on the path. But we still couldn’t see it. Elias turned to look at me, confusion and concern written all over his face. He was scared I’d get hurt. He moved to shield me, pushing me behind him, though I could still see around his body.

Then, all of a sudden, a witch’s cloak was pulled back–and we finally saw the creature charging at us. It was only about ten feet away now, and it wasn’t a werewolf. It was bigger. A lot bigger. And far more terrifying. Something I’d only ever read about in books. With one big difference–it was a shifter, just like us, but definitely not a werewolf.

It was a freaking werebear.