078 | ENEMIES TO LOVERS

Already embarrassed by my meltdown, I shifted back into my human form and tried to gather myself before replying to Ares’s mindlink.

‘I’m okay,’ I told him. ‘I’m sorry for leaving you with them like that. I’m in the first wildflower meadow – you can come and find me. I think we need to talk.’

His relief, heady, giddy, dizzying, swelled through the mate bond. I pressed my palms flat on the grass, the rush of it overwhelming me as my anguish drained from my veins, leaving me hollow.

‘I won’t be long, beautiful.’

I undid my braid and combed my fingers through it, almost as nervous to see Ares as I had been the first time we’d met. It was like walking up to the front door of his mountainous Pack House and knocking, with so much left unknown, uncertain, on the other side.

“Hi.”

I looked up. His bicep bulged as he lifted his arm to scratch the back of his neck; he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Everything as yet unsaid hung thick in the air between us, darkening the twilight sky and