Eventually, the wolf started to run with her, which did not feel good in the least. Jolie cringed and cried out every time the enormous creature neatly hopped over a fallen tree, or when it picked up the pace to a happy trot.

It wasn't as if the wolf was taking a nice, easy path either. It went through the trees, shrubs, and thorny bushes. Jolie had to lift her hands on more than one occasion to keep herself from getting scratched up, all the while keeping her bleeding hand closed.

It left her with scratched up fingers, but at least nothing else was pulling at the wound she already had.

Her jacket was starting to choke her. She'd tried to loosen it, but the way the wolf bit down on the material without biting through it brought her arms back high. It made it difficult to shield her face, never mind getting the zipper and buttons down.

She felt as if she was being choked, and the wolf had been running with her for long enough that she had to pee again.

She didn't let loose, however. She was going to save that in case she needed it, a last resort. Being carried for so long also left her feeling decidedly less terrified than she'd been when the wolf turned Dempsey and Dustin into wolf meat.

It was possible that she was starting to not care so much because she was just eager for the ride to be over with, or she'd become desensitized to the scent of Dempsey's blood after so long of inhaling it within that heated breath.

At least she wasn't cold anymore.

Jolie actually started to fall asleep. She tried to fight it, tried to keep her heavy eyes open, but even with the fear of death, and the intense discomfort from this way of travelling, she couldn't do it.

When she opened her eyes again, she was horizontal, even though they were still moving.

No. They weren't moving. Nothing around them was moving so that meant she wasn't moving. She just thought she was because that up and down motion she'd been stuck with for so long had left her disoriented.

And then it hit her, she wasn't moving. That was kind of important after everything that had happened.

With a hiss, she sat up straight, eyes wide, trying to get her bearings and look around at what was happening, or where she was.

It was difficult. Long shadows were everywhere, and the space around her wouldn't stop moving, tilting and turning.

She was dizzy, and her palm...it was bandaged, and bandaged well. She'd wondered why her hand felt so stiff, but it had been cleaned and taken care of.

She was also warm, and not because of wolf breath.

There was a thick animal pelt over her body, blanketing her, and a hot fire. It was crackling, just over there, lighting up the dark space she inhabited. She almost wouldn't have noticed it had it not been for that ongoing white noise from just over there.

Water. The sounds she heard were the whoosh of water and the crackle of fire, and someone was kneeling in front of the fire. She hadn't seen him at first, not with the way her vision was still playing tricks on her, and the long shadows that flickered everywhere, but when she narrowed her eyes and forced her vision to unblur, that was definitely a man she was looking at.

"Hello?"

He raised his head at the sound of her voice. Long auburn hair shone in the firelight. It went halfway down his back, and he was completely naked.

Jolie didn't dare to hope, not even when he turned around to look at her and she got a look at his face.

With the fire behind him casting light to his back and the long hair that framed his shoulders, it cast awkward angles of light over his face, making him appear mean, almost as if he was a monster ready to spring.

But she could still see him. Jolie could still make out the boy she'd known when she was thirteen. She'd followed him around everywhere, slept in his house after her parents died, and ate at the same table he ate at with his mother and father.

She could almost see the way he used to smile, and if there had been any lingering doubt left in her head, it vanished with this new vision of him.

"Liam?"

At least she wouldn't have to pee her pants anymore. Jolie wanted to go to him, to touch his face, to hug him, and to kiss him and tell him she was sorry.

Even with everything she'd done to him, she knew he wouldn't want to hurt her. He wouldn't be eating her tonight, or any other night.

He was here, this was him, her Liam, and the rush of excited giddiness that sprung up inside her nearly made her explode purple puffs of sparkles and stars. That was how on top of the moon she was to see him.

"I knew it was you," she said. "I used to see a wolf prowling around the outskirts of the territory. Whenever I saw a pair of yellow eyes watching from the trees, I knew it was you, and then Dempsey always complained about you. He could never catch you."

So happy. She couldn't contain it. Her chest was about to burst with the amount of happiness that rushed through her. She didn’t know what to do with this sudden rush of energy she had.

Jolie released a broken laugh. "Will you say something?"

Liam continued to look at her, his eyes hard, as if he was observing her. Studying her.

The smile slowly melted from Jolie's mouth, the realization that this might not be the happy reunion she'd originally thought hitting her, and it hit hard.

“Liam?”

As he looked at her, it allowed her to study him back. She saw a few things on him that were different from what she'd originally thought she'd seen. Rough details around the edges that were hard to ignore now that her joyous haze faded away.

At first she saw the face of the boy who was her best friend. She saw the ghosts of his old smiles as he stared at her, but now that she really forced herself to stare at him, she could see the hard press of his mouth, the scar that ran down the corner of his bottom lip and across his forehead at a crooked, barely there angle.

He looked older, harder, and not just because he was older. No, it was in his eyes and in his flesh. The world hadn't been kind to him since he'd been thrown out of the pack all those years ago.

She wasn’t sure why that was a shock, or why it made her so sad only now. She’d known this before making the decision to run to him, and yet…now that she could see him standing naked in front of her…

"Liam? Do you recognize me? Do you...do you understand what I'm saying?"

His eyes narrowed, as though insulted. “Of course I understand what you're saying."

The words that came from his mouth made her sigh with relief. "You can understand me."

"I've been living on my own since I was fourteen, not four," he muttered, turning his back on her, giving his attention back to the fire. He stoked it. He was cooking something.

That shocked her.

"What are you doing here?"

Jolie swallowed. Now that she was awake and here, she no longer had that rush of excitement. Now there was something that was a little close to fear. Not necessarily of him, but of the potential rejection.

He couldn’t reject her. She repeated that at least three times in her head before speaking. "I came to ask for your help, but you already took care of Dempsey."

Liam snorted, then muttered, "He ran away, coward."

"So…he's alive?" Another shocking revelation. The way Liam had been fighting with Dempsey made her think he wouldn’t have let the man live.

"I should have killed him, but the other one was taking you away." Liam looked back at her. "Was that Red?"

Jolie wet her bottom lip, and she nodded. "Yeah, that was Red."

"Oh." Liam turned back to the fire, sighing, shaking his head. "I thought...somehow...."

Jolie waited for him to finish. When he said nothing else, she prompted him. "What did you think?"

Liam shook his head, briefly glancing back at her. "Nothing. What are you doing all the way out here anyway?"

"I came for your help."

He kept his eyes on the fire. “You said that. What do you want?"

She couldn't remember him being this short with her before. He'd always been something of a mischief maker, always looking for the next bit of fun to have, but never so gruff.

At least not with her.

She supposed that accidentally killing his step father, the man who had been abusing his mother after the death of his father, and then being kicked out of the pack might have that sort of an impact. She was going to have to tread carefully. The life she'd lived after he left was probably a cakewalk in comparison. He probably thought all the problems she’d faced over the years were a joke.

“Well?”

Even though he wouldn’t look at her, Jolie couldn’t look away from him. Now that she was here, the only thing she wanted to do was to go to him, put her arms around him, and comfort him, make up for all the nights when she hadn’t been there.

That wouldn’t be a welcome gesture at this point.

“It’s hard to explain. You might get mad at me if I told you,” she said.

Chicken. She was a total chicken.

Liam let out a gruff noise. He stabbed at the flames with his stick one more time.

Jolie glanced around the cave, knowing now that it was probably his home. She realized that was indeed the case when she spotted a crate over in the far corner, and, to her shock, a few books on top of it, and even some clothes. So he could apparently get dressed when he needed to. He wasn’t entirely wild. That was good to know.

"Renzo, he's still the alpha, did you know that?"

She almost wished there was a way to warn him she would even say that name, considering Renzo had killed Liam's father in a fight for dominance of the pack.

And then banished Liam after the mess with his mother.

Liam growled, stabbing is stick harder into the fire, making sparks fly. "Yes. Hard not to smell that prick whenever Dempsey comes looking for a fight."

Jolie swallowed hard. "He gave me to Dempsey."

Liam rounded on her. "He what?"

Jolie wet her lips, swallowing hard, torn between pleasure that he would care and worry over the dark look on his face, and the red in his eyes.

“Tell me what he did.”

“He didn’t do anything. Yet. Dempsey wanted me to mate with him. I guess he'd been asking Renzo for a while, and Renzo finally said yes. I was to...be his mate."

Once again, Liam stared at her, his eyes giving almost nothing away, but he was clearly searching. "That's why you wanted me?" he said, a soft growl underlining his voice. "All this time, and you come back to me because you wanted me to kill Dempsey for you?"

"No!” Christ, he couldn’t have been more wrong if he tried. “It wasn't like that. I don't want you to kill anyone. I don't want anyone to die."

"And yet you came running into the woods to get me to...do what? What else would you want me to do after you turned your back on me?"

"I was thirteen!" Jolie shouted. "You'd been kicked out of the pack, it was scary enough. I had no idea what was going to happen."

Liam shot to his feet. "I would have taken care of you!"

"You haven't even taken care of yourself."

She regretted those words the instant they were out of her mouth. The look on Liam's face, the betrayal, the anger, and the disgust as she judged the home he'd made for himself, was evident.

"I've survived her just fine on my own. I could have gone anywhere, but I stayed."

She had a feeling why, but she needed him to say it out loud. Her heart pounded. “And why was that?"

Say it. Please, say it.

He didn't answer. He just turned his back to the fire. He turned the meat that had been skewered there before it could burn too much. Jolie was definitely distracting him.

"So did you want me to kill Dempsey or just beat the shit out of him? I did one of those two things already, so I hope that's enough to keep you happy."

"I didn't want you to kill him, but maybe help me keep him off my back. Which I guess you did. Thank you for that, and for not killing him."

Liam snorted. He poked at the meat on the skewer, apparently deciding that was enough, and then pulled the metal rod off the two prongs that kept it just the right amount of distance above the fire.

He turned towards her, handing her the cooked meat. "Here, eat this. Don’t touch the metal in the middle just yet, you’ll burn yourself.”

She took the end of the metal rod he offered, staring down at the sizzling meat, and then up at him. It was a big deal for an alpha to offer food to someone else. It was an even bigger deal when he cooked it first.

Her happiness and hope rekindled. In that moment, she knew she'd made the right choice.

"I always wondered why you stuck around," she said.

"Uh huh," Liam said, sitting in front of her, crossing his legs. Jolie had to do her absolute best to keep her eyes above his waist, to not stare at his nudity, the scars on his body, or let herself get carried away with how perfect his body was, despite those scars.

Down, girl—they weren’t there yet.

“Why did you think I never left?"

"Because of me?" It wasn't entirely meant to come out as a question, but she wanted to ease him into this as gently as possible.

She hoped it was true. She'd always thought about it, definitely suspected it over the years, but she'd been so young at the time, and he had been, too.

The way Liam's scarred mouth turned up at the corner didn't exactly give her the confidence she was searching for. "You thought I stayed out here, poaching on pack territory all this time, because of you?"

"You asked me to leave with you. You came back for me that night and asked at the window."

The smile melted off Liam's face. He growled at her. Apparently, he didn't like the memory of when she'd turned him down and decided to stay.

“Like you said, you could have gone anywhere."

"I was a child."

"I know," Jolie said. "And instead of going to a shelter, or the police, of getting put into a foster home or of even trying to find a job, you stayed out here. You learned how to take care of yourself, and for the first couple of years, I would see you sometimes. You can't tell me that wasn't you."

He was always so far away to the point she could hardly be sure there had been anyone watching her at all, but Jolie had been sure there had been someone out there. She'd seen his eyes glowing in the distance from time to time, and it used to make her happy, but then, as she got older, it made her sad, because she knew what it meant.

It meant that he was still fending for himself, living out in the wild, and possibly getting lost to the instinct of his wolf—going wild.

Liam continued to growl at her, to glare at her. It was an obvious warning, but one she couldn't refuse.

"You stayed for me, because maybe you didn't realize it at first, but I was more than just your best friend."

"Shut up."

"I was your mate. Your true mate. I still am."

Liam grabbed her by the throat.

To Be Continued......

This chapter was almost too long for the character limit, so I'll keep this short except to say thanks for reading! ^_^ Thank you to everyone who clicked the heart button and added this story to your libraries. That really helps me out and you guys rock! Hugs and happy reading!

Mandy :)