Bound To You (Previously The Hard Mate) - Preview

Chapter Six

I was exiled to the backseat.

The backseat.

Like I was a kid.

Humiliating.

I then spent the first hour of our drive glaring at the backs of Robin's and James's heads, while neither one of them paid me much attention. Robin had fallen asleep, his head pressed against the window, the sun glinting off his golden earring every now and again. James had the radio on—some weird station that played rock music—and he hadn't once made eye contact with me in the rearview mirror.

As we drove on, the quiet and relative sameness and predictability that always comes along with driving on a highway gave me what felt like the first calm moment since last night.

My new life with my mate was so far not going the way I'd expected. Even though I'd known there was a risk that my mate would be an alpha with his own pack to care about, I'd thought he'd be alpha-to-be or something. Free to go wherever he wanted—or where I wanted. That I'd get to go to Caltech. But now I wasn't, and that was okay. I was sure there were plenty

of good schools in Canada; I'd find one and go to school there. No problem.

What I hadn't planned for, much less worried about, was the possibly that my mate would be so cold and hard. That he would be flat-out mean to me. I was a pretty likable person. I think. I wasn't horrible enough to deserve the way James was threatening me. Then again, he seemed to be treating everyone kind of crappy. Something was clearly eating him.

Maybe something to do with being a warrior? I still wasn't sure what that meant, despite my chat with Rose. For a while when I was talking to her, I thought I might be close to understanding, but now I just wasn't sure. In fact I wasn't sure of anything, really. I didn't even know where we were going exactly.

"So . . . ," I said, deciding (after that first silent hour of thinking) that since there were only two front seats and three of us in the car, one of us had had to sit in the back and it wasn't really that rude to put me there. Forcing me to get in the car the way he had, that had been rude, but it also meant he cared. In some weird messed-up way. Maybe I could switch with Robin once we stopped for our next food and bathroom break. Or maybe James would let me drive the SUV. ". . . where exactly are we going?"

James said nothing.

"Look," I said, scooting forward as far as my seat belt would let me. "I get that you're not exactly thrilled about all this, but you will have to talk to me. If you don't, I'll just, like, run away or something."

"You will not," he said, his voice low, but he continued talking anyway. "We're going to the compound, our place outside Tenebri."

"Tenebri?" I said, although what I wanted to ask about was the compound. It sounded like

something a crazy militia group might call their headquarters. I really didn't want to have to spend the rest of my days sleeping on a bunk and eating sloppy cafeteria food, so I hoped compound was just code for Awesome House Close to Beach. Not likely, but hope was better than being all negative.

"A city about two hours north of Quebec. You have heard of Quebec, haven't you?" he asked snarkily, looking at me in the rearview mirror for the first time.

"Yeah, I have," I said sullenly. I might not be a brainiac like Rose, but I wasn't totally stupid.

James's eyes in the mirror softened a tiny bit. "Look, short stuff." I bit my lip. Short stuff? He'd called me that last night too. It was a stupid nickname. I was five four, for God's sake; that was average, not short. Well, not super short. "This trip is going to take about eight more hours. And I hate being stuck in a car. Hate it. Makes me twitchy. If on top of that you keep on pestering me—"

"Pestering you?" I said, my voice getting higher. I saw Robin move; our argument was waking him, but I didn't particularly care. "I asked you where the hell you were taking me, not—"

"Whatever you want to call it." His jaw clenched, and his hands gripped the wheel tighter. "Stop the talking."

"Why do you hate me so much?" I blurted out, immediately feeling my cheeks go red. I hadn't meant to ask him that. Part of me was still holding out hope that he did like me and was just hiding it. Really well.

"I don't hate you," James said, turning up the radio. "I just don't . . . care."

I wanted to cry and scream at the same time, but instead I just stared at my hands. He just didn't care. . . .

Robin was at this point fully aware of the awkwardness. In an attempt to lighten the mood—at least I think that was what he was doing—he turned in his seat to look at me.

"You speak French, Megan?" he asked, sounding friendly and vaguely hopeful.

"No?" I said. "I took two years of Spanish." And yet somehow I could not speak a word of it, which was kind of depressing, especially since Mom's family—like a bunch of generations ago—was from Puerto Rico.

"Oh."

A few hours later, as we reached the Canadian border, I was getting seriously sick of the tense silence that had enveloped the car. It was like it was sucking all the energy out of me. Thankfully the line of vehicles at the border wasn't that bad, not like when I'd gone with Sorelle's family to Mexico. Once we got to the booth where you were supposed to show your passport, I realized I didn't have mine.

"Here," James said, handing over three passports, one that had to be mine. I guess my father must have given James my passport, yet knowing that didn't make me feel better. I wanted my own passport, in my own hands. It was mine.

"Hey there," said the border agent, a woman with purple hair, as she peered in at me through James's window. "You doing good?" she asked, as if she half expected me to start crying and telling her James and Robin had kidnapped me. For a moment I was tempted to do just that . . . just to see what they would do.

"Yeah." I smiled. "All good here."

Then we were in Canada. It was the same kind of woods, roads, fields, and other stuff outside the car's windows, but somehow it felt different. It felt farther away from everything I knew, everything I loved. Everyone I loved.

I closed my eyes to keep from crying; closed them, and to my surprise—fell into a deep sleep.

Someone shook me awake, and I was glad because I was dreaming of running around in the dark, lost and alone. I glanced outside and noticed it was just as dark as in my dream. I had to have been out a few hours at least for the sun to have set. "We're here," Robin said with a smile.

"Huh?" I managed.

"We're home."

_____________

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