**YOU DO NOT HAVE TO READ THE BITE FIRST TO READ THIS**
When strange events start happening on the pack line, Levi Alexander Thorne is eager to prove to his father Luca, alpha of the Tikanni pack, that he can handle it. But what Levi didn't expect...
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I stay that night at Lander's because sleeping at home is torture. All my beast does at night is howl and whine for her. I've only tasted her lips once and it's enough to drive me mad in my dreams throughout the night.
How has she already engrained herself so deep in my mind? How has she already made herself impossible to be without, when all I've had is time with her that has slipped through my fingers like grains of sand?
The night is long and spent mostly in and out of sleep for me. I can hear Lander wake a few times before he tries to sleep. Like my father, he paces when he's angry or anxious. Can't sit still, his bones dictate that he moves.
I wish I could do more than lay on this couch and wonder if she truly meant what she said when she said that she wanted to be with me. Was it just clever wording like her clever brother who now I am supposed to befriend? I hope he doesn't hold the black eye I gave him against me. I don't give a shit actually, bastard deserved that.
But Chris is clever in a way that I underestimate. My beast agrees while my father's words run through my brain. I have an itch that I know what they mean, but those words are something I rather see played out—they're worth the wait, like her.
In the morning I run routes along the border with Bowie. Mostly I'm making sure our patrols don't do anything stupid. While I'm not one to ward against a little teasing, right now with her on my heart, teasing is not what we need. We can't afford to provoke Emmett, not when she's involved. Not when the solstice is so close that I want to charge over there for her.
Days pass and I give up on waiting for her. I try to link her but it's just me talking to a blank tunnel. I try to link Chris but it's blank as well.
The bond twists and turns in anger and hurt at this. It's a hole that's digging deeper into my soul. All I can think about it her safety and the worst that could happen, but I know the absolute worst is her denying me and choosing another. That is my worst fear.
My father forbids me from going over the line for her. My father only has two sons and at the end of the day, he is no alpha, he is our father and we, his sons. We are the only legacy he has and he can't watch one of us walk to our potential doom. He can't do that to the pack, or to my mother.
I try to argue with him; it turns to claws that has me regretting ever trying to spar with him. One day I'll be able to best him, but he's still the alpha for a reason. All the spar leaves me with is new things for Claire to stitch up and a twisted bond that whiskey can't even fix.
