Bonded

Chapter 13

Greyson shifted in his sleep. He could smell his mate, on the sheets, on his clothes, on his skin. Half asleep, he moved to pull her closer to him when he realized that the bed was empty. Suddenly wide awake, he sat up and surveyed his room. She was gone. The clock on the bedside table read 5:48am. Greyson fell back on the pillow and scrubbed his hands over his face. He had a terrible case of déjà vu.

"Nope. Not again." Greyson threw the covers off and climbed out of bed. He searched the floor for a pair of sneakers. He shoved his feet in the shoes on the way out the door. He used the mate bond to guide him to where she might be. Absently, he noted that the bond had grown stronger since yesterday. Following the bond, he ended up outside of the hotel gym. He yanked open the door to see her on the treadmill. She was alone in the gym. Her hair was pulled back into a tight French braid. She wore long, black workout tights and a black sports bra. She ran with perfect form, eyes forward, shoulders back, a straight back with a tall spine. He took a moment to admire her shape and speed before his anger came back.

"Seriously, Rebecca?"

She didn't slow her run. "What?"

"You just left?"

"My day starts at 5am."

"What?"

"My alarm goes off at 5am. Gym. Shower. Dress. I am at my desk by 6:30am. That is the schedule. My day starts at 5am, I don't care where I am sleeping or who I am sleeping with." Her feet never paused in their assault on the belt.

Greyson tunneled his fingers through his hair. "Becca, what on Earth are you talking about?"

"I am talking about my schedule, my life. It begins at 5am. I don't know how you run things at Wolfe Technologies, but at Cara we like to maximize every minute."

The timer on the treadmill beeped and she began to slow her run to a light jog.

"Becca, stop."

"Greyson, I'm – "

"REBECCA, STOP!" he roared at her. The surprise was enough to have her jumping to put her feet on the sides of the treadmill. The conveyor belt still moving beneath her.

He walked over to her. She still stood on the treadmill. The extra height the machine provided made it easier for Greyson to look her in the eyes. He used the time it took to close the distance between them to calm his nerves and to try and balance himself. He looked at her. Really looked. The shadows under her eyes were still there. Her entire body looked tense. She looked beyond exhausted. Beyond stressed.

He took a deep breath and tried to keep his tone gentle, "Rebecca, when do you rest?"

She looked genuinely confused by his question. Like the very idea was foreign to her. "I got nearly three hours of sleep last night. That is more than enough."

"What? Three hours is nowhere near enough."

Rebecca turned off the treadmill and grabbed her water bottle. She had been on the edge before Greyson had walked into the gym. Getting up that morning, leaving the soft warm cocoon of his bed had been one of the hardest things she had ever had to do. She was pissed at herself for being so weak and giving in to the temptation to stay. She couldn't learn to depend on him again. They were together for only a few days. She needed to get control of herself and the entire situation and she needed to do it fast.

"Sleep is for the weak." It was a flippant response, and she knew it. She wanted him gone so she could pull herself together before calling Michael.

Greyson was taken aback by the comment. The mood shifts alarmed him. She went from being the woman he knew all those years ago to a regimented, control freak. He knew they both had changed in the last ten years, but this seemed too dramatic. The bit of worry he had about her since running into her in the hotel lobby had grown to extremely concerned over the course of this conversation.

"Becks, sleeping isn't a sign of weakness. What are you doing to yourself?"

He saw the flash of anger in her eyes about a half a second before she threw the water bottle at a spot on the wall directly behind his head. The empty plastic bottle bounced off the wall, hit a weight machine and then clattered to the floor. His werewolf instincts kept him from jumping in surprise, but it was a narrow thing.

"What do you want from me, Greyson? I party too much as a kid and you say I need to stop. I work too much as an adult and now that is wrong too? I'm sorry that I can never do what you want me to. I'm sorry I can't be what you think I should be. I guess it is a really good thing I don't care about what you think anymore." With that parting shot, she strode past him and out of the gym.