Mate Me in Moonlight

Chapter 34

POV: Adeline

Three days.

Three days of leaving rooms when he entered. Three days of volunteering for tasks that took me to the far edges of the territory. Three days of eating early or late, timing my movements to the rhythm of his schedule so our paths wouldn't cross.

It was exhausting. It was cowardly. And it wasn't working.

Because even when I didn't see him, I felt him. The bond hummed beneath my ribs like a second heartbeat, tugging toward him no matter how many walls I put between us. My wolf had stopped speaking to me entirely—her silence a punishment more effective than any accusation.

I thought I was being subtle.

I was wrong.

The woodpile sat behind the supply cabin, stacked in neat rows that smelled of pine and cedar. I had volunteered to split logs for the evening fires—mindless work that let me exhaust my body while my mind spun in circles it couldn't escape. The axe felt good in my hands. The impact of blade against wood sent shockwaves up my arms that almost drowned out the wanting.

Almost.

I raised the axe again, positioned another log, and brought the blade down in a clean arc. The wood split with a satisfying crack. I kicked the halves aside and reached for another.

"You've been running from me."

The voice came from behind me—low, quiet, certain.

I froze with my hand on the next log.

Aiden stood at the corner of the woodpile, close enough that I should have heard him approach, far enough that he wasn't crowding me. He wore a simple grey shirt, sleeves pushed to his elbows, and his hair was loose around his shoulders. His expression held no anger. No accusation.

Just patience. And something underneath it that looked like hurt he was trying not to show.

"I haven't been—"

"Three days, Adeline." He said my name like it meant something. Like the syllables carried weight he'd been holding since I'd started disappearing. "You leave every room I enter. You eat when I'm not in the hall. Yesterday you walked half a mile in the wrong direction just to avoid passing the training grounds."

Heat crept up my neck. I hadn't realized he'd noticed. Hadn't realized he'd been paying that much attention.

Of course he had. The bond ran both ways.

I set the axe down carefully, buying myself time I didn't know how to use. "It's not you I'm running from."

"Then what?"

The question hung between us, simple and impossible.

I turned to face him fully. The late afternoon light caught the angles of his face, softening the sharp lines of his jaw, warming the black of his eyes until they looked almost brown. The scar on his temple stood out pale against his skin. I thought of that scar continuing down his back, thought of his body moving in the sparring ring, thought of all the things I had imagined doing to him while I hid in the trees like a coward.

"From what I feel when I see you," I said.

The words came out quieter than I intended, scraped raw by the truth I hadn't meant to offer.

Aiden went still.

Not the stillness of surprise—the stillness of a wolf who has caught a scent and is deciding how to proceed. His eyes held mine, searching for something. Confirmation, maybe. Permission.

"Tell me," he said.

Two words. Soft as a request. Heavy as a command.

I shook my head, the movement small and involuntary. "I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because it's too much." My voice cracked on the last word, betraying me. "Because I don't know how to want something this badly and not lose myself in it. Because every time I've wanted something—every time I've let myself believe I could have it—"

I stopped. The rest of the sentence lodged in my throat like broken glass.

Every time, it was taken away.

I didn't have to say it. He knew. He knew about Ash Hollow, about Caleb, about the five packs that had looked at me and decided I wasn't worth the risk. He knew that wanting had become synonymous with losing in the architecture of my survival.

He stepped closer.

Not rushing. Not pushing. Just closing the distance between us one deliberate pace at a time until he stood near enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off his skin. Near enough to smell pine and woodsmoke and something underneath that was purely him. Near enough that if I swayed forward even slightly, my forehead would rest against his chest.

I didn't sway. But I didn't step back either.

"I can wait," he said.

The words settled into the space between us like stones dropping into still water.

"As long as you need," he continued. "However long it takes for you to trust this. Trust me. I'm not going anywhere."

My chest tightened. "You don't know that. You don't know what's coming. What I might bring to your borders—"

"I know exactly what you might bring." His voice didn't waver. "I've known since the day you arrived. And I'm still here."

"What if I need forever?" The question escaped before I could stop it—desperate, defensive, a wall I was throwing up even as I felt it crumbling. "What if I'm never ready? What if I can't—"

"Then I wait forever."

He said it simply. Without drama, without declaration. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like waiting for me was not a sacrifice but a choice he had already made, a path he had already committed to walking no matter how long or winding it proved to be.

No one had ever offered me patience like that.

I had been offered pity. Conditional shelter. Tolerance that wore thin as soon as I became inconvenient. I had been offered the scraps of belonging that packs threw to strays—enough to survive, never enough to feel wanted.

But this—

This was different.

He wasn't offering patience because it cost him nothing. I could see the want in his eyes, barely leashed, the same hunger I had felt watching him in the sparring ring. The bond pulled at him as surely as it pulled at me. Waiting wasn't easy for him.

He was offering it anyway.

Because he thought I was worth it.

The realization moved through me like something warm and terrifying, settling into spaces I had kept hollow for so long I'd forgotten they existed. I had spent so many months convincing myself that I was a burden. A liability. A stray that any sensible pack would turn away. And here he stood, offering me time like it was infinite, like I hadn't already cost him sleepless nights and political complications and the suspicion of his own Beta.

Something cracked open in my chest—a fissure in the wall I had spent five rejections building. It hurt, the way healing always hurts. The way new skin feels too thin over old wounds.

I didn't kiss him.

I wanted to. My wolf stirred from her silence, pressing forward with an urgency that made my breath catch. Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to close the distance, to press my mouth to his, to finally stop running and let myself fall.

But I wasn't ready. Not yet. Not quite.

So instead, I did something smaller.

I stayed.

I stood there in the fading afternoon light with the woodpile at my back and Aiden's warmth in front of me, and I didn't retreat. I didn't make an excuse. I didn't flee into the forest to wrestle with my shame alone.

I let him see me wanting him. And I let him wait.

His mouth curved—not quite a smile, but something close. Something that said he understood. That this small thing, this not-running, was enough for now.

"I'll be at dinner," he said quietly. "If you want to join me."

Then he turned and walked away, leaving me standing among the split logs with my heart hammering against my ribs and my wolf humming with something that felt dangerously like hope.

Progress.

It was terrifying.

But for the first time in longer than I could remember, I didn't want to run from it.