style="font-size:15px;"> Only once again, she wouldn’t have anything to do with him. She didn’t feel the same as he did; she didn’t mind being away from him. From all of them. In fact, she preferred it. Tension squeezed his insides. She wanted to live without him, and now that she’d walked out of his life for good, he had no one.
The thought was sobering and hard to admit, but the truth was he’d pushed her away. He’d make it up to her. He’d make it up to everyone for all his scheming, for the ridiculous plot and warring with Scott that had got Jaya killed and put the Pack in danger. He scraped a hand across his face as he realized none of it would matter if they didn’t make it back to regenerate the crystals. The fate of all the shifters rested on them, and they still had so far to go.
Celia sat up in the backseat, her hair a mess and her eyes droopy with sleep, and still she’d never looked more beautiful.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“All right, I suppose,” she said, and stretched. “Stiff.”
“You’ve been asleep for a long time.”
She looked around her. “It’s good to see all the trees.”
He grinned. “We’ve been pretty much alone on this highway for a while now, and I was thinking once the moon rose higher in the sky...”
“Yeah?” she asked, interest gleaming in her beautiful dark eyes.
“That maybe you’d like to go for a run with me.”
She looked around her, weighing his words. “You think it’s safe?”
“There is no one around. And the truth is, it’s been a long time since I’ve changed. Since I’ve run. I think that’s why the Abatu got the better of me today. We can’t take that chance again. We have to strengthen ourselves.”
She gave him a wry smile. “I could tell.”
He turned to her, his eyes locking on hers. “Yeah?”
“You’re going gray.”
“I am not.” He leaned forward and peered into the rearview mirror. But she was right. There were thin streaks of gray at his temples. How long had he been aging? How much time had he lost?
“Run with me,” he said as desperation tore at him. “Last night was the first time I’ve changed since...” Since the night Jaya died. “Since I don’t know when.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know where my head was,” he said quietly, but it wasn’t true. He knew too well.
“Hmm, I don’t know, Malcolm, but taking a guess, I’d say headstrong, unrelenting ambition got in your way. You could have been a great Pack leader.”
He smiled. That wide, charming smile that he wore like a protective shield. “Tell me what you really think, babe.”
“Harsh, I know, but you need to hear it.”
“Trust me, it’s not anything I haven’t heard before, but that doesn’t matter to me now. Being Pack leader doesn’t matter to me now.”
Her face filled with surprise. “Then what does?”
“Rebuilding my life in the Colony with you.”
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