The Alpha and The Enforcer [TATE]

Chapter 38

Jacob's P.O.V

I was in the woods.

But not our woods.

The trees were wrong. They were thinner, taller, their bark ghost-pale under a gray, bruised sky. No birds. No wind. The silence was unnatural. Smothering.

I looked down and realized I wasn't wearing a shirt. Just my jeans. My bare chest rose and fell too fast, and my heartbeat echoed, not in my ears, but through the ground, vibrating like a drum beneath the soles of my feet.

I didn't know how I got here.

But I knew who I was looking for. For some reason I knew I had to find her. I needed to.

"Ellie?" I called out, my voice ragged.

No answer.

I moved forward, branches clawing at my arms. The trees shifted behind me with each step, its like they were closing ranks, trying to trap me in.

Then I saw her.

A flash of golden brown hair as I made my way through the trees.

"Ellie!"

She didn't turn.

I broke into a run, crashing through the underbrush, lungs burning. I could hear my own ragged breathing now, too loud in the otherwise silent forest.

Strange, normally I would grasshopper chirping or the birds singing.

I finally stepped into an open clearing and there she was, standing in the middle of it with her back turn to me.

A breeze picked up out of nowhere, tugging gently at the hem of her jacket. She looked smaller somehow. Farther away than she should've been.

Then someone else stepped into the clearing.

A man.

Tall. Broad shoulders. Hair dark and wild like the forest itself. I couldn't see his face, only the way she turned toward him.

She smiled at him. The type of smile you would only give to a lover. I should know...because Ellie doesn't smile at anyone except for her family and me.

I flinched as I felt something wash over me, like being hit with a pulse of energy that didn't want me there.

Ellie's shoulders relaxed. Her lips curved into a wider smile.

And it was then I realized, it was him.

"No," I whispered. "Ellie!"

She turned to me.

Our eyes met.

Her gold ones were calm, happy.

And then she mouthed it:

"I'm sorry."

I took a step forward, but the ground gave out beneath me. Like the forest had peeled away from under my feet, and I was falling, fast, through darkness and cold and the ghost of her scent.

Then everything stopped.

And I was standing again. This time on the pack border.

The air was thick with fog. The trees behind me loomed like prison bars. I turned slowly.

Ellie stood on the other side of the border.

One hand pressed forward as if it came into contact with an invisible barrier between us. I reached for her hand only to confirm that there was in fact a barrier separating us. I couldn't get to her. I started to panic