One Bite

Chapter 5-9

During the car ride into and through the Central territory, I tucked my knees up to my chest, grounding my heels on the seat. Widening my elbows, I tucked my bound hands underneath.

Ignoring both Caleb's curious gaze on my movements and the bursts of hot pain in my wrists whenever they moved, I wiggled and squirmed until my hands sat under my butt. With a low grunt and burns searing my skin, I lifted my arms until my hands were out from under me and sat in my lap.

"Don't..." he whispered, his hands grabbing mine.

After loosening and sliding the restraints further up my forearms, his thumbs rubbed arc-like shapes over my red and raw skin.

"Don't," I whisper-yelled and yanked my hands back. "Don't... touch me."

He leaned back, propping his elbow on the door and cupping his chin in his palm. I slid my eyes closed, focusing on my breaths to shut out the weight of my surroundings and thrumming of my heart. Its pounding sensations intensified the farther we drove into the Central territory and a pulling sensation tugged deeper in my stomach. With each silent minute that passed, minutes turned into hours as Baron and my traitorous mate escorted me like a prisoner who'd already been sentenced.

A horrific realization rose inside me the deeper we drove into my father's territory. It drew my back's imprint in my seat deeper.

He's going to kill me...

'Kill first.'

While Lumi's words instilled a sense of uncertainty and insecurity inside me. My forehead tensed when my blonde eyebrows drew together and my pulse raced faster beats in my veins the closer we got.

I pressed my heels down into the floor, feeling the slight bulge of the Silencer gun on my right thigh. While its location was uncomfortable during the drive, I slipped it on while stopped at a South-East border checkpoint. The uneasy look the guards gave Elena and Rose's sleeping form made me uncomfortable, so I holstered my gun under my baggy sweatpants.

The rolling hills outside my window flattened out to wide, open grassy fields. I kept my eyes glued on nothing at all but everything that wasn't Caleb.

Not him. Not looking at him.

Not even the reflection of him in my tinted window. Nope.

Darn it.

He sat in a slumped position, shoulders rounding and stomach clenched. His own eyes gazed out his own window while his elbow rested on the door's armrest. I pressed my lips together at how his bicep muscle flexed enough that the profile of his contoured muscle was visible over the -

"Still can't stop staring, Sweetheart?" his voice rumbled through the space between us like soft rolls of thunder. The vibrations shot a flush of reactions, straight from my pinching heart down into... lower areas.

No. Not again.

I hate this. I hate him.

From her weakened position under the silver restraints, Lumi offered no help other than a soft, whimpered plea.

'Mate.'

Not any longer.

With one squirm in my seat, my hips shifted in his direction. After a few moments of my eyes shooting mental lasers at the back of his head, his eyes dropped to the corners.

After a tight jaw and hard stare into his not-brown eyes, I started, "Caleb, I rej -"

One of his large hands wrapped over my mouth before I finished. "Doesn't work unless I say it too," he mumbled but his gaze never wavered, shifting between my eyes. His contacts weren't enough to mask the way his eyes rounded with pain.