Dangerous Territory

Six

It wasn't until they had dropped Cameron home, and had parked up outside their own house, that her father spoke.

The evening sky outside was dark, the air humid now that the sun wasn't shining through the clouds. Her father turned off the car engine with a sigh and jumped out, the opening door causing a lukewarm breeze to blow in the vehicle and dry the sweat that had broken out on her brow.

She followed after him and closed the door behind her, walking with him across the driveway to the front door of their small, terraced house as soon as she retrieved her suitcase from the boot.

"Make sure you wash that man's scent off."

Mala cringed, looking down at her hand as her father unlocked the door.

She didn't need anyone to tell her what needed to be done.

Auden's scent, the last reminder she had of him, had to be washed away.

She was cleansing the metaphorical blood from her hands, ridding herself of the curse.

"Yeah."

They made their way inside, dragging in their luggage behind them and Mala threw her bags by the stairs, leaning against the wall in order to slide the shoes off her feet. Her body was aching from being sat down for so long and she tried to iron out the kinks, massaging the skin around her neck and shoulders with a tired groan.

There was another ache deep in her chest, that one too deep to be rubbed away.

It was the bond, a silent but angry aggressor.

It would stop protesting eventually.

"I'm going to make a quick dinner," her father said from the living room doorway. He stood slightly slumped over, eyes droopy as if he wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. "How do noodles sound?"

She held up two thumbs, "sounds fine to me."

"Right. I'll be ten minutes tops," he muttered under his breath. "But for the love of God, please wash that damned scent off before we eat. I don't want it stinking up my house."

Mala pushed herself off the wall and grabbed the handle of her suitcase. She completely understood that she had been stalling; in any other circumstance she would have already been upstairs, unpacking her clothes and bundling in the shower as quick as she could.

There was a small part of her that wasn't ready to part with his scent. That small part of her didn't care that her mate had slaughtered innocent people, it didn't care that he was involved with the distribution of drugs and it also didn't give a crap about the poison.

She expected nothing less from the mate bond, knowing that while she was disgusted by her mate, she could never fully hate him. She didn't know if she would ever be able to totally eradicate the desire and the longing either.

In spite of it all, she was ultimately glad that she didn't have to be a slave to her feelings. Even the bond didn't truly have enough power on its own to make her do something against her will. She had the final choice, not her emotions.

Her choice was to walk away and forget about Auden.

With that verdict echoing in her mind, she started up the stairs. "Alright, dad. I'm going to take a shower, be down in a bit."

Stripping out of her clothes, she jumped in the shower straight away, not one iota of hesitation present as she turned on the water and immersed herself underneath the spray. She grabbed for the soap, refusing to feel sad as she lathered it all over her body, paying special attention to the hand Auden had grabbed.