Mark My Words, Claim My Wolf

# Chapter 8

AN: Sorry for the draggy and long-winded flashback in the previous chapter ! But hoped you enjoyed though. Thanks for reading :D And this is already edited. (: 

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(Mia's POV)

"I'm sorry.. I didn't know.. I-" I started, appalled and I moved my gaze to the floor, holding Jace's shivering hands.

"It's okay. It's not your fault. You didn't know that, anyway." 

"How old were you when your parents d-died..?" 

"Six" he replied with extreme pain.

"You must've suffered a lot. Let's not talk about this anymore. How old are you now?"

"Twenty-two"

"O-okay.. Thank you for cooking up some breakfast for me. I guess I really needed that." I thanked him after finishing the meal, full of gratitude while trying to change the harsh subject.

"My pleasure." he replied with a smile, hiding his pain.

"What would you like to do today?" he asked again.

"Can we go out into the snow for a run? I feel like shifting, I haven't shifted in a while." I hopefully asked.

"Sure, no problem. Anything for my beautiful mate." he shook his head while smiling. 

I wore a green dress with lacey flower prints around the waist and at the edge of the lining. My shoes were furry boots. I completed the look with my white beanie, resembling my wolf's fur. Jace wore a grey t-shirt with black jeans, looking extremely hot as his muscles bulged out of his chest and arms. His abs were oh-so-sexy. Shaking my head at my thoughts, I looked up just in time to see Jace staring at me with eyes so wide open. 

"What?" I asked, faking the annoyance, but it came out snappier than I thought it would be.

"Oh nothing. Just admiring my mate's beauty." he teased, twisting one of the curly locks of mine while I snorted, making him laugh. I nudged him but he laughed even harder, which kind of made me happy inside, making me giggle.

When we reached outside, I thought it would be warmer. But hell no. It was colder than words can say. 

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yup. Always am!" I replied confidently.

Then, both of us shifted into our wolves. Just looking at Jace's wolf once more made my wolf purr. His wolf was so magnificent that I could not stop staring at him from time to time. When he caught me staring at him from head to toe from time to time, I quickly turned my head and gave a lopsided smile, catching him smile and shake his head from the corner of my eye. It made my heart beat fast a little bit more.

Wanting him to catch me even though I knew I was going to lose to him, I gave him a playful smirk and he grinned back, instantly knowing what I wanted to do. 

Within seconds, I quickly ran away from him. He started to jog up to me, showing me his hilarious "you-can-run-but-i-will-catch-you" arrogant look on his beautiful face, and then I increased my speed. Looking back, I saw Jace sprint up to me on all fours and in a few seconds, he caught up with my wolf and leapt on me. We fell to the ground in a heap, exhausted but laughing. I rested my wolf's small head under his chin, distracting him for a bit. 

But I quickly flipped over on my side and got up before he did. I ran away faster, everything beside me; the trees, bushes, branches and birds, all in a blur as I ran at lightning speed. Looking back, I saw Jace's cute wolf chasing after me like he was losing me. Instead of running further, I stopped my legs and I walked back to him with a slightly ghastly smirk on my face which actually made him throw his head back and laugh at my "what-he-calls-cute" look. He slowly shifted back to his human form and headed towards me, grinning widely. Just looking at him can make me melt. Me, the stone-heart little Mia can melt just looking at a guys with abs and tanned skin? Boy he got me falling for him more and more. Each day. Each minute. Each second. 

The distance between Jace and I was quite long. But we slowly walked back to each other though. Him grinning like a Cheshire cat and walking towards me when I, exhausted and giggling was walking back to him. I was so lucky my clothes dont get destroyed whenever I shifted. I waved away my thoughts of my luckiness, if that's what you call it. I was still constantly worrying about my pack. Whether they even cared that I was gone, or just happier that I wasn't there anymore. I wished they  didn't care if I ran away. I would have to happily and readily live with my mate. How much I loved him! They said I was a constant and illiterate troublemaker. Yep, I created quite a stir of problems. But that was because of Jasper sowing discord between the pack members and I, including my parents. Ugh, how I hated Jasper. Spoilt little brat. The more they abused me, the more I felt useless and helpess, also scared. I was always afraid that I would get punished for doing things the "wrong" way they called it. So I became nervous and vulnerable, letting them "punish" me when I accidentally did things wrong. Even when I did the right or correct things, they would still hit me and insult me for no apparent reason. Excuse me? I'm their daughter. And their younger daughter at that. I was guessing that they hated me because they thought I'm clumsy and can't be an Alpha for the pack. How disgusted by their perspectives, ew. I shuddered at the thought of the previous pack. How they treated me with so much insolent disrespect. I hated them. Now I decided that I really did hate them. I shook my head in attempt to erase those thoughts temporary at the moment. But feeling unusually tired out, when I shook my head, I kind of felt dizzy. Which the feeling was like all the blood from the other parts of your body all flowed to your head, extra pressure, ya? Yep. It was hurting like mad inside. I shifted my gaze to Jace. Yes, him. My love. And tried to plaster a weak smile at his charming face.

Just then, I felt extremely tired out with my dry and chapped lips. Extremely exhausted. My world began to spin around like merry-go-round, making my head ache. My breathing became unstable. Gasping for air, I collapsed onto the ground like leaves do and the last image I saw was Jace running towards me, just in time to catch me when I was in the process of dropping onto the floor, like a bird that was shot dead and that was falling to the forest floor, lifeless. And then everything went black. Again.

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