Page 68 of Hungry Like the Wolf

As he passed the couch, he smelled that strong burning smell, an unearthly burning, and froze. He uncrumpled the note in both hands. I had to go back, she’d said. My time here is up.

“No,” he said, his voice thick around a sob. “No, no, no, no, no.”

He paced the length of the cabin, from the front door to the kitchen sink and the window over it, which revealed the sun falling low in the sky, nearly to the horizon. She’d been called back to Hell. The other night, as they’d lain in bed together, fingers tangling and limbs intertwined, she’d told him about her punishment, about refusing to hurt an innocent human. She’d told him that she didn’t know how long her exile would be. She’d told him that Hell was miserable, and he’d laughed. Of course it was miserable. It was Hell. It had never occurred to him that she might have to go back.

The tears flowed now, his throat tight and swollen feeling. His hands shook, and he felt as if he would be sick again. She’d gone to the one place he couldn’t follow. If she’d gone anywhere else, he would have done anything to find her. He’d have climbed mountains. He’d have learned to drive a dogsled. Hell, he’d have learned to drive a submarine just to fall to his knees and bury his face in the softness of her belly, to grab her hands and place them on the contours of his own skull and clutch them there, begging her to hold him, to keep him, to let him stay.

But he couldn’t follow her to Hell.

He dropped the floor and collapsed to his side, curled into a tight ball, feeling as if his heart was being surgically removed from his body. He felt it all, every single slice of the scalpel, as his body tore itself apart. Everything hurt. He wept, for the pain of it all, the loss of her.

JJ had told him that sometimes people didn’t know they’d met their fated mate until they were gone, when the agony of their absence became so painful that some people lost their minds. Robbie shouted hoarsely in the silent cabin, his grief an animal thing within him. Nadja was his mate, his fated mate, and he would never see her again.

Through his pain, he was dimly aware of the cabin door opening. He smelled JJ, his sense of smell becoming sharper by the second.

“Robbie, what the fuck?” JJ said, crouching down next to Robbie’s prone body. Robbie still clutched the note with a trembling hand, a snarl flying from his lips when JJ tried to take it.

“Down, pup,” JJ barked, and Robbie collapsed to the floor with a sob, releasing his grip on the paper. JJ gently smoothed the wrinkled paper and read.

“Goddamnit,” he muttered.

“She’s gone,” Robbie said, his voice a hoarse rasp.

“She got called back, didn’t she?”

Robbie couldn’t answer. He squeezed his eyes shut as a fresh wave of pain wracked him.

“Shit,” JJ said.

Nothing happened for a while. It may have been hours or seconds for all Robbie knew, but he found himself being pulled upright, dragged up to standing. He felt limp, ragged, as if everything holding him together threatened to dissolve.

“Damnit, Robbie, stand up,” JJ said, pulling him up the last bit. Robbie opened his eyes, swollen from crying, and looked at JJ.

“I’ll be damned,” JJ said, as something like awe settled over his face. “I thought it was bullshit. I’ve never seen?—”

Robbie pitched forward, and JJ wrapped his arms around him, hugging him tightly. Robbie didn’t have any tears left in him, but he shuddered against JJ’s big, warm chest, sobbing silently, dryly.

JJ held him tightly.

“I hate that I have to do this. I hate that I have to make you do this. But we have to go, pup.”

“I can’t. I don’t?—”

“You have to,” JJ said. “It’s your time.”

“I don’t want to,” Robbie screamed, so close to JJ’s face, but JJ didn’t even blink. “Just leave me here.”

“No,” JJ growled. “I won’t let you disappear. You’re pack. Goddamnit, do you hear me, Robbie? You’re pack. You’re my pack. And I’m not going to lose a pack member. Not like this.”

Robbie shook his head, stumbling away from JJ with his hand stretched out between them, as if he could fend off JJ in this condition. In any condition.

“You can hate me all you want, Robbie, but we’ve got to go.”

“I can’t,” Robbie whispered. “I can’t do it alone.”

The hard lines of JJ’s face softened. “You’re not alone. And you’re never gonna be alone again.”

Robbie wanted to protest, to tell him that it was possible to be alone even when surrounded by people, that he might be pack and might be a part of something bigger, but that without her, he’d always be alone. JJ should just leave him in the cabin. Maybe forever.