Denied by Destiny Trapped in the Shadows of the Mate Bond novel Chapter 448

Cleo POV

Goosebumps erupt all over my skin, my body stilling from shock.

No, it can’t be, I have to be imagining things.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as his breath fans between the nape of my neck and my ear…

Jace.

My heart stops beating, my body longing to turn to face him…to see him.

That call to him I have felt all my life threatening to engulf me.

I know as soon as I turn I’ll lose all self control around him, I’ll want to touch him, to hold him…to make sure he is real.

I prepare to act on my relief in knowing he is safe, that he is alive…until my wolf sends me a flashback of the last time I saw him…of how he humiliated me in front of all those people at his parent’s wedding.

My body stiffens as painful memories filter through my mind, he had hurt me…hurt me and abandoned his family.

After all this time it’s still there, that gravitational pull to him. Like a silent call to be his, to be only his.

With an exhale of air, I gather myself…pushing back on that pull to him, instead letting anger take control.

My arm stretches out, not to touch him…but to help the barman out of the pool. My hand stills, freezing mid-air as a menacing growl erupts behind me…daring me to defy him.

“I mean it Cleo….I will kill him where he stands if you so much as lay a finger on him.”

He’d be a fool to start something in front of a hotel full of humans.

He had always been handsome; his added charm being his wit and zest for life, only adding to his beauty.

He was wearing a white fitted shirt, the buttons the hardest working buttons of all time, as they struggle to keep the shirt fastened with all the muscle his was packing.

Blue chino trousers with smart leather brown shoes and those tattoos that make him now completely distinguishable from his identical brother Jaxon.

If I didn’t know his true character I would perhaps think to take a step back in caution.

Something had happened for him to not only leave the first time, but to return with a new bad boy image…one that does nothing to deter my undying love for him.

If anything, it makes me want him even more. I’m torn between my anger from his stunt just now, to the need to pull him in my arms and check he was actually real, that he wasn’t a mirage I was imagining from prolonged heat and alcohol consumption.

My heart continues to beat erratically at the sight of him. Almost a year since I last saw him, since any of us last saw him…and so much has happened.