Revenge to the Alpha Mate - Chapter 219

Chapter 219: Chapter 219
Celena’s Perspective

Damn, the atmosphere in this car was thick enough to choke on.

I slumped in the passenger seat, pretending to watch the landscape blur past the window, but every one of my senses was traitorously zeroed in on the man behind the wheel. Had I been too impulsive, coming along like this? That reckless wolf spirit in my head had completely taken over, shoving me onto this path.

Now, this enclosed space felt like a concentrated jar of Jacob’s essence. His familiar scent—a mix of sun-warmed fur, forest earth, and that uniquely appealing male musk—swirled around me, inescapable. It was infuriatingly comforting, making my fingers itch to reach over, to bury my face against the solid strength of his shoulder, just like we used to.

The coffee cup I clutched still held the residual warmth from his hands, a heat that seeped into my palm and sent a restless flutter straight to my chest. It felt like a tiny, persistent creature was skittering around inside my ribs. I could even hear my own betraying heartbeat, thumping a frantic rhythm in the quiet cabin.

I took a sharp, too-big gulp of the coffee. The shock of the cold liquid burning down my throat brought a welcome sting, jolting my hazy mind back to reality. Wake up, Celena! I snarled at myself internally. You can’t just let him bewitch you all over again!

I dug my nails hard into my own thigh. The sharp bite of pain finally severed the spell, pulling me fully from that dangerous, hazy warmth. I forced my expression back into its cool, detached mask, even as a hollow ache pulsed in some hidden part of me.

Jacob seemed utterly oblivious to the entire war raging inside me. His hands were steady on the wheel, his gaze locked on the road ahead, only occasionally flicking to the GPS. His jaw was set in a tight line, the picture of a man completely focused on the journey.

A part of me sighed in relief that my internal chaos had gone unnoticed. But then, a tiny, treacherous thread of disappointment unspooled in my gut—had he really not sensed anything at all?

Jacob’s Perspective

Hell. I was losing my damn mind.

Driving was my only anchor to sanity. Gripping this steering wheel, staring at this asphalt, it let me pretend I was just a focused driver, not a man being shredded apart by the idiot wolf inside me that was practically doing backflips.

Celena was right there. Less than an arm’s length away. In this confined space, her scent—clean and sharp like lilacs after a rain—drifted over, a sweet torture that set every one of my nerves on fire. My wolf was howling, rolling, clawing at the walls of my control: Closer! Breathe her in! Taste her! For God’s sake, kiss her! Now!

It took every ounce of my will to keep the primal urge in check, my knuckles bone-white from their death grip on the wheel. No, Jacob. Cool it. Not the time. We had a mission. And… she hadn’t forgiven me. I knew that.

But I’d win her back. Eventually. We had a long road ahead, anyway.

To break the unbearable silence and distract my racing thoughts, I cleared my throat, forcing a level tone as I laid out the intel from the bar—the suspicious truck, the lead pointing to the next state.

“At this pace, it’s probably a ten-hour drive,” I estimated.

Her voice, when it came, was still edged with frost. “We’ll switch. Half and half.”

I just nodded. It was a fair plan.

But plans have a way of crumbling. After about two hours, we rolled into a deceptively quiet human town, pulling into a gas station to refuel and grab supplies.

I handled the pump while Celena headed for the convenience store.

Just as I was screwing the gas cap back on, a scent—faint but utterly wrong for this peaceful place—caught on the breeze. Blood. The acrid sweat of fear. And… metal. Gunpowder.

Shit. Trouble.

My head snapped toward the store, my heart seizing. Through the grimy window, I saw Celena by the shelves. A man in a hoodie was closing in on her, his gaze predatory and leering, openly ogling the curves of her body. The counter was deserted, a faint, smeared trail of blood leading toward the back room.

My wolf surged to the surface, all predator. I moved like a ghost, slipping around to the store’s back entrance. The door was slightly ajar. Inside, the clerk was slumped in the storage room corner, unconscious and bound.

From the front, I heard the low, ugly rumble of a threat, met by Celena’s icy, clipped reply.

No time to think. I exploded into the main room. Before the thug could even register my presence and raise his gun, my fist smashed into his wrist. The pistol clattered to the floor. He bellowed, and we crashed together in a grapple. He had some brute strength, but it was nothing against my enraged, raw power. In seconds, I had him pinned, using his own belt to hogtie him.

I let out a tense breath, thinking it was over.

CRASH! The restroom door flew open. A second man charged out, a wicked-looking hunting knife gleaming in his grip. Seeing his partner down, he let out a furious roar and lunged—not at me, but at Celena, his arm hooking toward her throat!

“Celena!” I roared.

In the same instant, she moved. No panic. A sharp, brutal elbow jammed backward into his ribs. As he grunted and faltered for a split second, she pivoted, perfectly in sync with my own tackle from the side. I hammered a blow into his knife arm, sending the blade skittering away. But in the wild scramble, a shard of the broken blade still caught my arm, slicing it open with a searing, white-hot pain.

It was over moments later, the second thug joining the first in a groaning heap on the floor.

“You’re hurt!” Celena was at my side in a flash, her hand closing around my forearm, her brow furrowed deep as she stared at the welling blood. The anger was still in her brown eyes, but it was mixed with something else… raw concern.

She practically dragged me to a cleaner corner of the store, found a first-aid kit, and started working with brisk, efficient movements—cleaning the cut, wrapping the bandage. Her fingers were cool against my feverish skin, each touch sending a jolting shiver through me. She kept her head down, strands of her brown hair brushing against my arm with a maddening, feather-light tickle.

That familiar, charged tension flooded back into the space between us, thicker and more potent than ever in the car. We were so close. I could see the faint tremor in her lashes, feel the warm whisper of her breath on my skin.

The air practically crackled. I looked down at the intense focus on her face, felt my heart hammering against my ribs all over again. And this time, I saw it clearly—a flush of pink creeping up from her neck, coloring the delicate skin of her ears.