After twelve sleepless nights and eleven days of a sore neck, today she finally had started to feel better. She lifted her fingertips to the impulsive wound. A mark wasn't suppose to stay so fleshy, so red, so sore for so long and it was because she wasn't with him, didn't have his salvia to seal it. Prolonged and horrible, she studied it in the tiny pocket mirror she held in front of her.
“At least, it looks a bit better today.” She said to herself, still wishing it a dream.
The door of the dorm room swung open and Ella panicked, grabbing her scarf and wrapping her neck as Janelle stepped inside.
She gagged, as she pulled the scarf just a bit too tight.
“It is so gross out there!” Janelle exclaimed, slamming her wet textbooks to the desktop, “And, I have so much work to do.”
Ella winced, “Likely not as much as me.”
“Well, you wouldn't have as much, if you were actually going to class.”
It wasn't that she wasn't going to class but she was only attending specific classes that didn't have Cheri in them. This being part of her plan to avoid anything and anyone that had to do with Braxton Hall. So far, it had been working out, the week and a bit it'd been in motion.
“I'm going.” Ella informed her, picking at the hole in her jeans.
“Yeah, sure seems like it.” Janelle hissed as she threw off her jacket and sat to her desk, by now Ella was sure the girl had burned an ass print into the wood seat.
Watching Janelle work only made Ella feel guilty about her lack of work, how she was possibly even wasting her aunt and uncle's money. She started to think what she was doing in Maine wasn't even worth their trouble, Colten might have even been able to get a refund for some of it, if she left now, went back home to muck out a barn and chase cows?
But that, all of a sudden, didn't seem like such a bad option against the dread of being involved with Braxton and accidentally running into Cheri. Dealing with her problems had never come easy and maybe that's why she'd wanted to go to Maine so bad, running away was more fun than being responsible.
A knock at the door interrupted her cringe-worthy thoughts.
Janelle gave her a sideways glance before she got up to get it, “Worst roommate ever.” She muttered under her breath as she whipped open the door, revealing the lean blonde.
“There you are!” Cheri burst into the room, not even giving Janelle a glance.
Ella's eyes widened, “Cheri...”
“Where have you been? And what's with the no text replies? We thought you died!”
Ella had nothing to say, so she kept quiet.
“Uh, nice entrance?” Janelle slammed the door and brushed past Cheri as the blonde gave the deary roommate a death glare.
Cheri put a hand to her hip as she waited for Ella to answer, “Uh-hello!”
Ella shrugged, “I've been sick.”
“You're avoiding him!” Cheri had cut right to it and Ella felt her adrenaline start.
“Avoiding who?” Janelle interjected.
Ella glanced at the girl and back to Cheri, “It's none of your business, Cheri.”
Cheri smiled at her, “Are you serious?”
“Yeah!” Ella stood, gulping down her anxiety, “It's actually no one's business.”
“Right.” Cheri narrowed her eyes at her, “Except none of this is making sense, Ella.”
“Braxton screwed up, it's his fault!” Ella paused, watching Cheri's smile brim her fine features.
“This is about a boy?” Janelle cut in, still watching their open display of an argument.
Cheri glanced at her, “A really hot boy.”
Ella rolled her eyes, “Oh, please!”
“What's your problem!” Cheri looked like her head could explode at any moment, “Do you know how many girls would kill for him?”
“Nope.” Ella stood her stubborn ground, “But you know what!” She dashed for her shoulder bag and keys across the room.
Cheri shrieked as she shoved her out of her way, “Ella!”
Ella grabbed the items up in her arms, “You, and any other girl that wants him, can have him, cause' you can tell him; I'm rejecting him!”
Janelle stared at them as Cheri's jaw dropped, “Rejecting who? Wait, what?”
Ella barrelled to the dorm room door and ran, down the hall, the stairs, two at a time and out into the pouring rain as she made her way towards her parked car.
She hugged her purse to her chest as she jogged through the bone chilling weather, getting to her vehicle as the rain soaked through her clothing. Getting in her brand new sedan, she wasted no time in peeling out of the parking lot as fast as she could.
Not having a particular clue in which direction she should be going, she drove down any road that she came to and soon, a two hours later soon, she found herself in a treed parking lot of a park. Her tears then didn't hesitate to roll down her cheeks and the feeling of the burning on her neck didn't help either. The presence of Cheri had stirred up her emotions again, making her wolf unhappy with her but she tried her best to ignore it.
Sitting and shivering in her idling car, she finally cranked the heat and came to the conclusion that Maine just wasn't for her. She wanted to be back home, in her bedroom, with her friends. No one in Maine was even mildly hospitable, most too wrapped up in themselves to give her a chance at friendship and if nothing else convinced her enough; Braxton was enough. Maine was host to her mate and he was at home here, living in his element and that meant, she wouldn't ever fit into it and she didn't want to either. She reached for her purse and found her dying cell phone. It likely only have one ten minute call left in it.
She wanted to call Abigail and spill everything that she'd been going through, and she almost did hit home on the display. However, if she only had one more phone call left, it wasn't going to be a sob story to her aunt and uncle. That just didn't seem fair to them, they had already agreed to so much, paid her way, given her the car she'd run away in.
The phone line rung three times before there was a chirpy greeting followed.
“Oh my goodness! I thought you'd never call me!”
“Hi, Trixie.” Ella breathed, tracing her finger along the steering wheel, “How's it going?”
“You're asking me how it's going? How's it going where you are?”
“Okay, it's a bit cold here.”
Trixie laughed, “It's cold? No kidding, it's Maine! We all thought you were seriously crazy but at least we know, we were all right – about the cold, that is.”
Ella sighed, hearing Trixie's bout of confidence in her poor situation except her friends didn't know how poor it really was and she figured, she should just get it off her chest and admit it all.
“I have a mate!” Not even a breath was heard from the other line and Ella waited in suspense, “Trix?”
“You found your mate?” She whispered and Ella had half been expecting her best friend to start shrieking in joy, but that was far from what she was doing.
“Yeah.” Ella said, leaning back in her seat.
“How did that happen?”
“At a party I shouldn't have been at. Look, Trix, you can't tell anyone!”
“Y-yeah.” Trixie stammered.
Ella had expected to be questioned, where she could make Braxton out to the bad guy, the one that had marked her without permission and the whole nine yards.
“So, you're like never coming home then?”
“N-no!” Ella exclaimed, realizing the brunt of her best friend's new sadness, “He marked me, without even asking. He can't control himself.”
“You're marked but not mated?”
“Yep.” Ella didn't want to discuss the topic, let alone dive into details but she had to tell someone she trusted, had to get it off her chest at the very least.
“So, he's a jerk?”
Ella sighed, “He's going to be an alpha and I just can't stand my self getting used for that sort of power trip.”
“Like you're mom.” Trixie put it together, “Does Abi and--”
“No.” Ella cut her off, “They don't and I don't think I can bring myself to tell them.”
“Well, Ella, you sort of need to.”
“No, I can't. Trixie, I want to come home so bad, but I can't stand it. I mean if I have lie in the bed I've made, I guess I will but I can't let Colten and Abigail down by coming home.”
“They won't do that to you, Ella!”
“They're starting a new life.”
“You helped them with that.” Trixie said rather matter of factually.
She exhaled, “Trixie, promise me you won't tell anyone.”
“I won't but, I'm worried about you.”
“I'll figure it out. I mean there's not much more he can do, I rejected him.”
“You did?”
Ella winced, well, she sort of rejected him, technically, she still had to say it to his face to make it legit, “Yeah.” She was lying now, even to her best friend.
“You're safe from him then.”
“Yeah.”
“Is he really all that bad, Ella?”
And it wasn't that Braxton was that bad, but now she had the taste of his impulsive alpha side and she wouldn't stand for it.
“He's an idiot.”
Trixie sighed, “That's too bad. I always figured you'd get this irresistible mate, you know, one we were all jealous of – gorgeous, tall, charming...”
“Okay,” Ella deadpanned, “You can stop.”
“Sorry.”
Ella glanced out the window of the now dark parking lot, she hadn't even realized how quickly she'd lost the sun and that she was the only one in the parking lot.
“Err, I gotta go, I sort of took a drive and I better get back.”
“Okay, well, call me tomorrow or something.”
“I'll try.” Ella breathed.
“And, Ella, you should really think about just coming home.”
“I'll...” Her words fell apart as something black rushed the side of her vehicle. She spun in her seat to see what or whom it had been but the one dim light in the park, provided no depth to the situation.
“I-I gotta go, Trixie, I'll talk to you later.” Ella hung up the phone call just as her friend bid her off and then she stared into the darkness, but the longer she did the more she truly felt like she was being watched. That was enough for her and she put her car in drive, pressing her foot to the pedal as a large black wolf darted out in front of her and she slammed on the breaks, leaving just enough room for his hot breath to fill her headlights with a fog.
His black eyes looked straight through her soul and she didn't need a memo to tell this wolf wasn't here by accident. He was there for her.
She wasn't staying around to find out who it was, or what he wanted. Putting her foot back to the gas pedal, she sped around him and brought her sedan to a flying eighty miles an hour. Her eyes darted to the rearview mirror but luckily, there was nothing behind her. Once she made it back out to the highway, she didn't adjust her speed either. Whoever had taken up enough interest to stalk in her parking lot, might have been able to stalk her on a highway too.
She didn't want to panic but her palms had begun to sweat, big wolves like that were no good unless...
“Braxton...” She couldn't really picture him black but perhaps he was. She also couldn't picture him so scruffy and worn up looking in his wolf, which made her hope, all that wolf had been was Braxton Hall; but somewhere deep inside, she knew it wasn't.
The more her thoughts got away with her the faster she drove till the lights and sirens behind her cut through her panic and she swore under her breath, pulling the car over and fumbling to let down the window as the police officer strolled up beside her and ducked his face to her window.
“Evening.”
“H-hi.” Ella stammered.
“Do you know how fast you were going tonight?”
“I'm sorry, I p-pulled over to call my friend and this g--”
The officer was awaiting her story, except she had to make it human appropriate and she remembered that in that exact instant.
“This g-guy, he jumped out at me.” She swallowed, looking to her steering wheel, “I was just afraid. I'm sorry.”
The cop sighed, tapping the top of her vehicle as he thought over her words, “Where was this? Did he have a weapon?”
Ella looked back to him, blinking back her tears, “It was back at some parking lot, h-he just scared me and I-I guess, I overreacted a bit.”
“Hmph.” He thought, “Okay, look, I think you're telling me the truth here, so I'm going to let you off on a warning, but you really need to watch yourself, getting in an accident over some bum won't be any fun, I assure you.”
“T-thank you.” Ella breathed.
“Have a goodnight.” He said, walking back toward his car.
She stared in her mirror as his lights flicked off and he drove around her, leaving her behind on the dark highway. She'd gotten off lucky, that was sure, the last thing she had needed to explain to Colten was getting a speeding ticket, all due to the fact that she had a mate!
She groaned and started to rub her tears away, getting back to her dorm was all she knew she should focus on now, worrying about Braxton and wether she should return to Texas – she would save for the morning.
With the car in drive, she slowly and carefully, drove back onto the highway in the direction she hoped was correct.
#
When she finally found her way back to campus it was quarter to twelve, she snuck in teh dorm room as quietly as possible not wanting to deal with her roommate’s whining and backlash over waking her up.
“There you are!” Janelle basically jumped from her desk.
Ella startled, “Oh.”
Janelle pointed to her bed, “I don't know what's going on, but things are getting weird.”
Ella glanced to her messy quilts and pillows to find a large boquet of red roses, “What is that?”
“Yeah.” Janelle nodded, “This guy showed up looking for you and he brought this excessive amount of roses with him and he insisted on leaving them. I'm allergic to flowers, pollen, you have to get rid of them now! I can't even--”
Ella dashed for them, grabbing them in her arms, a few of the thorns catching and ripping across her throat as she chucked them out into the hall. She stared at the mess of flower petals and wrapping tissue in front of her, and a where an envelope lied at her feet.
Snorting, she stepped back but at the last moment she grabbed the note, just in case, it had something personal written inside it.
She slammed the door and turned to Janelle, “Better?”
Her roommate blinked at her, “Y-yeah, thanks.”
“Sure.” Ella threw her purse and the note to her bed, falling down beside it, “Sorry he came by.”
Janelle didn't say another word as she flipped off her desk light and the room fell to darkness and with it, Ella's need for sleep.