Forbidden Bond by Jessica Lee Page B

fell, unable to speak from the shock of his father’s command.
    “Eion?”
    He swallowed hard, searching for moisture and doing his best to restart his larynx. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he managed to say, the words coming out like they’d been dragged over sandpaper in the process.
    “Like I said, my age hasn’t inhibited my observation abilities. Do you think you’re the first male to be distracted by an infatuation? Hardly.” He scoffed. “Your sudden desire to help this friend of yours during a critical time in your rising, your erratic behavior as of late… There’s a woman.”
    “What I’m doing here is my business, Father. Not yours or anyone else’s.” No way in hell was he about to engage in a heart-to-heart about Liv with his father. Not that the alpha was actually capable of one. The man had never taken the time to truly get to know Eion beyond the fact that he was his first-born son and successor. That had been all he’d ever cared about, and he sure as hell wasn’t ready to hear that his son, his heir, was not only infatuated with a human, but had bonded with her.
    “If it’s affecting the pack, make no mistake, Eion, it’s my business.”
    “This doesn’t affect the pack,” Eion spat back.
    “Make sure you keep it that way,” his father barked in return. “And whatever you’re up to, get over it, and get your ass home.”
    The line went dead.
    Before he could pull it back, the cell phone landed against the wall with a loud crack , littering the floor in a multitude of shattered pieces. “Dammit!” Eion rolled from the bed and onto his feet. “I’ve been trying to get over it,” he growled, and snatched the lamp from the table. With a hard swing, the light fixture joined the phone on the floor in a graveyard of busted glass and plastic. “All I’ve done for more than a decade is try to get her out of my head,” he shouted into the empty room, air sawing from his lungs. “I can’t…” With a groan, Eion dropped to his knees, shards of the debris biting into his flesh as his head fell back between his shoulder blades. “I love her,” the three words tumbled from his lips as if they bubbled up from his soul, refusing to remain buried.
    He’d loved her back when he was eighteen, but he couldn’t admit it to himself. She’d been his best friend’s little sister, four years his junior. He’d never allowed himself to think of her as anything more than a pesky little girl.
    But now…years had gone by, and Liv had grown into an independent, strong-willed, intelligent, not to mention beautiful, woman. All of which was reinforcement to the bond that he hadn’t counted on. He admired and respected her. Liv was a woman of substance, and she had knocked him on his ass.
    Eion ran his hands through his hair and dragged them down over his face. He stared in stunned silence at the shadows draping the room. The only sound penetrating the emptiness was the loud thump of his pulse in his ears.
    A part of him had always held onto the hope that it was an act of nature holding him hostage, bound to the past and Liv. Just some type of confused chemical or psychological tie between his wolf and the woman. His people believed the souls of their wolves were ancient. They lived on after the body died, moving from host to host—shifter to shifter. With each reincarnation, their immortal beast passed on its wisdom through instinct, and their wolf was where a mating bond began.
    There were no actual emotions involved.
    At least that was what Eion had always believed. He’d refused to see it as anything more. Because more meant he’d crossed a line, failed his father and his pack. What kind of an alpha was he if he didn’t have the control to resist falling for a creature considered beneath their species—a human girl? Was he defective because he’d bonded to a female who would dilute the bloodline?
    Eion shook his head, knocking the negative dialogue from his mind. He