The Golden Lycans (Ella) novel Chapter 31

Gloom and Thunder Part?

Gloom and Thunder-Part 2

***Ella***

Seeing the pain I had just caused in Austin’s eyes was more than I could bear as I turn around and

run into the school, leaving him standing there in the torrential rain.

I feel like I am almost leaving a piece of myself behind in the car park, as I enter the school. I hold

my breath as I race back to my room, properly breathing again once I’d gone inside and shut the

door. I breathe heavily as I lean against the wall by the door and slide to the floor, huge sobs going

through my body.

Memories of our incredible kiss goes through my brain, making my heart swell and glow with an amazing warmth, yet at the same time causing even more tears to fall down my face. The explosion of emotion and physical sensation that had rushed through me as soon as our lips had

touched had been too much. I got lost in it so fast and being kissed by him so wantonly had made me feel so many other things as well. I had felt overwhelmed and I just knew that if I felt this way n ow, surely it would be much worse once he found his mate. I knew I couldn’t put myself through it. I had to stop everything there and then.

I sit there for a time, still thinking about things over and over. Eventually, Freya comes in through the door and almost hits me with it as she enters. She looks down at me on the floor.

“Ella? Oh my goodness, Ella what’s wrong!” she says, looking frantically at me as she takes in my soaking wet appearance and puffy red eyes.

“Freya, you were right, you were so right, I shouldn’t have let today happen. I should’ve listened to you!” I tell her, now hiccuping a little.

“What happened?” she asks, undoing the buttons of my soaked coat and taking it off me. I get up and wrap my arms around myself as I go and sat down on the edge of my bed, feeling stupendously stupid. So stupid and also so raw inside.

Freya chucks a tissue box at me and then sits opposite me on her own bed.

“Is this about the mate bond issue?” she asks me calmly.

I silently nod in reply, tears pouring down my cheeks again and onto my lap.

“Oh Ella, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault, I shouldn’t have lied to people and said you guys were

dating just to get them off my back,” she says, shaking her head a little.

“It’s not your fault,” I reply, hiccuping again, “my reasons for rejecting him the first time were still there, I just…well, I just didn’t care anymore. I wanted to spend more time with him, and…oh god, I

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Gloom and Thunder Part 2

had such a great time. Then we kissed and it was just…urgh. God, Freya it was incredible and I suddenly realised it had gone too far already. If I kept going down the rabbit hole I’d only end up getting really really hurt once he found his mate.”

I wipe my nose on a tissue after another hiccup. Outside there is suddenly a great rumble of

thunder. Freya looks towards the window and frowns.

“It’s so weird, it was so warm and beautiful only an hour ago. How suddenly things can change

huh?” she muses quietly. A memory of warm sunlight coming through the golden leaf canopy and

the memory of two of us standing on the bridge together comes to the front of my mind…the

feeling of his lips on mine, his hand on my face, the strange throaty growl he’d done that had

sounded so carnal…

I sob again and more tears roll down my face. The ache inside my chest is now getting worse and worse. I sob loudly again and blow my nose.

“Okaaaay,” Freya says, suddenly standing up and sitting down next to me, “yes, I DID try to warn you

but this whole date was definitely my fault. I shouldn’t have given Austin an ‘in’ with you. I pretty much presented you to him on a silver plate. I just…didn’t realise you guys liked each other that much, and I’m sorry I just randomly told people you guys were dating. I then just got caught up in

how happy you both were to be going out, that I ignored the reason why I warned you away from

him in the first place. It was the most relaxed I have seen my brother in so long, I just…”

I give Freya’s hand a squeeze.

“It’s not your fault,” I sigh, “but what’s done is now done.”

I drew my legs up onto the bed and stretch out, grabbing a pillow and hugging it.

“It’s still an hour or so before dinner, so I’ll give you a bit of time to yourself. Tell you what, I’ll come

back with a hot chocolate,” Freya says, standing up and putting her slippers on.

I nod vaguely, deep in thought, as she opens the door and leaves the room.

***Freya***

I head downstairs to the sofas in the atrium, which are thankfully deserted.

Me: Where are you?

I text Austin. I wait for several minutes for a reply. Finally after about ten minutes my phone chirps.

Austin: Gym

Of course. I roll my eyes. It was the place every emotional male apparently went.

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Gloom and Thunder-Part 2

I get up and go down the sports corridor, heading to the gym; a place I’d only been to only a few

times before. The air is heavy with testosterone, smells like a teenage boy’s bedroom and it was al ays full, because lycan lads loved to work out. Walking in I am immediately left wondering why I’d

never been down here much before and that I should perhaps come back with Annabelle; it was a hot guy buffet in here.

Bloody hell. AB would never leave if she came in here, I say to Mira with an inward chuckle.

Pfft, ignore AB, YOU need to start using this gym, Mira purrs.

Control yourself, you affect me too, remember. We are here to check on Aus!

Come on, JUST LOOK AT THEM! Check out the shoulders on that guy doing the tricep pulldowns…he

is absolutely deeeelicious, Mira continues, ignoring me entirely.

Yes, he’s incredibly hot, I’m not blind, but please reign it in, that is not why we are here.

I ignore the ridiculous whistles from the lads as they spot a girl walking through the floor, and I look

around for Austin. I almost walk into Ollie as he turns around from the tricep machine, looking

worlds away from the gawky kid I had grown up with in his navy tank top and grey sweats. I’m a little unnerved to realise it was him that Mira was just drooling over.

“I was wondering if I’d ever see you down here,” he says with an amused expression.

“Hilarious. Where is he?” I say bluntly, trying to keep my eyes locked into his rather than everywhere

else. He smiles and then silently nods over to the far corner where I can now see my brother. I immediately walk over to find Austin on the bench press machine with an absurd number of weights on either end of the metal pole. I hover my face over his just after he puts the bar down.

“How are you doing?” I ask sympathetically. He frowns at me and sits up on the bench.

“Not good,” he says, shrugging his broad shoulders and looking downcast.

“Uh huh,” I reply, sitting down on the bench next to him.

“What are you doing here?” he questions, taking a few swigs of protein shake.from his bottle.

“I just wanted to see how you were,” I reply, absentmindedly watching Ollie a few metres away.

“Well, to be perfectly honest with you, Freya, I’ve been a lot better,” he says, nodding sarcastically, “I’m guessing you’ve spoken to Ella.”

He definitely doesn’t sound like himself. If anything, he sounds like he belongs in here with the other tenacious male Lycans.

“Yep. I mean if it helps, you didn’t do anything wrong and she said she really enjoyed your date today. In fact she said it was perfect-”

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“Yes, thank you Freya, she happened to say the same to me too before she ran away from me, as if she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. I just don’t really understand why did she reacted the way she did?” Austin exclaims loudly in exasperation followed by a hearty growl, standing up with his hands behind his head and elbows together in frustration. I look up at him sadly as he flings his arms down to his sides in dejected frustration.

“Sounds like it was the original issue Aus; you potentially finding your mate in two months. Whether you think you like her or not, you would drop her as quickly as Ava dropped you, because the bond would be that powerful. You wouldn’t want to hurt her, but you WOULD. It would hurt her a lot, and she realised just how much it would at a particular point of your date. I did try to warn you both but nooo, Freya doesn’t know what she’s talking about, we will just ignore her even though she’s only looking out for us,” I ramble with irritation. I grab his hand and pull him back down onto the bench

next to me.

Austin sits there staring at the wall for a short while, his expression suggesting he is thinking hard about something. I frown at him as he turns to face me, his expression changing.

“No, no there’s more to it,” he begins, now looking excited as if he just came to a realisation about something, “Freya, have you ever kissed someone for the first time and found it to be so intense and enjoyable that you could perhaps be scared to feel more for them than you did right then?” he asks. I pursed my lips and look at him in annoyance.

“Er no, Aus,” I reply sarcastically with my nostrils flared, “because guys don’t ever want to come anywhere near the younger sister of alpha heir Austin Landry.”

I then stare down at the floor in moderate embarrassment; we were close but we didn’t talk about

this sort of stuff.

“Oh. Okay, well you just wouldn’t,” he begins slowly, sounding awkward at my comment, “my three other first kisses with those two kids in second year and then Ava; they were ALL very awkward. They’re exciting…sure, but so awkward. You don’t just go from zero to one hundred in one kiss. But,

WE did, because I felt it too and I think that it scared her. But that’s because she doesn’t

understand it, Freya, she doesn’t know.”

I look back at him and shake my head slightly.

“Well, I don’t understand or know either, Aus. I have no idea what you’re on about, quite frankly,” I tell him sadly, confused by what he was getting at and wondering why he sounded so excited. Poor guy was losing the plot. This was the second time he’d had his heart squashed since starting back at school. He leans in closer to me and looks at me intently.

“Ella doesn’t understand how it’s supposed to feel and she doesn’t know because she’s not expecting it; and why would she?” he says excitedly, “and I know how you’re going to react to this

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