Chasing His Kickass Luna Back Chapter 339

Karl

I stride numbly along rain-slicked city streets, my hood drawn up and my hands in my pockets. The rain has melted away all the snow, although I can’t help but wonder how soon it’ll take for the temperature to drop again and turn it all to ice. My heart is made of ice now, too.

Abby kicked me out. I thought that I was doing the right thing by showing her the vial, but it just made her angry. What was I supposed to do? With her leaving for a week, she needs to be made aware; Doctor Armitage made it very clear that the potion needs to be ingested every single day until pregnancy occurs.

But maybe I am a fool. Oh, hell, I am a fool. There’s no beating around the bush.

Once again, I broke her heart. Once again, I fucked up. I can’t blame her for kicking me out, for reacting the way I did. After all, I did go behind her back and give her Doctor Armitage’s treatment without her knowledge.

I just thought I was helping, but it turned out to be quite the opposite.

Eventually, I find myself outside a nondescript hotel. I stop on the sidewalk, looking up at it.

I know that Abby wants me to go home, but I’ll stay here. At least for tonight, just in case. Maybe I’ll even stay for the whole week, so I can be here for her if she needs me when she gets back.

Or, she’ll never speak to me again.

The musing sends a sharp pang through my aching chest. Scowling ferociously, I push through the front doors and into the warm lobby, out of the pouring rain.

The bored night receptionist looks up from his book when I enter. His eyes scan over me, taking in my angry appearance and my soaked jacket.

“Hello,” he says, eyeing me warily. “Can I help you?”

I stride up to the desk and slap my credit card down. “I need a room.”

The receptionist nods and types on his computer for a minute, his brow furrowing, before he gives me a double glance. “We’ve only got one room left, sir,” he says. “It’s a twin bed, smoking allowed so it may smell.”

I shrug. “I don’t care,” I reply coolly. “I just need a room.”

He nods and types again. “Name and duration of stay?”

“Karl,” I reply. “Just put me down for the whole week.”

A few minutes later, I’m being handed a plastic keycard and instructions to my room, which is on the top floor of this monstrosity. The elevator ride feels like it takes an eternity, but finally, the lift comes to a creaking stop and the doors slide open to reveal a carpeted, dimly lit hallway.

The room is just as the young night receptionist said it would be: small, dingy, and reeking of cigarette smoke. I grimace as I quickly cross the room and throw open a window, not caring if the rain and the cold comes in.

Hell, maybe I’ll have a cigarette of my own…

I lean on the windowsill with the lit cigarette dangling out of my mouth, watching the red embers float down into the empty street below. I don’t even really like smoking; it’s just a nervous habit that I fall back on once in a while.

And right now, I think I need the soothing, sickly sweet sensation of the tobacco and nicotine coursing through me.

“You’re a fool. I told you this would backfire.”

My wolf’s voice almost catches me off guard. I let out a small scoff and flick my ashes into the air, watching as they puff away in a gust of cold wind.

“Don’t scold me,” I growl. “Now’s not the time.”

“When will there ever be a ‘time’, Karl?” my wolf hisses in contempt. “You can’t keep your head screwed on straight, no matter how many chances you’re given. You had the world in the palm of your hand. Now look at you.”

His words make me scowl, but he’s not wrong. I finally had it all: my pack, my mate, my life. But, like always, I had to go and ruin it. And at this point, I’m not even sure if I was genuinely trying to help Abby have the baby she’s always wanted or if I was just self-destructing because some evil part of me doesn’t want to be happy.

“I’ll make it up to her,” I say. That’s what I always do, right? Some sort of heroic act, some extension of goodwill to make her realize that I’m not the monster she thinks I am?

“How many more times will you need to do that?”

Once again, I scowl. And once again, my wolf isn’t wrong. Growling under my breath, I put out the cigarette on the windowsill and flick the butt out into the city street below. Somewhere in the distance, a fire engine wails through the city.

With a curse under my breath, I snap the window shut and am left alone with the stench of old and new cigarettes on the walls, on the bed, on my skin and on my coat.

“I should be with her right now,” I say softly as I shrug my damp jacket off and toss it onto the back of a chair. “I should be holding her in bed. I’m an idiot.”

My wolf snorts. “Yes. You are.”

There’s a long silence after that as I sink down onto the shitty, lumpy bed. The frame creaks as I lay on my back, staring up at the motionless ceiling fan. Here I am, laying in the world’s shittiest hotel room while the love of my life won’t even talk to me, won’t even hear me out.

Part of me wants to be angry with her for not listening—that’s the old Karl coming through. The new Karl, though, understands why she doesn’t want to hear my stupid fucking excuses. The new Karl doesn’t blame her.

The new Karl eventually lets his eyelids grow heavy, and falls asleep on top of the paper-thin blanket.

…

I awake with a start to the sound of my phone going off.

“Abby,” I breathe, immediately leaping out of bed and ignoring the aching in my joints. I sprint across the room and rifle through my coat until I find my phone nestled in my pocket. My heart pounds; it has to be her. Maybe she wants to talk it out. She won’t really leave without talking to me first, right?

But I let out a loud curse when I look at the phone screen and see that it’s just my alarm: seven in the morning.

How did I manage to sleep all night?

For a few moments, I let myself sink back down onto the edge of the bed and stare numbly at my phone screen. There are no calls or messages; just an email from my brother asking me to sign some document. Hardly important compared to the fact that my mate seems to want nothing to do with me anymore.

“She’ll be leaving soon,” I whisper more to myself than my wolf. “Maybe I should…”

Before I can stop myself, I’m navigating to her contact and hitting the ‘call’ button. My heart catches in my throat as the phone connects; maybe if I can get to her just before she leaves, maybe we’ll have a chance to talk. Maybe now, after a night of sleep, we can talk to each other with reason.

But the phone goes straight to voicemail, and the robotic voice that comes through makes me feel sick.

“The number you are trying to reach is unavailable.”

The line goes dead. I slowly lower the phone, staring down at the blinking screen as realization dawns on me.

She blocked me.