Chapter 14

“He’s not good enough for you, Everly, and he’s dangerous to be around,” her father said in that stern voice he used when he was on the verge of losing control and headed for a rant in his native French.

She’d called her dad a little while after Mia left to go out with Joseph and the Scooby Gang again, knowing he was the one who had sent her brothers over to her place with the baseball bats. She didn’t know why she thought she’d be able to talk any sense into him.

“Dad, I don’t care what you think about Landry or whether you think he’s good enough for me,” she snapped. The conversation hadn’t degraded into a shouting match yet, but it was getting there. “I decide who’s good enough for me, not you.”

She could practically see him shaking his head on the other end of the line. “Everly, you are too young to realize how foolish you are being. I’m doing this for your own good. You must walk away from this man. While you still can.”

Everly wanted to scream. She should have known he’d go there. He always did. Next he’d tell her to be a good girl, and do as she was told. Yeah, well, she’d stopped doing as she was told a long time ago.

“Dad, I can see this is an exercise in futility, so I’m going to make this as simple and as clear as I can,” she said. “Tell my idiot brothers that if they try to beat up Landry again, I’ll be the one who presses charges, not him. And since he’s a cop, they’ll all go to jail for a very long time.”

“Everly…” he began, as if talking to a child.

“Tell them. If they harm even a hair on his head, I’m having them arrested.”

Everly hit the red button with her thumb, wishing she had an old-fashioned phone so she could have slammed it down. God, her father was infuriating. But she’d done all she could. If her brothers ended up in jail now, it was their own stupid fault. She didn’t want that to happen, but she wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing the next time they hurt Landry.

She tossed her cell phone on the desk and glanced at the clock on the wall of her studio, wondering if Landry was on his way. It was after five, so he might be. But she knew he didn’t work a job with standard hours, and as much as she wanted to, she wasn’t going to call and check on him. He’d get here when he got here.

Of course, saying she wouldn’t sit around and count the minutes until Landry showed up sounded mature, but it was nearly impossible to actually do. Not when all she could think about was the amazing evening she’d had with Landry last night.

She’d come to several important conclusions today while she was working. One was that she needed to call her dad and get a few things straight with him. That hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped, but she had a good feeling the other was going to go much better. In the midst of wondering how she’d ever gotten lucky enough to meet a guy like Landry, she decided it might be time to talk about their future together and that little subject known as love.

Yes, it was early in a normal relationship to be batting that word around. But this magnetic pull between her and Landry was anything but normal. It was flat-out magical, and she had no doubt that he felt it too. All it took was one look in his eyes to know he felt exactly the way she did. She was going to tell him she loved him tonight, and something told her he was going to say the same in return. Since they’d have the apartment to themselves, it would make it easier to have a semi-serious talk with her man.

Everly smiled as she read through her email. She wasn’t the only one falling fast for a guy. Mia and Joseph were giving her and Landry a run for their money. Everly had never known Mia to be exclusive with anyone so quickly, but she and Joseph had been together almost 24-7 since the wedding. Everly didn’t think she’d ever seen Mia happier. When her friend wandered in this morning after being out with Joseph and his friends all night, she’d kicked off her shoes and told Everly that Joseph was every girl’s dream. Then she sent a text to her boss saying she wouldn’t be able to make it into work—apparently that passed as official notification where she was employed—and fell into bed with all her clothes on.

Everly was still reading through her emails and organizing her thoughts about what she wanted to say to Landry, wondering if this was a conversation better to have before or after sex, when he knocked on her door.

She closed her email program and hurried into the living room to open the door. Landry stood there looking as handsome as always in his uniform, but also more exhausted than she’d ever seen him. She promised herself that she’d get him into bed early tonight—and not just so they could make love. He needed to catch up on some sleep.

After giving her a long, knee-weakening kiss, he hung his holster on the back of the chair in the kitchen, then collapsed on her couch, while she grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge. When she curled up on the couch next to him, he took the bottle she held out and swigged half the water.

“Long day?” she asked.

“Yeah. There was another bombing yesterday morning.” He sighed. “No one was killed, but more than a dozen people got hurt.”

“Is the FBI getting close to catching the guy?”

He hesitated then nodded. “They should have him in custody soon.”

Talking about the bombing was obviously upsetting him, so she didn’t press for details. Every time some psycho set off a bomb, he was probably reminded of what happened in Iraq.

“You want to go out for dinner?” she asked, changing the subject. “Or I could just make something, if you feel like staying in.”

Landry’s mouth curved into a grin as he reached out and grabbed her, pulling her laughing onto his lap. She ended up straddling his thighs with her hands on his shoulders.

“So, does this mean you’re not hungry?” she asked, leaning forward to kiss him.

He nipped at her lower lip, giving it a little tug. “Oh, I’m hungry, all right. But not for food.”

She moaned. “In that case, I think I’m famished.”

Grabbing hold of his T-shirt, Everly tugged it out of his cargo pants and yanked it over his head. She took in his beautiful muscled chest, noting that the heavy bruise on his left side was completely gone. He wasn’t kidding when he said he healed fast, she thought as she kissed him again.

Cooper was just undoing the buttons on the front of her sleeveless dress when he suddenly jerked his head up to stare at the door. She didn’t even have a chance to ask him what was wrong before it slammed back against the wall. A moment later, her brothers stormed in.

Landry had her on her feet and pushed behind him so fast she barely realized they were off the couch. But that sure as hell wasn’t where she stayed. She moved around the coffee table, ready to flay her brothers alive. Not just for having the gall to show up here again, but for kicking in the door. The wood around the lock was completely shattered.

“You’re paying for that door, Armand,” she shouted. He was always the ringleader of these little interventions.

“Did he bite you?” Armand demanded, ignoring her threat as he took in her partially undone buttons.

Everly was so furious right then that she could barely compose a rational thought, but hearing her oldest brother say something so incredibly stupid broke through the red haze of anger around her and gave her back the gift of speech.

“No, but he was about to,” she said, angrily doing up the buttons. “And I’m still hoping he will—once I throw the four of you the hell out of my apartment.”

Landry came around beside her, trying to get between her and her brothers, but she refused to put him in the middle of this. Not that it mattered. Her brothers only had eyes for her, and right now, they were looking at her like she was insane.

“You want to be one of them?” Tristan asked.

The look of stunned surprise on her youngest brother’s face flabbergasted her.

“What the hell are you talking about? One of what, a SWAT officer?” she asked him. “I’m pretty sure it takes more than a night in bed to get into SWAT, but I’ll let you know in the morning, if you’re really that interested.”

“You’ve always been naive, Everly,” Armand growled. “But even you can’t be blind to what this man really is. You must have seen his true nature at least once. None of them can hide what they really are, not for long.”

Everly was so confused she wasn’t sure whether she should ask for clarification or simply kick them out now. She opted for the former, since they would probably walk right back in now that they’d busted the lock on her door.

“Okay, you’ve made me curious,” she said. “What do you think Landry is—beyond the best thing that has ever happened to me, I mean?”

Armand’s lips twisted into a disapproving frown. Everly wondered if he knew how much he looked like their father when he did that.

“I never wanted you to hear this, but if you won’t trust us, then you leave me no choice,” Armand said. “This creature standing at your side is a monster—a werewolf. And he wants to turn you, make you a spawn of the devil, like him.”

Beside her, Landry tensed. He probably thought her brother had lost his mind and was a danger to everyone in the room. Werewolf? Was that honestly what her father had told her brothers? They clearly believed him. It was so ridiculous, she actually laughed.

Armand didn’t think it was nearly as funny. Muttering something in French, he reached behind his back.

Landry moved faster than she would have thought possible, putting himself between Everly and her brothers again before she could even blink. The next thing she knew, Armand was coming at them with a knife.

Everly screamed, but it was too late. Landry must have thought her brother was going to attack her, and by the time he realized his mistake, Armand had plunged the knife in his chest.

For one horrible moment, time stood still. Then Landry’s eyes flashed a deep gold, and he shoved Armand so hard that her oldest brother flew across the living room the same way the robber had in the bank lobby a few days ago.

Giles and Claude took several steps back, pulling pistols from behind their backs and aiming them at Landry.

Everly ignored them. Instead, she took Landry’s arm, turning him to face her and praying she’d been wrong about what she saw. But she hadn’t been wrong.

She choked back a sob as Landry yanked the knife out of his chest and dropped it to the floor with a heavy clunk. Blood sprayed everywhere.

“Oh God, what have you done, Armand?” Everly screamed.

Tears flooded her eyes so much she could barely see. But she didn’t need to see Landry clearly to know it was bad. There was so much blood.

Landry must have been as stunned by the speed and violence of Armand’s attack as she was. He just stood there looking down at his bloody chest in confusion, oblivious to the trauma. There was no pain on his face either. Instead, an expression that could only be described as sadness filled his eyes. She gripped his shoulder in one hand to keep him from falling, then pressed the other to the wound, desperate to stop the bleeding.

“Don’t just stand there!” she shouted at her brothers. “Call for an ambulance.”

They didn’t move.

Dammit! If she wanted to get Landry help, she would do it herself. And since there was no way she could depend on her brothers to put pressure on his wound, Landry was going to have to do that himself. But when she took her hand away to put his in its place, her eyes widened. The bleeding had already stopped. She watched, stunned, as the edges of the horrible wound closed up in front of her eyes.

That was impossible. Armand had stabbed him in the chest with a knife big enough to go more than halfway through him.

“Landry?” she asked softly.

The sorrow in his eyes tore at her heart. “I’m so sorry, Everly. I didn’t want you to find out like this.”

She shook her head, even more confused. But Landry didn’t say anything else. He only stood there, tears welling in his eyes.

“Find out what?” She took his hand. “Landry, please talk to me.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Armand get up and move to stand near Giles and Claude. Both of her other brothers still had their weapons out and pointed at Landry.

Behind her, firm hands came to rest on her shoulders, and she glanced back to see Tristan standing there.

“We tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen,” he said. “This man you think is the best thing that has ever happened to you is a werewolf—a monster. Stabbing him was the only way Armand could get you to see that.”

Everly shook her head, her thoughts suddenly too scattered and broken to piece together. “I don’t understand. How can he be…?”

“A werewolf? Or alive?” Tristan asked with a shrug. “I don’t know why he’s a werewolf—he simply is. And he’s alive because evil cannot be killed so easily, even with a knife through the chest.”

She stared at Landry’s chest. The wound had closed almost completely now, and there was a fine line of pale pink scar tissue already forming around the edges. She thought about the bruises and cuts she’d tended last night, about how they were already gone, barely twenty-four hours later. No normal human healed that fast. And yet, her mind rebelled. Werewolves were the stuff of folktales and horror movies. They weren’t real.

But when she looked at Landry’s face, she realized her brother’s words weren’t as shocking to him as they had been to her. He wasn’t even denying it. He simply stood there waiting, silent as a graveyard, a defeated expression in his eyes.

Doubt crept into her heart, then fear. So many things she’d overlooked flooded her mind. The way Landry had responded in the bank, knowing what was going to happen long before anyone else. The way he’d thrown one bank robber around like a toy, and held another two feet off the floor with one hand. Then there was the gunshot wound he’d gotten, the one she couldn’t even find now. And she couldn’t forget the growls he sometimes let out.

The images closed in on her, collapsing all at once and threatening to crush her under the weight of too many strange facts. Could her brothers possibly be telling her the truth?

She locked eyes with Landry. “Tell me my brothers are lying. If you tell me, I’ll believe you.”

Tristan’s grip tightened on her shoulders. “Everly…”

“No! I want to hear it from him.” She shook off her brother’s hands then turned back to Landry. “Is it true?”

He was silent for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer, but then he nodded. “I’m not a monster like they say, but the rest is true. I am a werewolf.”

Most of his words were drowned out as her heart exploded in her chest, but she heard the part that mattered. Something inside her tore loose, racking her body with unbelievable pain. It felt like she was dying one heartbeat at a time.

“Everly we tried to tell you…” Tristan began, but his words trailed off when she jerked her head to pin him with her angry glare.

“How could any of you possibly know something like this?” she demanded, fresh tears in her eyes.

Tristan glanced at her other brothers before answering. “It’s the antique mirror in Dad’s house. It was made by people who spent their entire lives hunting werewolves. The mirror reflects their savage nature in the glow of their eyes.”

Oh God. Landry’s eyes.

All the times she’d seen that flash of color she’d thought it was simply the light reflecting in a funny way. God, she was so stupid. But her ignorance didn’t explain why her father would have a hideous mirror that identified werewolves in his home. Or why he’d been parading her friends and boyfriends past that thing since she was a teen. He’d even done it to Mia the first time she’d brought her roommate to visit.

“Why does Dad have something like that in his house?” she asked.

“Because Landry is the same kind of monster that killed our mother, Everly,” Armand answered, his voice softer and more pain-filled than Everly had ever heard it. “And Dad swore he would never let someone he loves be killed by one of these monsters again. So, he found people who knew how to fight these creatures, and they gave him the mirror.”

After learning that Landry was a werewolf, Everly thought there was nothing left that could shock her, but she was wrong. What Armand had just said made a lie of everything she thought had happened to their mother.

“I thought Mom was killed by one of the farmhands,” she stated.

Armand nodded. “She was. He was a drifter Dad hired. But he was also a werewolf. The man became infatuated with Mom, and when she said she wasn’t interested in him, he turned into a beast and ripped her apart.”

Everly turned her gaze on Landry again, trying to imagine him doing something like that. She liked to think he couldn’t, but then again, what did she really know about him? She’d seen him attack those men in the bank. Maybe he was more of an animal than she realized.

“Why didn’t anyone ever tell me what really happened to Mom?” she demanded of her brothers.

Armand sighed. “Because you already knew it. You were there and saw the whole thing.”

“No, I wasn’t.” What was he talking about? She remembered that day like it was yesterday. “Mom pushed me behind the kitchen counter. I didn’t see anything.”

Armand shook his head. “No, she didn’t. That might be what you want to remember because the truth is too painful. When we got to the house, we found you standing in the kitchen beside Mom’s body, blood all over you and still trying to scream. But you’d already screamed yourself hoarse. You—”

“That’s enough, Armand,” Tristan cut him off. “She doesn’t need to hear any more.”

But Everly already heard enough. She suddenly remembered the sensation of something warm and wet hitting her face that day—her mother’s blood. Just like that, the rest of the memories came rushing in like a tidal wave of fear and pain. She remembered her mother telling her to run, but being too frightened to move, then her mother screaming and begging the farmhand for her life and Everly’s. And above everything else, she remembered the horrible, awful growls so similar to the ones Landry made.

Everly clamped her hands over her ears. She didn’t want to remember any more, but she couldn’t stop the sounds or the memories. They played repeatedly in her head, and she watched her mother die right in front of her, over and over again.

Stifling a sob, Everly turned and ran for the door. She heard angry voices and the sounds of a struggle behind her, but she didn’t stop.

She didn’t even realize she’d grabbed her car keys until she squealed out of the parking lot. She hit the road in front of the complex moving way too fast and almost spun in a complete circle, but she didn’t care. She had to get away from there.

She didn’t know where she was going, so she just drove. Now that she knew what had happened to her mother, it seemed like a dam burst in her head. With every mile that passed, she saw more and more details of her mother’s murder, and it terrified her.

Equally as terrifying was the realization that she’d been so wrong about Landry. How could she not have known he was a monster? She’d been with him almost constantly for nearly a week. They’d made love, for heaven’s sake!

Part of her wanted to believe this was all a crazy misunderstanding, that her brothers were wrong, and that Landry wasn’t a monster. That he would come after her and make all of this okay.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Her brothers were right. Landry was a monster. And she was never going to be okay again.

She hit the 635 loop, then Interstates 20 and 35 in an almost random fashion, but what she was really doing was driving in a big circle around Dallas. Her mind spun in circles just as large and traffic-filled as the highway, but she kept going. She needed to think.

She vaguely remembered stopping to get gas at a deserted station where she normally never would have stopped, then made another circle around the city, followed by another.

At three in the morning, she finally found herself in front of Landry’s apartment.

What the hell was she doing here? But she knew the answer to that question. She needed answers, and Landry was the only one who could give them to her.

Landry opened the door before she even knocked, relief on his face. “Everly, thank God.”

He made as if to put his arms around her, but she held up her hands. “Don’t touch me. I’m only here to ask you a few questions. That’s all. You just keep your distance.”

Pain filled his eyes, but he nodded resignedly and stepped away from the door, then moved all the way to the far side of the living room and waited. He’d changed out of his uniform into jeans and a T-shirt.

Everly closed the door quietly behind her, but didn’t move away from it. Now that she was here, she wasn’t quite sure what to say, or even how to start.

“I was scared when you ran out like that,” Landry finally said. “I wanted to go after you, but your brothers wouldn’t let me. They said I’d hurt you enough already.”

She nodded, realizing for once, her brothers had been right. If Landry had followed her, she probably would have lost her mind.

“I never knew I buried all those memories of my mom’s death,” she said. “Not until I saw you survive that knife wound. Until I learned what you are.”

Landry didn’t say anything. Then again, what could he say?

“Were you bitten against your will?” she asked.

She had to know if he was a werewolf because he’d wanted to be a monster. Or was it something that had been done to him? She didn’t know why that was important, but it was.

He shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. People who become werewolves are born with a gene that predisposes them to it. If we go through a traumatic, violent event, we change into a werewolf. We don’t run around biting people to make more.”

A stupid part of her was relieved she didn’t have to worry about becoming a werewolf from all the times he’d nibbled her neck. The memories of how good things had been between them made her want to cry for all they’d lost.

“Was it Iraq that did it to you?” she asked after a moment, mostly to keep her mind from going places she didn’t want it to go.

“Yeah. I broke my back in three places, crushed my spinal cord completely, and had five pounds of frag shoved through me. I should have died that day, but the wolf inside wouldn’t let me. It healed me.”

Even though he was a monster, she felt thankful for that. Despite what he was, the idea of something happening to Landry made it hard to even take a breath.

“I want to see the wound,” she said. “From where my brother stabbed you.”

He seemed hesitant, like he no longer wanted her to see his body, even though she’d already seen all of it—more than once. She knew it so well she could draw him from memory.

But he finally lifted the T-shirt to expose his torso. Everly tried not to gasp when she saw the smooth, light pick scar on his chest.

“Did it hurt?” she asked.

He dropped his shirt down. “When Armand stabbed me? Yeah, it hurt like hell. But not as much as the way you’re looking at me now. That’s much worse.”

The pain in his voice made her want to run across the room and put her arms around him. But she firmed her resolve. “Would that knife have killed you if Armand had stabbed you in the heart?”

Landry didn’t answer right away. He probably thought she was looking for information on how to do a better job on him next time. She wasn’t, but she didn’t know how to explain why she wanted to know that small bit of information. She just did.

“Yes,” he said. “A few inches in the wrong direction, and I wouldn’t be here now.”

The thought made her queasy, and she leaned back against the door for support. “Why did that other werewolf kill my mother?”

That one seemed to surprise him. “I don’t know. We aren’t all the same, regardless of what your brothers told you. What do you remember about the attack? If you don’t mind talking about it, I mean.”

There was nothing she wanted to talk about less, but when she opened her mouth to tell him that, she found herself recounting what she recalled.

“I remember blood—a lot of blood. And my mom screaming.” She took a deep breath. “The werewolf was so angry. He kept shouting at my mom as he attacked her.”

“It sounds like an omega werewolf that went out of control,” Landry said.

She frowned. “An omega?”

His mouth twisted sardonically. “I’m no expert on this—unlike your family, apparently—but there are three types of werewolves. Alphas, who are big, strong, fast, and in control. Betas, who aren’t as big, or as strong, or as fast, but who have much stronger pack instincts. Then there are omegas. They’re as big and strong as alphas, but have almost no social skills. They tend to be loners, and that can make them dangerous. They can sometimes lose control and hurt people.”

Everly tried to wrap her head around the fact that there was a whole other world out there—a world where monsters came in different flavors. She didn’t have to ask to know that Landry was the first type—an alpha. “So when this omega got angry at my mom, he lost control?”

Landry nodded. “Probably.”

She searched her memory of that day, but her recollection of the werewolf was fuzzy. She mostly remembered him growling a lot. And the fact that he had big teeth. Even knowing what she did now, that seemed insane.

“Did he really have fangs and claws, or am I imagining that?”

It was Landry’s turn to frown. “Are you sure you want me telling you this? Tristan implied it might not be good for you to push so hard to remember. There’s a reason your subconscious suppressed those memories.”

“Tristan doesn’t have a right to decide what I get to know about our mother’s death, or when I get to know it. None of my brothers do,” she said sharply. “This monster that killed my mom. Did it have fangs and claws, like I remember?”

Landry ran his hand through his hair, looking torn. “Yeah, he did. Alphas and betas are better at controlling it, but with omegas, the claws and fangs come out anytime they’re upset.”

She considered that fact. It was terrifying to know there were monsters with claws and fangs in the world—and that Landry was one of them. She still couldn’t reconcile that fact.

“Show me,” she ordered.

“Show you what?” he asked.

“I want to see what you really look like.”

Maybe then she would really believe what he was. Despite the flare of gold in his eyes, his superhuman strength, and ability to heal faster than a normal person, part of her still didn’t want to believe he was a monster.

On the other side of the room, Landry looked at her as if he regretted ever having opened the door and letting her in. But now that she was here, there was no going back.

She took a step toward him. Now he was the one moving away from her. That hurt, but she had to know.

“I want to see the claws and the fangs,” she said.

When she took another step closer, he edged around the couch, putting it between them. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Everly. Considering what you’re dealing with right now, seeing something like that could do more harm than good.”

He was saying that to protect her, exactly like her father and brothers had done. But she didn’t need protection anymore. She needed the truth.

“Let me decide that,” she said. “I think you owe me this much, don’t you?”

The anguish in his eyes was almost enough to make her take back the words. But she resisted. She needed to see Landry in his true form.

“I never wanted things to be this way, Everly,” he said softly. “I’d planned to tell you about what I am when the time was right. When you were ready.”

“I am ready,” she insisted.

No, she wasn’t. Her heart was beating so fast she thought it might burst out of her chest.

“Everly, please don’t ask me to do this.”

“Show me, damn you!” she shouted.

She thought Landry would refuse yet again, but then his eyes turned that golden color she’d thought was so beautiful before. Even now, she was mesmerized by it. But then the fangs slowly came out. Easily an inch long and unbelievably sharp, they gleamed in the light. Curved claws followed, extending beyond his fingers like edged weapons.

Just like that, she was transported to that day twenty years ago, watching as an enraged werewolf ripped her mother apart. But this time, she saw every detail of the killer’s face. The glowing eyes, the flashing fangs, the deadly claws. All the same characteristics that Landry possessed.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered.

Whirling around, she yanked open the door with a trembling hand and raced out of the apartment. She couldn’t believe she was stupid enough to have come here in the first place.

Landry let her go. She had no idea what she would have done if he’d followed her. Now that she’d seen what he looked like, she wasn’t sure how she would ever be able to look at him again. How could she ever have fallen in love with a monster to begin with?