Chapter 16

Everly wasn’t completely sure what day of the week it was. But she’d heard Mia calling into work this morning to tell her boss she was taking another day off because her roommate still wasn’t feeling well. That meant it must be Friday. Two days since she’d broken up with Landry. It felt more like two hundred.

Poor Mia had missed work three days in a row now, the last two to babysit her. Mia was so sweet. Everly didn’t really need a babysitter. She wasn’t twelve, and she wasn’t sick. Yet she didn’t know why she was so devastated. She’d broken up with guys before and it had never been like this. It felt like a piece of her heart was missing.

She’d crawled into bed the moment she came home from Landry’s apartment two days ago and hadn’t gotten out since. She vaguely remembered Mia bringing her something to eat now and then¸ but she didn’t remember what.

She had cried like a banshee that first day after everything had fallen apart with Landry. She’d tried to stop it, told herself to get a grip and stop being so dramatic. But none of that self-cajoling crap had worked. She kept thinking of Landry and the anguish on his face when she’d turned her back on him.

That was how Mia had found her, curled in a ball on her bed and crying like a madwoman. Her friend had immediately thought something had happened to Landry, that he’d been hurt—or worse. She’d tried to tell Mia that wasn’t it, but the mere thought of Landry being injured—or dead—had made her start crying all over again.

Mia had lain with her in bed for hours, refusing to leave her side until she calmed down. When she had, Mia asked what happened, but Everly couldn’t talk about it. So, she’d only told her friend that she and Landry had broken up.

Everly rolled onto her other side now and bunched the pillow under her head. She wished it could be that simple. She wished she could walk away from him like it was nothing, but that was impossible. She’d been in love with Landry—there was no denying that. She’d been thinking of making a life with him—of marriage and kids. Now she couldn’t even think of him without seeing the vicious, bloodthirsty monster that had killed her mother.

She felt so stupid. Why hadn’t she seen this coming? He was too perfect right from the start. She supposed that was the allure monsters like him used to get close to people. But if Landry was a monster, why was she lying in bed feeling like her heart had been torn out, instead of thanking her brothers for saving her life?

Outside her room, the door of the apartment opened, and she heard Mia talking softly to someone. For a crazy moment, her heart leapt at the thought that it might be Landry. But deep down, she knew better. He wasn’t coming back. She had burned that bridge with a flamethrower.

“I have to go grocery shopping anyway,” Mia said to whoever it was. “Since I’m guessing you probably had something to do with why she’s been crying her eyes out the past two days, maybe you can do something to fix this.”

Everly didn’t bother to look up as she heard a man’s heavy footsteps approaching her bedroom. It obviously wasn’t Landry. He was much lighter on his feet than that, even if he was huge. Like a predatory animal, she supposed.

Whoever it was knocked on her door, then opened it. “Hey Everly, it’s me.” Tristan’s voice was soft. “Mia mentioned on the phone that you were feeling a little under the weather. I thought I’d come over and see how you were doing.”

She didn’t bother rolling over to look at him. “I’m fine. You’ve met your brotherly obligation, so you can leave. Go home and tell everyone I’m just peachy now that you’ve chased away the big bad werewolf.”

Everly felt the bed dip as her brother sat down on the other side next to her. She ground her jaw in frustration. She had no interest in seeing anyone right now, especially any of her brothers.

“What do you want, Tristan?” she asked, still not looking at him.

“I just want to make sure my little sister is okay. I know what you saw the other night scared you. But Landry is gone now, and he’s not coming back.”

Even though Everly already knew Landry was never coming back, it still hurt like hell to hear the words spoken out loud. For some reason, it infuriated her even more that Tristan was the one saying it. Of all her brothers, he’d always been the one on her side, no matter what.

She rolled over and looked at him, ready to lay into him for having the nerve to come here and even utter Landry’s name, but the words stuck in her throat at the stunned expression on her brother’s face. She supposed she did look a fright. Two days of crying could do that to a girl.

Tristan leaned closer, putting his hand on her forehead like he was checking her for a fever. Then he pushed up her top lip to look at her teeth. She smacked his hand away.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked as he reached for the collar of her sleep shirt and tried to pull it down. She smacked his hand away again. “Stop that!”

“I’m trying to see if he bit you,” he said, reaching for her collar again.

She held up a finger in warning and glared at him. “You touch me again, and I’m going to punch you in the nose. No, Landry didn’t bite me, you idiot. Why would you think he did?”

Her brother shrugged. “You look horrible. Your nose is all red and puffy, and your eyes are bloodshot. I thought…I thought you were turning into a werewolf.”

God, her brother was a moron. “I’m not turning into a werewolf,” she snapped. “My face is red and puffy because I’ve been crying, and my eyes are bloodshot because I haven’t slept for two days. Besides, you can’t turn into a werewolf from getting bitten. You need to have the werewolf gene already in your blood, and then go through a life-threatening, traumatic event for it to turn on. The biting stuff is a fairy tale.”

Tristan’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How do you know all that?”

Just thinking about the last conversation she had with Landry brought tears to her eyes. “I know because I went to talk to Landry the night you stabbed him. I drove around town for hours and ended up at his place.”

He sucked in a sharp breath. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, he didn’t hurt me,” she said, getting more and more ticked off by the second. “All we did was talk about what he is. I had questions, and he answered them. Then I left. I haven’t seen him since.”

Tristan sagged with relief. In silence, he looked around the room, taking in the pile of used tissues on the nightstand and those that had fallen to the floor, then the pillows she’d thrown against the far wall when she got angry for not being able to forget about Landry. Finally, he swung his gaze back to her.

“Dad told me once that sometimes if a woman spends too much time with a werewolf that he can get into her blood. Do you think that’s happened to you—that Landry got into your blood? If it is, you don’t have to worry,” Tristan added, holding up his hands in a gesture his stupid ass probably thought was calming. “According to Dad, women have been falling prey to this werewolf glamour for millennia, but like any addiction, it passes with time. What you’re feeling isn’t real.”

If Everly had a knife right them, she would have stabbed her brother. But she didn’t have a knife—at least not in her bedroom.

“God, you’re an imbecile,” she snapped. “Doubly so for listening to Dad. Landry is not in my blood, Tristan. He never was.”

Her brother frowned. “How do you know? He could be, and you’re just confused.”

She shook her head at how thick her youngest brother was—and he was the brightest one. “I know he’s not in my blood because he’s in my heart. And that’s ten times worse!”

Tristan’s eyes widened, a look of pure terror crossing his face. “You’re in love with him?”

Everly fell back onto the pillow, all the fight gone. Besides, this was a meaningless argument. “I was, but it doesn’t matter now. He’s a monster with claws and fangs, and every time I look at him—every time I even think of him—I see the creature that murdered Mom. I can never get past that, no matter what my heart wants. So, you can go home and tell the others that I’m safe from the big bad werewolf. He’ll never come near me again. Which is exactly the way you all wanted it, right?”

Not waiting for a reply, she rolled over and curled into a ball again. The tears she’d thought had finally dried up after two straight days of crying spilled onto her cheeks. Dammit, she really didn’t want Tristan to be here when she lost it again.

“Just go,” she told Tristan. “I’m done talking about Landry with you.”

He hesitated, and she thought she was going to have to say something awful to get him to leave, but then he stood and left the room, quietly closing the door behind him.

Everly held off for another few moments just to make sure he didn’t come back, then she gave into the agonizing pain in her heart and cried all over again.

* * *

In the motel parking lot, Cooper cut the engine of his Jeep and glanced at the long list of fleabag motels he’d scribbled on the notepad, most of which he’d already scratched out. In an effort to get Everly out of his head, he’d thrown himself into his work. In this case, that meant spending every minute of the past two days trying to find Jim.

Cooper didn’t have any idea what he was going to do when he found his friend, but he had to at least look. The alternative was walking into the FBI field office and telling Dennis that he thought Jim might be the bomber. Cooper really didn’t want to do that, not until he looked his best friend in the eye and knew without a shadow of a doubt that Jim had set those bombs.

He knew he was being stupid, and that his breakup with Everly was almost certainly messing with his judgment. But no matter how bad it appeared, he couldn’t force himself to turn his back on Jim. Soldiers didn’t do that to each other. Especially when that other soldier had saved your life.

Cooper got out of his Jeep and headed to the front office of the motel, passing another rusty sign announcing they had rooms available. Empty rooms in a fine establishment like this? Shocking.

Before going inside, he checked his cell phone to make sure he hadn’t missed any calls. Xander was under the impression that Cooper was “helping” Dennis with the bombing case, so he was giving him a lot of free time. But if something big came in, Xander would expect him to come running. Cooper was cool with that. Anything to keep his squad leader from figuring out what he was really doing. Xander would lose his mind if he found out Cooper was hiding evidence from the FBI.

Even though he was in his SWAT uniform, he still flashed his badge at the heavily bearded guy behind the counter who was staring at the TV on the wall. The office smelled like two-hundred-years’ worth of beer and cigarettes. The smell was so bad it made Cooper wish his crappy nose was even worse.

The man turned his head enough to see the badge. When he realized Cooper wasn’t likely going to rent a room, he turned his attention back to the TV.

Cooper pulled out a photo of Jim he’d printed at the office. One he’d shown around Dallas hundreds of times in the past few days.

“Is this guy staying here?” he asked, hoping he could get the man to unglue his eyes from the TV long enough to look at the photo. “He’s older than in the picture, so he has some gray hair and wrinkles around his eyes now.”

The man’s gaze flicked to the picture, then back to the TV.

“Room nineteen on the back side of the building,” the man grunted without taking his eyes off the screen and the frigging infomercial on vacuum cleaners. “There ain’t no numbers on some of the doors, so you have to count the rooms as you go.”

Cooper thanked the man and headed for the exit, his heart thumping a little harder at the thought of finally talking to Jim.

“Hey!” the man called from behind the counter.

Cooper turned back just in time to catch something flying at him. He opened his hand to see a room key attached to a beat-up piece of plastic.

“Don’t break down the door,” the man said as the announcer on the TV demonstrated how useful the vacuum was at picking up marbles—since that was what everyone dropped on the floor all the time.

Cooper nodded and left the office. It took a few minutes to locate room nineteen. You had to find at least two room numbers before you could establish a pattern and start counting doors. But a few minutes later, he was standing in front of a room he was sure was the right one, mostly because even his crappy nose could smell Jim’s scent wafting through the cracks around the door. Jim’s rental car was parked a few spaces from the room.

Cooper knocked, tensing as footsteps approached the door. This could go bad in so many ways. Jim could be drunk off his ass and belligerent to boot. He might realize why Cooper was here and try to run. Hell, his friend might even pull a gun and try to shoot his way out of this situation. All of those scenarios were likely to end up with Jim dead, and Cooper really didn’t want his friend’s blood on his hands. This week had been shitty enough already.

He braced himself as the door opened, ready to protect himself, if Jim came out shooting.

But he didn’t come out shooting. In fact, he didn’t come out at all. He merely stood there, looking like he’d just come back from a job interview, if the tan pants, button-down shirt, and conservative tie were any indication. Cooper took a quick sniff, waiting to be bowled over by the odor of booze, but he didn’t smell any alcohol on his friend. And rather than looking crazy and belligerent, Jim seemed surprised to see him.

“Hey. What the hell are you doing here?”

Cooper peeked past his friend into the motel room. It definitely wasn’t much—dirty walls, dirty carpets, and dirty beds. But the place wasn’t trashed, and the suitcase lying at the foot of the bed looked organized and clean. A suit jacket was hanging on a chair over by the room’s desk, and Cooper could see an electric razor sitting on the vanity by the bathroom. One look at Jim’s face showed that his friend had just shaved.

Cooper had spent the last two days building an image in his head of how Jim would look when he found him, and this wasn’t it. Not even close.

“Coop, you okay, buddy?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” he said. “I thought I should come find you since I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

Jim frowned as he motioned Cooper inside the room. Cooper stepped in and closed the door. The scent of stale cigarettes immediately assaulted him. There was a plastic sign on the wall stating this was a non-smoking room, but it looked like someone had used it to put out their cigarettes.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Coop,” Jim said as he turned to face him. “If you’d said you were worried I was lying dead in a pool of my own vomit, I might have believed you. But I was your supervisor long before I was your friend. I know bullshit when I smell it. Why did you really come looking for me?”

Cooper thought about claiming he’d simply been worried about Jim’s drinking problem, but why the hell screw around? Jim had given him an opening. He might as well use it. But this was a lot harder to bring up than he’d thought. Outside of his pack and his biological family, there weren’t many people in the world more important to him than this man—except Everly, of course.

“I came to talk to you about Ryan North.”

Jim frowned. “Ryan North, our former commander, the one who ran our EOD company into the ground? Why the hell would you want to talk to me about that piece of shit?”

“Because somebody tried to blow him up—twice. Both times at the DOD contractor offices he works at here in Dallas. I’m helping the feds find the bomber.”

“And you think I might have some idea who…?” Jim’s voice trailed off, his eyes widened. “Holy shit! You tracked me down because you think I’m the one who tried to kill him?”

“Did you?” Cooper asked bluntly, still trying to sense whether Jim’s reactions were legitimate or not.

“Of course not!” Jim snapped. “I didn’t even know that dickhead lived in Dallas. Why the holy hell would you even think something like that?”

“Because I’m having a hard time believing it’s a coincidence that North is being targeted by an extremely skilled bomb maker at exactly the same time you show up in town looking for a job,” Cooper said.

“That’s your problem then.” Jim let out a derisive laugh as he leaned back against the desk. “If the only requirements necessary to make it into your suspect pool is knowing how to make a bomb and being in Dallas, then maybe I should point out that there are about thirty or forty different local, state, and federal bomb techs working in this city—and that includes you. Can I assume you’re on the suspect list?”

“Funny, but no, I’m not,” Cooper said. “Because unlike you, I don’t have a motive. I never even met Ryan North, and I certainly don’t have as much reason to hate him as you do.”

Jim rolled his eyes. “Spoken exactly like a person who has never had to work with him. Everyone who’s ever met the guy hates him. Besides, hating a guy isn’t a reason to kill him. For example, I’m starting to hate your ass right now, but that doesn’t mean I plan on killing you.”

“Maybe because I never fucked up and got a bunch of our friends killed, then let you take the heat for it,” Cooper pointed out.

Jim went deathly still. “You asshole. I can’t believe you went there. Yeah, I was pissed the investigation team was made up of a bunch of desk jockeys who didn’t know a damn thing about field operations. I always thought more of the blame for what happened should have been laid on North’s shoulders, but that’s not how it worked out. I got over it.” He looked Cooper straight in the eye. “And I didn’t try to kill North.”

Cooper studied Jim, looking for some sign that his friend was lying. Elevated heart rate, change in breathing pattern, nervous tick—anything. Cooper wasn’t as good at picking up on this stuff as some of the other werewolves in his pack, but he could do it. And Jim wasn’t putting off any signals that indicated he wasn’t being entirely honest. He was tense and more than a little pissed off, but he wasn’t lying.

It hit Cooper then that he might have been wrong about Jim. Before coming here, he’d been so sure his friend was the one behind these bombings, but now, he didn’t know. It just didn’t feel right. Then again, Cooper wasn’t so sure how much he trusted his gut these days. After all the crap with Everly, his head wasn’t exactly screwed on straight.

While he didn’t want to keep going down this road, he didn’t have a choice. There were still some questions he needed answers to.

“Where were you last Monday morning at 0530?” he asked.

Jim glared like he was some kind of frigging monster. Cooper’s gut clenched. He was getting that look a lot lately.

“You’re seriously going to ask me these questions?” Jim demanded. “Doesn’t our friendship mean a damn thing to you?”

Cooper ground his jaw. “Our friendship is why I’m here talking to you instead of arresting you. Now just answer the fucking question.”

Jim stared at him for a long time. Muttering a curse, he turned and opened a leather-bound notebook on the desk and flipped through a few pages. “I was having breakfast at the IHOP off 360 because I had an interview at 0630 at Lockheed Martin for an analyst position. About eighty people saw me at the restaurant, including the waitress.”

Cooper felt himself relax. “What about this past Monday at 0600?”

“I was over at Lockheed again, waiting around for hours, only to be told I’m not the kind of person they were looking for. And before you ask, I spent the rest of the day drinking. Remember, you picked me up the next morning?”

Cooper walked over to look at Jim’s calendar. He had appointment times, names, addresses, and phone numbers listed for just about every defense contractor in the area. It shouldn’t be too hard for the FBI to verify his story.

He took a deep breath then let it out slowly. He’d never been so happy to be wrong in his life. Not that Jim was likely to forgive him, but Cooper could deal with that.

“Look, I know this isn’t going to mean much now, but I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” he said. “Unfortunately, there’s one more thing I need you to do, so you can be completely in the clear on this one.”

“What’s that?” Jim asked suspiciously.

Cooper pulled out a business card and set it on top of the calendar. “I need you to see the FBI agent in charge of the bombing case and tell him everything you told me.”

Jim snorted. “You’re shitting me, right? Why the hell do I need to talk to the FBI?”

“Because the FBI has a composite sketch of the person who bought the explosives used to build the bombs, and it looks a little like you. Not a lot, I’ll admit, but it’s in the ballpark.”

Cooper had seen it when he’d stopped in to see Dennis before going from motel to motel. As sketches of suspects went, it wasn’t great, since the guy who’d bought the explosives from the Burke brothers had been wearing sunglasses and a ball cap at the time. But Jim was nondescript enough for the FBI to think it might be him.

“They’ve also got a list of every military person Ryan North has ever had a run-in with,” Cooper added. “Something tells me that your name is on that list. Pair that with the fact that you rented a car from the airport only a few days before the first bombing, not to mention that you’re hopping from one motel to another like a criminal trying to hide out, and you start looking like a really good suspect. I’d rather you go talk to the FBI now, rather than wait for them to kick in your door.”

Jim picked up the card and stared at it for a long time, then tossed it down with a sigh. “Fine. I’ll stop by tomorrow between interview appointments.”

Cooper frowned. “Tomorrow might be too late. I can go with you right now, if you want.”

Jim pinned Cooper with a glare. “I liked you so much better when you were just a bomb tech, you know that? I’ll stop by and see your FBI boyfriend today then. But it will have to be this afternoon. I have two places to drop off my résumé before the weekend. And no, I don’t want you to come and hold my hand.”

Cooper ignored the barb. “Fine. Dennis will probably be working until at least 1800 hours. Just call his cell if you need to. It’s on the card.”

Jim didn’t say anything. Then again, there wasn’t anything more that needed to be said. Cooper tried to apologize again before he left anyway, but Jim wasn’t in the mood to listen.

He swore as he walked back to his Jeep. In the past week, he’d not only lost the woman he loved, but one of his best friends. On the upside, Jim wasn’t the bomber. That was something at least.

* * *

Everly sat on her stool in front of her easel, gazing at the sketches she’d done of Landry a few days ago. It was pure torture, but she couldn’t make herself stop. She gently ran her fingers over one picture, pretending she was touching the real thing. He was so damn mesmerizing to look at, even in her simple line drawings.

She’d dragged her miserable butt out of bed a little while after Tristan left, deciding she’d wallowed long enough. She’d showered off, eaten a little something, and then come into her studio, figuring she should actually get some work done. Since then all she’d done was look at the sketches she’d drawn of Landry and think about how amazing she felt when they were together. She was seriously thinking maybe Tristan was right about Landry putting something in her blood—like a werewolf curse or something. And if she didn’t get past this overwhelmingly horrible feeling soon, she might start looking for a witch who could remove the curse. After all, if werewolves existed, why not witches?

She was trying to convince herself to put away the sketches of Landry when the doorbell rang.

Everly groaned. No doubt it was Tristan coming back with more unhelpful advice. Or worse, what if her brother had told their father that his one and only daughter had fallen in love with a werewolf? He was so crazy he might show up with a priest to do an exorcism.

She reluctantly slid off the stool and walked out of her art studio and through the living room. When she got to the door, she peeked out the peephole.

But to her surprise, it wasn’t her father or her brothers. It was Jayna. Her long, blond hair was down and she flipped it over her shoulder as she waited.

Everly sighed with relief, but then frowned. She’d never told Jayna where she lived, which meant Landry must have. Had he sent her here to convince her to take him back?

She hesitated, torn between letting her friend in or not. Then she yanked open the door before she could change her mind.

“Hey. Eric told me what happened,” Jayna said. “I wanted to come over and see how you were doing. I thought maybe you might want to talk.”

Everly opened her mouth to say she didn’t feel like talking, but stopped herself. She felt closer to Jayna than anyone—even closer than she felt to Mia in some crazy way. So instead, she nodded and stepped back to let Jayna into the apartment. Besides, talking to Jayna about Landry had to be better than being alone with her own thoughts right now.

“Do you want something to drink?” she offered.

Jayna shook her head as she sat down on the couch. Everly collapsed on the other end, curling her legs under her.

“So…” Jayna said. “You broke up with Cooper because you found out he’s a werewolf, huh?”

Everly stared at her friend, sure her exhausted and confused mind had twisted Jayna’s words. She couldn’t possibly have heard right? “Wh-what?”

Jayna held up her hands. “I’m not judging, and I’m not taking sides. I’m your friend, no matter what. Eric didn’t go into any details, but he did tell me that your mom was murdered by an omega, and that you witnessed it, so I understand why you feel the way you do about werewolves.”

Everly finally gained control over her vocal cords enough to spit out two words this time. “You know?”

Jayna slowly nodded. “That Cooper is a werewolf? Yeah. ”

Everly stared at her. “And you’re okay with that?” she blurted out. “He has claws and fangs and glowing eyes. My brother stabbed him in the chest, and he pulled the knife out like it was nothing. The wound healed in hours. Jayna, he’s a monster.”

Jayna regarded her thoughtfully. “A monster, huh? Is that what you thought he was when he saved your life last week in that bank? Or when he refused to retaliate against your brothers even though they stabbed him?”

Everly didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

“Was Cooper being a monster when he helped Eric save my friends and me from Albanian mobsters?” Jayna persisted. “How about a couple months before that when he crawled through a maze of pitch-black tunnels filled with homemade explosives to save a kidnapped little girl? Or before that when he was shot multiple times trying to protect Mac from a low-life thug who wanted her dead?”

Everly’s heart seized in her chest at the thought of Landry getting shot, but that had nothing to do with him being a werewolf. She wanted to explain that it was more complicated than that, but she couldn’t find the words.

Jayna pushed her hair behind her ear with a sigh. “Look. I’m not saying Cooper’s an ordinary man. We both know that’s not true. And I’m not making light of what happened to your mother. What I am saying is that just because he has claws and fangs, that doesn’t make him a monster. The werewolf who killed your mother was a monster. For all you know, he could have been a cold-blooded killer before he became a werewolf.”

Everly knew all the things Jayna was saying were true because she’d had those same thoughts swirling through her head for two days. But it didn’t matter that Landry was a good man. Every time she closed her eyes and thought of him changing into that monstrosity, she almost lost it.

“How did you figure out Landry was a werewolf?” Everly asked. Anything to distract herself so she’d stop picturing him with claws and fangs. “Did he turn into one in front of you?”

Jayna shook her head. “No. Once you know what a werewolf smells like, you can pick one out of a crowd at a couple hundred feet away, if the wind is right.”

Lack of sleep was obviously affecting her ability to think clearly because what Jayna was saying simply didn’t make any sense. Everly had been extremely close to Landry—multiple times—and she hadn’t noticed anything unusual about the way he smelled. Except that he smelled good.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Landry doesn’t smell any different than anyone else.”

Jayna gave her a small smile. “Of course he doesn’t, not to a regular human like you. But it’s very easy for a werewolf to recognize another werewolf. The scent is unmistakable to us.”

Apparently, she was beyond being surprised. The only thing that shocked her was that it had taken so long to realize what Jayna had been driving at this whole time.

“You’re one of them too, aren’t you?” she breathed.

Jayna’s eyes flashed a glowing, emerald green. Then, as fast as it appeared, the glow was gone. Everly gasped.

“Yes, I’m a werewolf,” Jayna said. “By the way, Megan is too. Are you going to run out on our friendship like you ran out on Landry?”

Everly felt her face heat. As shocking as it was to hear that sweet, tiny Megan was a werewolf, it didn’t keep her from feeling the sting of Jayna’s words.

“That’s not fair!” she cried. “I didn’t want to leave Landry, but every time I think of him with claws and fangs, all I can see is my mom screaming in pain as that creature tore her apart. That’s never going to go away.”

Tears ran down her cheeks—again. Everly wiped them away with an angry swipe of her hand. Dammit!

Her expression softening, Jayna moved across the couch to put her arms around her. “Hey, it’s okay.”

No, it wasn’t okay. Nothing about this was okay. But instead of telling Jayna that, Everly wrapped her arms around her friend and sobbed harder. Jayna didn’t complain, but simply held on to her and let her cry it out.

“I’m sorry for losing it like that,” she said when she could finally talk.

“It’s not your fault,” Jayna murmured. “I should never have said what I did. It was cruel and vicious, and you didn’t deserve it.”

“Maybe.” Everly sniffed, wiping the last traces of tears from her cheeks as she pulled away. “But it was true, too. I did run out on Landry, and it’s killing me inside.”

Jayna’s lips turned up at the corners in a sad smile. “When two people are meant to be together like you and Cooper, being apart is supposed to be hard.”

Everly snorted. “How can we be together if seeing him brings back memories so bad I feel like crawling under the covers and hiding? I wish I could get them to go away.”

“Because that’s not the way memories work,” Jayna said. “Bad ones don’t go away, not if you keep running from them. At some point, you have to turn around and face them. If you don’t, you’ll be running the rest of your life. And you’ll end up running away from everything that’s good and right.”

Everly chewed on her lip. “That sounds like the voice of experience.”

“It is.” Jayna took a deep breath. “When I was seventeen, my stepfather tried to rape me. I got away, nearly killing him in the process. It wasn’t until later that I realized I really didn’t get away that night. In my head, I was trapped in that bedroom with my stepfather for five years, running away from almost everything and everyone. I couldn’t be with another man without seeing my stepfather’s horrible face, and every time I thought about him, I could smell the cheap booze on his breath and feel his hands ripping at my clothes.”

Everly shuddered at the thought of Jayna being attacked like that—and by someone who was supposed to be family. “How did you learn to forget?”

“You don’t forget—ever.” Jayna smiled. “But with the right person to support you and give you the strength to believe in yourself, you figure out that you have it in you to face the memories and move forward.”

Everly sighed, marveling at how smoothly Jayna had drawn the conversation around to her and Landry. “I’m guessing that for me, the right person would be Landry?”

“Of course it is, you dope.” Jayna snorted. “Why the hell do you think you’re feeling so crappy? I wasn’t kidding when I said you two are meant to be together—you’re soul mates.”

Everly lifted a brow. “Soul mates?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Jayna scolded. “I’m not being melodramatic, and I’m not kidding. You and Cooper are more than in love—you’re bonded to each other. In the werewolf world, you’re The One for him, and vice versa. You two can no more walk away from each other than you can walk away from yourselves. You feel like crap because you’re denying yourself the one and only thing you really need. When you’re with him, you’ll be strong enough to face the memories of what happened to your mother. You’ll be strong enough to face anything.”

Everly didn’t miss the emphasis Jayna had placed on The One. “You make it sound like Landry and I are somehow magically connected.”

“You are,” Jayna said.

Tristan had been right. Landry really was in her blood.

“But if Landry and I are connected like this, how could he have let me walk away from him?” she asked. “Didn’t he know it would feel like this?”

Jayna looked at her like she was crazy. “How could he have known? It’s not like he’s ever felt this way about another woman. That’s what being The One means—as in the one person in the world a werewolf is meant to be with because she or he can accept them for what they are. And as for how he could have let you walk away, it’s because he loves you too much to stop you. He wants you to be happy, and if that means letting you go, he’s ready to deal with the pain that comes with it. He’s as miserable as you are right now.”

Fresh tears started in her eyes again. Knowing Landry was feeling the same kind of anguish she felt, but was staying away because he thought that was what she needed to be happy made her heart hurt so much she could barely breathe.

“What am I going to do?” she whispered.

Even if she could face Landry again, he might not take her back. What if he thought helping her get past her psychological issues was more trouble than it was worth?

Jayna took Everly’s hands in hers and gave them a squeeze. “It’s not that complicated. You get changed and go see Cooper. Then figure out together what you need to do to get the two of you back on track.” She smiled. “After that, everything else is doable.”

Everly wasn’t too sure of that, but she didn’t resist as Jayna dragged her toward her bedroom. Jayna made it sound so easy. Something told Everly that getting back together with Landry was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. Maybe even harder than walking away from him in the first place.