I tapped my foot impatiently while Willow finished giving her statement to the police officer. Elinor stood beside me, shooting me knowing glances that I tried to ignore. Willow didn’t want Elinor to think we were together, which was ridiculous because Elinor could read the heat between us like a book. But if it made Willow feel better, I’d keep up the charade.

Caleb arrived just as Willow was finishing up. “Tell me everything you told them,” he said to her.

As Willow repeated what she’d told the police about seeing the guy, I thought back through what she’d said about her mother. She was so certain her mother was behind the stalker, but that didn’t make any sense. Some kind of shifter had clearly done the damage to the shop, and from what Willow had alluded to, her mother wasn’t likely to be in league with shifters. I wondered if her father could possibly be behind it. What other reason would a shifter have to be after her?

“You shouldn’t stay at your flat,” Caleb told Willow. “I don’t want to risk this guy coming back. We can put you in a guest room at Raynard Hall. Alex and Ryan would be happy to have you.”

“That’s okay,” Willow said, a brief glance in my direction. “I have a friend I’m staying with. I’ll be fine.”

“Do you want me to drive you there? You must be pretty shaken up.”

“Irvine’s already offered a ride.”

“Has he just?” Caleb couldn’t hide the smile in his voice.

“Aye. I’ll take her there now.” I interjected. Caleb looked like he was ready to argue, but I mouthed later. He nodded, and we said our goodbyes. I walked Willow over to where I’d parked. The full truth about our relationship would come out at some point, but it didn’t have to be today.

Willow slipped into my car, her hands clenched tight in her lap. Instead of driving her back to the cabin, I stopped by the market and picked up some salami, crackers, grapes, and fancy cheese. I nearly grabbed a bottle of champagne before I remember that Willow didn’t drink.

“Where are we going?” Willow asked as I dropped the shopping bags at her feet and headed out of Crookshollow into the fields, the opposite direction of my cabin.

“If I told you, it’ll spoil the fun,” I said, as I turned the car down a narrow country road.

After ten minutes, I found the place I was looking for. I pulled into a parking area, pleased to see it was deserted. Teenagers often came up here to smoke weed, scare each other and make out. I opened Willow’s door and held out my hand. “Grab the bags. The ground’s a little uneven, but I’ll help you.”

“Why are we at a cemetery?” Willow asked as she hobbled along beside me past the charred English Heritage sign that described the history of the area.

“This isn’t just any cemetery,” I said, as I led her down a gentle hill to a newly installed bench. It faced across the crooked graves and overlooked the rolling countryside. The forest stretched along the edge, extending for miles as it snaked down the valley and back around the village. In the field across the way, fluffy sheep munched on vivid green grass. “Do you notice anything odd about it?”

Willow unwrapped the salami and managed to saw off a slice with the plastic knife I’d brought. She added a wedge of brie to her cracker and popped the whole thing in her mouth. She chewed in silence for a few moments before saying, “The stones. The ones that aren’t broken are bent outward, and there are scorch marks all over the ground. It’s as if there was an explosion here.”

“Aye, there was. This is the Witches Cemetery. I’m sure you heard the stories about Crookshollow burning more witches than any other place in England. Well, they buried those poor souls here, on unconsecrated ground.”

“What does that have to do with the explosion?”

“A couple of years ago, an evil werewolf came to Crookshollow. He had amassed a pack of rogue shifters – foxes and stags and birds and all kinds of animals. He brought them here to conduct a sadistic ritual to bring these witches back to live – a sick kind of half-life, called barghast. He planned to use these spirits to overthrow the current government, place his pack in charge, and basically enslave humanity.”

Willow gasped. “What happened?”

“Ryan and Alex stopped him. They caused the spell to malfunction, killing the whole rogue pack and burning the cemetery in the process.”

“What’s a rogue?”

“They’re shifters without a pack, usually because they’ve been cast out for breaking the rules, or they’re mutts and too dangerous to be part of a normal pack.”

“Mutts?”

“Shifters who are genetically deformed. Many of them have trouble keeping control of their shift or their animal instincts. They’re usually cast out because they’re a liability to a pack.” I peeled off a grape and held it up. “Open up.”

Willow opened her mouth and I placed the grape on her tongue, my finger brushing her cheek. She chewed and swallowed. “Why did you bring me to see this?”

“Because I wanted you to see that there are good shifters in the world, ones that place the safety of humans above even their own lives. Ryan wants shifters to be free, but not if it meant Isengrim was in control. He ken that our place is nae to control and dominate humans, but to be part of their society, abiding by the same laws and morals that govern you.”

“Is this … what you want, too? For shifters to be free?” Willow asked in a small voice.

I wasn’t going to deny it. “Yes. But it is nae as simple as wanting. There’s so much work to be done. If shifters suddenly revealed themselves, humans would be scared. And fear quickly turns to violence. There are packs who would fight for control and power. There are packs who would oppose the reveal, and who would rather die than co-exist with humans. There’s so much work to do to ensure any attempt wouldnae blow up in our faces. The last thing anyone wants is an all-out human/shifter war, or for one race to enslave the other.”

“That’s why you have to remain secret,” she said, her voice firm. “There’s too much that could go wrong. Living in the shadows is better than suffering in the light.”

“There is so much that could go right, too. You could have justice. Your father could be trialled and convicted for his crime. Don’t you want—”

Willow shook her head. “I can’t live in a world where shifters are free. I’m sorry, Irvine. I just can’t support it.”

“But why not? What about your father—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She looked away. “Please don’t ask me again.”

Great. So that hadn’t worked. I decided to change the subject. “Fine. Tell me why you came to Crookshollow. Why are you so sure your mother is behind the attack on the shop?”

She didn’t turn around. “I can’t, Irvine. I can’t.”

“Willow, you ken that I need this information if I’m to keep you safe. Especially now that someone attacked the shop. The pack will be asking questions, and they’ll need answers.”

She sighed. “Yeah, I ken … I mean, I know. Okay …” She sucked in a deep breath. ”I came to get away from my mother. I think that’s why this guy is here. He’s some kind of private investigator she’s hired to track me down and drag me back.”

“Why would she do that?”

Willow sighed again. Clearly, having to talk about herself was making her uncomfortable. Good. It was driving me crazy trying to figure her out while pretending the bond didn’t exist. I needed something more from her.

“She’d do that because she’s legitimately, bona-fide nutty. After my accident, Mum went a bit bonkers. I think she blames herself for what happened to me, so she’s tried to make up for it by being extra-protective. She never let me go anywhere that wasn’t school or home. She wouldn’t let me stay over the night at other girls’ houses, or join after-school activities. I got into Cambridge, but she wouldn’t let me go because it meant I’d have to leave home. Instead, I fought her for years to let me do an arts degree at University College of London, but after … after my first boyfriend, the famous Curtis, dumped me, she pulled me out.”

“Why did she pull you out because of that?”

She looked away. “I didn’t handle it very well. I never had a boyfriend before or since him. I was so happy that someone wanted to be with me that I threw my whole person into the relationship. I let him take over my life. I spent every minute with him or thinking about him. I even changed my major to be in all his classes. I was ready to go all the way with him, but the first time he saw my leg, he …” She choked. “He called me disgusting. He said no one could ever find me attractive without a leg.”

“He’s disgusting,” I growled.

“No, Irvine, he’s right.”

“He’s nae right. You’ve got me in a permanent state of arousal, Willow Summers. You’re a total catch, a smokin’ hot lass, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Pricks like him just want you to feel bad about yourself, because it gives him power over you. If I met him, I’d cut his prick off, so he’d nae be hard again.”

Willow looked up at me then, and her tiny smile tugged at something in my chest. I pulled her tight against me, thinking how lonely her life must have been. I wanted to take her pain and tear it to pieces, to hurt all those who hurt her, starting with her parents and ending with this bastard Curtis. I gripped her body fiercely, wanting to hold her until she had no memory that wasn’t our bodies touching.

“Finish your story about your ma,” I said softly.

“Mum got it in her head that she could save others from a similar fate, so she made me tell the story of my father’s attack, over and over again. Not the werewolf part,” Willow said quickly, her face clouding over. “But the part about him being a brute. We’ve been in every tabloid newspaper and shock reporter and daytime radio show that would have us. Everywhere I went, people recognised me from Mum’s stories. It got to the point where London celebrities were hiring me just so they could say they booked the ‘peg-leg wedding planner'.”

Rage burned in my veins for what she’d endured at her mother’s hand. I understood now her fear of others knowing about her leg, even about the two of us. “That’s why you wanted everything to be secret.”

“I’ve been living with secrets for so long, it’s a big deal to me.” Willow stared at the sky. “I ran away, Irvine. I taught myself to drive in secret. I had to have lessons to learn how to use the lever in my car, and I snuck out while my mum was at her weekly tarot reading. The day I got my license I packed up my things, emptied my bank account, and left London behind me. She had to come home and find me gone, and a note telling her that I needed to find my own way. I must’ve hurt her so much. You don’t know what she’s capable of. She’s behind this, I’m sure of it.”

“Why did you have to leave? Why couldn’t you just tell her how you felt?”

“I just … didn’t want to be the freak anymore.” Willow’s eyes focused on a spot on the other side of the cemetery. I expected her to cry, but her eyes were dry. “I wanted to pretend to be a whole person, a normal person with a proper life. I should have known that was a foolish dream.”

“Aye, it is, but only because you’re nae normal. You’re extraordinary, like a star going supernova, a meteor shower burning up the sky. You, Willow Summers, need to stop calling yourself a freak, or a broken person, because to me—” I paused. If I said what I was thinking, I could never take it back.

“What?” Willow whispered. “Irvine, what?”

I kissed her. I threw all the fire and rage inside me into the kiss, pouring myself into her. Willow rose up to meet me, devouring my lips with hers. Her hands knitted around my neck, tracing the muscles of my shoulders.

The energy sizzled around us, drawing us together. The outside world ceased to exist. All that was real was the fact that Willow Summers was in my arms, and her lips were pressed to mine, and her tongue was warm and adventurous, and all was right with the world …

… until I tasted salt on her lips, and noticed the thin trail of her tears down her cheeks.

I pulled back. “What’s wrong?” I wiped the tears from her cheek. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, I …” Willow wiped at her face. “It’s nothing.”

“I’m doing my best work here.” I stuck out my lip. “You’re making me feel inadequate.”

That got me a thin smile. “I’m sorry.”

“Dinnae apologise. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

Willow shook her head. She sat back, breaking the bond between us. She adjusted that sexy black top, her face and neck flushed with heat, breathing hard. “I have to get back,” she said. “I have a client meeting.”

“You gonnae be okay on your own?”

She nodded. “Thank you, for showing me this. I didn’t mean to—”

“I said, dinnae apologise.”

This time, I was awarded with a genuine smile that made my chest tighten. “Thank you for everything, Irvine.”

“For you, Willow Summers, there is nothing I wouldnae do. Come on.” I stood up, and offered her my hand. “Let’s get you back to that client.”