Shite.

I sat on a bench in Fauntelroy Park, staring at a picturesque pond surrounded by ancient oaks and flowering bushes and filled with paddling ducks. I hated everything about it.

My chest tightened. I’d really lost Willow. All that hope I’d had when I was back in London disappeared in a cloud of resignation. The one woman in all of the world who got me, and I’d lost her. And it was my own fault.

I was a fool for not understanding before. Willow lied, but not because she was working for her mother. It was because she was scared. She didn’t want to go back to being the victim. She wanted to keep her new life, and that life could have included me if I hadn’t been so desperate to believe the worst of her. If I hadn’t kept my own secrets.

I should have told her about the guilt swallowing me up. She might have understood why it was so important that shifters be out in the open. But either way, I’d owed it to her to lay it out, and I didn’t, and now it was too late.

I didn’t think anything could salvage our relationship now, and I didn’t even want to. Even though my body burned for hers with a fire so fierce it scorched my skin, I ken that I was no good for her. All I did was hurt her. I had one thing left that could give her happiness, and I would make sure it happened, and then I would leave her alone forever.

Caleb could have his victory, his empire of shifters. I would leave my pack in his capable hands, and walk deep into the forest and never come back. If I found a place far away from humans, I could never again risk causing all this hurt.

My phone rang. I ignored it, continuing to stare out at the ducks. The ring stopped, and immediately started again.

“Your phone’s ringing, man,” a father called out to me as he ran past after his daughter.

“Aye,” I muttered. I noticed Richard coming down the path toward me, dressed in a new set of jeans and a shirt I’d lent him. In his human form, I could see the family resemblance. Willow had inherited his soulful eyes and expressive features, but his hair was brown, and I now ken that her’s was not. Richard sat down beside me.

The phone continued to buzz in my pocket. Sighing, I pulled it out. Caleb’s face flashed on the screen. I turned the phone off and slid it back into my pocket.

“I hope that Lowe of yours knows what he’s doing,” Richard said.

“Caleb is a good man. I have faith in his judgement.”

“Do you? He may be the most righteous man on earth, but what about those around him? What about the allies he’s made, and continues to make? What about the shifters that will scurry to him in order to claw their way to the top? That kind of power will attract many people who are not trustworthy.”

I hadn’t told Richard that the ring was fake. “We’ll have to take our chances. Caleb needs the ring in order to seize power and make the government listen to him.”

“And you expect him to just put it down after he’s subdued the government?”

“I do.” Especially considering it doesn’t wield any power. “I dinnae want to talk about it anymore. What are you here for? I told you to stay at the cabin.” I’d got another of Margaret’s cabins for Richard, so that I could keep an eye on him and make sure that Willow didn’t see him before she was ready.

Thinking back to how cold she was back at her flat, I wasn’t certain she’d ever be ready.

“I couldn’t stay there. The walls were closing in on me. I’m used to having an entire subway and sewer network to explore.”

“Then go run in the forest, or roll around in a pile of shit. I dinnae care. She’s really upset, and if she sees you with me and figures out who you are—”

“Did you talk to her?” Richard’s whole face lit up. “What did she say?”

I looked away. “That she nae wants to see me again.”

“I thought you said you were her friend.”

“I was. But now I’m not,” I growled.

Richard rubbed his balding head. “And you’re just giving up?”

“What choice do I have? She doesnae want me. And I cannae blame her.” I buried my face in my hands. The two men who had hurt Willow the most sat together in the park, wallowing in their own guilt and regret.