“Come on,” he said as he rose to his feet and pulled her up with him. “I think we should get out of here.”

“But where will we go?” she whispered as he started to head toward the door.

“Anywhere but here,” he said. “The town is too dangerous today.”

He marched out of the coffee house and started up Main Street toward the intersection that cut across to The Nowhere Bar.

“We’ll be safe on Alpha ground,” he said. “I’ve been so worried since you arrived here, I didn’t know what to do for the best.”

Esme’s head was still spinning, but she sensed his urgency and could tell he was telling the truth. She had felt he had been afraid of something, but she didn’t know what, and now she could tell she was on the verge of discovering what the hell had been happening to her and him since she had stepped off the train in Lost Creek.

She kept going back to her mother and tried to recall things that may give her some clues as to what she knew and why, but her mind kept drawing blanks. When Esme had left and walked out on her all those years before, her mother had seemed defeated and done. As if she had grown long sick of trying to keep the reins on her, when really it had been her mother who had caused them so much upheaval and unrest.

Zeke opened the side door of The Nowhere Bar, the place where they had first met and he pulled her inside before he locked and bolted it behind them. The hallway was pitch black, but Esme realized she could see her way forward, and she was no longer blind in the dark.

“Jesus,” she whispered. “I can see.”

Zeke looked down at her and smiled again.

“I have so much to show you and teach you,” he whispered.

He pulled her deeper into the hallway and then he stopped at a door on the left. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a long, old-looking key and slid it into the lock, turned it, and opened up the door.

Inside, he turned on the lights, they were low and cast a warm glow all around the room. When Esme stepped inside behind him, she found her eyes scanning around and her mouth dropped slowly open. She was standing in the middle of what appeared to be an ancient library. It was old and full of antique furniture and books which must have been hundreds of years old.

“What is this place?” she asked as she moved further into the room. She reached out and her fingers skipped across the spines of the books, and the whole place smelled musty and old, but wonderful at the same time.

“It’s part of my kind’s history,” he said. “We need to keep it safe.”

“I still can’t believe what you’re telling me,” she whispered. “And yet, for some reason, all of it makes sense.”

“That’s because it’s your destiny, Esme,” Zeke said as he sat down on the edge of the desk. “It’s your destiny, and somewhere inside of you, you have been waiting for this too.”

“How can it just feel normal for me to be told that the man in front of me can turn into a wolf at will?” she shook her head and laughed. “I mean, it sounds insane.”

“And yet, you feel it to be normal and true?” he asked her.

She nodded.

His eyes were piercing her again, as if he was reading her thoughts, body and soul… She breathed in and out deeply, and felt herself craving him all over again.

“The forest,” she said suddenly. “You told me you had never lived out of Lost Creek?”

Zeke nodded and smiled knowingly, as if he knew she was beginning to put the pieces together herself.

“So that means, that day in the forest… We were here, in Lost Creek?”

Zeke nodded.

“So I’ve been here before…” she trailed off.

“You haven’t just been here before,” he whispered. “You were born here.”

Esme felt as if the rug had been pulled out from under her and she sat down next to him on the desk and put her hands on her knees.

“You’re going to have to explain this to me,” she said. “How do you know that? And how is it that I possibly could have been here before? This place is in the middle of nowhere, it is lost to the world… and yet, I have somehow made my way here three times without even knowing it?”

Zeke nodded again.

“When your mother passed through town the first time, she was pregnant. At the exact moment you were born here, the same stars aligned that had at the time of my birth, and from that moment on, we were fated.”

He said it so confidently, Esme couldn’t argue.

“But then we left?” she asked.

Zeke bit his lip and looked concerned.

“You didn’t leave straight away,” he said. “Your mother stayed in town with you, but when she started to piece together what was happening here, she ran…”

Her mother had always been very perceptive. She had always had a tendency to gravitate toward the magical arts.

“She knew there were shifters here,” he said softly. “And when you were born, she knew you were fated to become one of them.”

“To become one of them?” Esme asked.

Her heart was racing, and her palms were sweating, but at the same time, she was desperate for him to continue.

“The moment we first met properly in the forest that day, Esme, we were bound together by love,” he smiled. “I have been waiting for you ever since. And the day you came back to this town, the second you stepped off that train, you were close to me again… And our souls reconnected… our bodies craved each other and had to be together.”

She took a moment to let it all sink in.

“Is that why I felt so sick whenever you left my side?” she asked him.

Zeke nodded.

“You needed me with you or your energy would be even more depleted,” he said. “Once soul mates have found each other as adults, they aren’t supposed to part again… it’s one of the reasons I had to kiss you and imprint on you properly, otherwise you would have suffered and I couldn’t bear to watch you become weak and distressed.”

He wrapped her up in his arms and pulled her close to him. He kissed her on the forehead and when he did, it made her feel so much better. She really did thrive in his company, she felt so good when she was as close to him as she could be.

“And the things I can see now, and the things I can feel?” she asked him. “Everything seems in high definition, and old things repulse me… just then, I could see in the dark for fuck’s sake. What does it all mean? Am I like you now? Will I change?”

“You won’t change into an animal, my love,” he whispered. “But you do gain some of the benefits. Call it a bonus feature of living a life with a man who can change into a beast…”

“You’re not a beast,” she whispered back to him. “You’re incredible. You’re the most amazing person I have ever met.”

He looked into her eyes and kissed her deeply. She ran her hands up to his shoulders and she felt tiny in his arms. She pulled on his black hair and gasped as he lifted her up and held her close to him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and let his tongue search against hers. It was a kiss so incredible it took her breath away, it was one that was hungry and long overdue… She felt as if she had been starving until that very moment.

“And what do you mean about saving your kind?” she asked him suddenly as their lips broke apart. “You said something about being your salvation?”

Zeke smiled at her and brushed a loose strand of hair out of her eyes.

“Yes,” he nodded his head. “This is true.”

“So tell me,” she urged him.

“The bears,” he said as if he was treading carefully. “There aren’t just wolf shifters in this town, but bears too…”

As he said the words, Esme’s mind instantly went back to her room at the motel and to the pictures on the wall. There had been paintings of grizzly bears.

“We are at war with them,” he said half defeated. “The bears blame my kind for something that happened long ago… Something we didn’t do, but something we took the blame for anyway.”

“What happened?” she asked with wide eyes.

“A lot has come to pass since,” he whispered. “All you need to know is the rivalry continues, but it is only us wolves that know the real threat is much greater than either of our packs combined. We need to find a truce, we need to make sure that we and the bears unite to save us all. Not just our two tribes, but our town as well. If we don’t do something soon, then Lost Creek will be finished for good… and potentially a whole lot more will be taken with it.”

Esme’s head was spinning, but she could see the urgency in him. He had been holding this inside for a long, long time… And now that they had found each other, he had to tell her as quickly and concisely as he could.

She was the other half of him, and he had been waiting for her to fulfill his own fate.

“One day, our heir may be the key to defeating an ancient menace,” he said as he looked deeply into her eyes.

The green of them enveloped her again, and she could feel them reflected in her own. She had been drawn to him always, throughout her entire life, and she hadn’t even known it.

It was crazy to think that each step she had taken, and all the roads she had traveled had led her back to here. The place where she was born and where she was always supposed to be.

“An heir?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he said. “But, for now, all we need to ensure is that I keep you safe. That’s why I hired you, even though we didn’t need anyone here at the bar. I tried to keep you at arm’s length, so our souls didn’t bond too well, but I couldn’t stay away. The second I had come too close, that was it… we were bonded, and I had to seal it or you would have suffered.”

“Is that why you apologized?” she asked him.

Zeke nodded.

“I didn’t want to do this to you, I wanted to tell you it all first… but I just didn’t get the chance.”

“You never need to apologize for that to me, Zeke,” she said as she took his hand in hers. “All of this is meant to be, and you can’t say sorry for fate.”

Zeke cupped her face in his hands and kissed her softly on the lips. The connection and understanding between them was more than either of them had ever known. And now that they were together properly, it was only going to grow.