“Do we really have to do this?” Good God, did Izzy sound as whiny to Luke as she did in her head? A peek through her lashes revealed him leaning against his kitchen counter, arms crossed and that I’m-the-Alpha-and-I-have-spoken look on his face.
His log cabin was surprisingly sleek and modern. City girl that she was, Izzy had been expecting something a little more rustic than soapstone counters and stainless-steel appliances. Large windows flooded the room with light, reflecting off the polished kitchen table and chairs.
“Which part? Lunch or changing?”
Both, she wanted to say, but didn’t. Dark circles underlined his haunted eyes. If there was one thing she understood, it was the guilt of being left behind. And now, instead of helping to search for whoever was messing with his pack, he was stuck babysitting her. She wouldn’t add to his burden by wussing out on what she’d promised to do.
She glared at the enormous turkey sandwich on the table in front of her. It looked awesome and smelled even better, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch it. Do it. She didn’t move. I’m gonna eat that. She ignored her stinging scar. Not real. It’s healed. Pick up the damn sandwich. Her fingers twitched. Pick. It. Up. She took a deep breath and...nope. Nothing.
Swearing, she flung herself back in her seat.
Luke sighed and came to her side. Squatting down, he ran his knuckles over her cheek. “I don’t get it, sugar. You’ve done this.”
“I know, goddammit. I know.”
She stared so hard at the sandwich, it should have levitated to her mouth. Getting her hands to join the party was proving impossible, though. She trembled with the effort to move against the razor wire restraints in her head.
“Little monsters. Filthy, evil beasts.” Grandmother’s words boiled like oil in her brain, greasy and thick. Tears trickled down her cheeks.
“I’m trying,” she said, her breath shuddering out of her. “But denying the wolf, denying my hunger, it’s all I know. My whole life, everything I’ve done has been with one goal in mind: to keep the monster from getting out. It’s not easy overcoming a lifetime of conditioning in just a few days.”
Hands of iron banded around Izzy’s arms. “You. Are. Not. A. Monster,” Luke said, his voice strangled with emotion. She looked into his flashing green eyes and something cracked—a fissure in the stone cage her grandmother wrought, so his words could slip inside.
She whispered, “I know.”
“Do you?”
Her heart pounded in her throat. “Starting to.”
Luke sat and pulled her onto his lap, wrapping her in his warm embrace. “Who did that to you, sugar? Who told you you’re a monster?”
Close. He was so close. His warm, outdoorsy scent flooded her senses, loosening the restraints wrapped around her wolf. The creature stirred in her mind as if watching, listening.
“Grandmother,” she said, gasping. Forcing out that one word was like swallowing hot coals. Every scar and healed bone pulsed with remembered agony. They were never supposed to tell. Never.
But Izzy had once before. And it had saved her and Bess from the utter hell of their life. Nothing that followed was as horrible as the years with their grandmother.
Maybe if she told Luke about her past, he’d be better equipped to help her learn to control the wolf. That more than anything needed to happen. She’d be damned if she’d prove her grandmother right and end up like Bess—a murderer.
“Grandmother was human,” Izzy said, “but she knew about lycanthropes, said she knew all about little monsters like us. She—” She choked back the bile rising in her throat.
“Oh, sugar,” Luke murmured, stroking her hair.
“You know the worst part? She wasn’t always like that. Or at least we don’t think she was. We remember her singing. Smiling at us. Laughing.” Izzy’s own laugh was full of bitter ashes. “Laughing. Jesus. That part definitely must have been a fantasy.”
She laughed again, because the only alternative was screaming. “We. Listen to me. I still talk about Bess as if she were alive. Like I could ignore this”—she slapped her chest—“empty. Fucking. Hole.”
Luke caught her hand before she could hit herself where it hurt the most again. His eyes held hers, grave and full of compassion. “Don’t,” he said. He kissed her palm, kept her hand.
She looked away, unable to stand the kindness. “Somehow Grandmother escaped the night the pack attacked. I don’t know what happened, other than she saw them kill my grandfather.”
Her grandmother’s voice pounded at her as if the bitch was in the room. “Those filthy beasts tore him apart. Animals. That’s what they are. What you two are.”
“She said Bess and I would grow up to be just like the weres that attacked our parents and grandfather. That we’d turn on everyone we loved, too. That’s why—” Izzy gulped, her throat dry as bone. “That’s why she needed to kill the things inside us.”
Luke’s snarl vibrated the windows. It hurt her ears, and she cringed.
“Sorry,” he rasped, sounding more like a wolf than a man.
“It’s okay,” she said, meaning it. His anger on her behalf was a palpable thing. Tension sang through his body like a motor winding up, yet his arms around her remained gentle.
“That’s why you don’t eat meat,” Luke said, his voice guttural. “She was trying to starve your wolf to death?”
“Yes.”
More snarling. “What else?”
The memories swirled in her head like a vicious downdraft, waiting to catch her and smash her on the rocks. Aching, empty bellies. A cold cement floor in a damp basement with boarded-up windows. Hard hands instead of warm hugs. Her sister locked away from her.
“I’ve got you,” Luke whispered. “She can’t get you here.”
Izzy shuddered and buried her face in his neck, holding on tight. “We had a house in Chicago. It wasn’t very nice.” An understatement. Peeling paint inside and out. Rats the size of boot boxes in the overgrown bushes. Roaches in the cupboards. “Bess and I were always holding on to one another. Grandmother said we acted like mongrel puppies, whining and crying, climbing all over each other. Said we needed to learn how to stand on our own like human beings. She put us in separate storage closets in the basement.”
“Christ.” Luke’s eyes glowed so brightly it was like looking into an inferno. “She locked you apart for comforting one another? Twins? Lycanthrope twins? Fucking hell. How old were you?”
“About five.”
Luke swore for a long time. He seemed like he wanted to pace or hit something.
“You can put me down if you want,” she said. Please don’t put me down.
“Never,” he said with absolute finality. He scrubbed a hand over his messy hair. “And your scars?”
Her head ached and she rubbed her forehead against his chest. “Punishments for...” Everything. Being late. Coming home too early. Sitting too close to each other. Asking for more food. Crying. For breaking a bone when she hit them with the fireplace poker or pushed them down the stairs and they had to go to the hospital. She shrugged helplessly. Her tongue was plastered to the roof of her mouth.
“Here, sugar.” Luke held a glass of water to her lips. “How did no one notice what was going on? Teachers? Doctors? No one caught on?”
“Grandmother was charming when she wanted to be. Beautiful. She baked cookies for our elderly neighbors. Spread stories about how difficult and damaged Bess and I were. How violent we were with each other. They thought we were just this side of raving psychos.
“And there were no teachers. Not until we were eight and a new social worker finally stepped in. Before that, Grandmother told them she was homeschooling us because we were so problematic. When the social worker came for a home visit, she realized we could barely write our names, let alone read. I mean, why bother trying to educate an animal? All our school supplies were just for show. We weren’t actually allowed to touch them.” Izzy rubbed at a lump high up on her left thigh where the buckle of a belt had cut into her.
Luke noticed and held his hand over the spot. “For looking at a book?”
“No, no,” she said. “For opening it. ‘Look with your eyes, not with your hands’ was one of her favorite sayings.”
“God. Then you were able to go to school?”
“Yeah. We were so freakin’ happy about that, too. Or at least I was,” she added, remembering Bess’s terror at leaving their prison and warden.
“What if we hurt someone?”
Izzy rubbed at the hollow space in her heart where her sister should be. “Bess had a harder time adjusting. She believed our grandmother when she said we were monsters who would kill our friends. So much so, she couldn’t even pretend to make friends or fit in. At first this made Grandmother happy, but then she realized Bess’s behavior was attracting unwanted attention.”
“How so?”
“Counselors and therapists were called in. Parent-teacher conferences were scheduled.” Hand over a rippling white line on her abdomen from a hot curling iron, Izzy looked into Luke’s wolf eyes. “She made damn sure we knew to keep our mouths shut.”
It took several seconds for him to speak. “How long did this go on?”
Izzy reached for the water glass on the table. Before her fingers made contact, Luke lifted it to her mouth again, helping her drink. Just as well, since her hands were shaking so badly she would have slopped it all over both of them.
The wolf inside her had been weirdly quiet, like it was cowed by the memories of Grandmother. But now it practically shouted. Only Izzy couldn’t understand the words, if there were any. The drone grew louder and louder until she thought her head might explode.
“Isabelle, open your eyes. Look at me,” Luke said, holding her face, caressing her cheeks with his thumbs. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Shh, little wolf.” He kissed her forehead and blessed warmth spread into her frozen body. The racket dulled to a low thrum and she sighed in relief.
“You can stop,” he said.
“No, I have to get it out.”
Luke shifted her on his lap, pulling her impossibly closer so she felt every beat of his heart along her side. He stroked her hair. “Okay, sugar. Whatever you need.”
“One day when we were twelve, I came home late from school. I had to stay after to make up a test I missed.” Because the bruises on her face had still been too vivid to hide. “I knew as soon as I walked in the door that something was wrong.” She snorted. “More wrong. There was this weird smell, like if you let an engine run without oil in it, all hot and tinny. And I heard Bess. Crying. But it was worse than that. She sounded...” Like the animal Grandmother always accused her of being.
The hair on Izzy’s neck rose as it had that day. “I didn’t call out for Bess. I followed the sound and it was coming from the basement.” More bile rose in her throat as she remembered opening the door. “She was lying on the landing, a few steps down. She wasn’t wearing a shirt. Before I could jump down to her, she raised her head and said, ‘Run.’”
Remembered terror quaked through her as Bess’s swollen, bloody face loomed in her mind. “I didn’t get a chance.” Lightning pain had shot through her scalp as Grandmother caught her by her hair. Now, Izzy jerked back like she had that afternoon before she realized the pressure on her head was Luke gently prying her fingers from her hair.
“Grandmother caught me and threw me to the ground. I don’t know why I struggled that day rather than any of the others. Maybe it was the smell or the broken look in Bess’s eyes. I don’t know. I just had to.
“Grandmother had me facedown on the linoleum in the kitchen. She was tearing at my shirt and screaming something about the devil and evil and burning it out of us. I just kept bucking and slapping at her hands. It happened so fast, but it took forever, you know? My shirt ripped and I saw the crucifix in Grandmother’s hand. I knew I did not want it to touch me. I fought, so hard, but I was so small, and she was—”
Incomprehensible agony flared anew on her shoulder blade, and Izzy cried out. Luke’s body wrapped around hers as if he could shield her from an attack that happened seventeen years before.
“I thought I’d known pain before,” Izzy said and Luke moaned. “But having iron that’s been held over the stove burner until it glows shoved against your bare skin...” She shook her head. “I don’t recommend it.”
Luke’s laugh of disbelief sounded like he was choking.
Tears ran down her face and she dashed them away with a quick hand. “That sort of pain, smelling your own flesh burning—I snapped. I may have been small, starving, and terrified, but I was also fucking pissed. I fought that bitch with everything I had. I think it surprised her. Neither of us had ever raised a hand to her before. I hit her in the face with my backpack and she screamed. While she raged at me some more about Satan and filthy demon weres I managed to scramble to the kitchen table. I picked up a chair and smacked her with it.”
What happened next was a big blur. “I don’t know how I got Bess out of the house or onto the city bus, but the police report says I informed the driver that my sister needed a hospital and he’d better step on it. Then I passed out.”
“My God, Isabelle—”
“You know why my grandmother completely lost her mind that day?”
Eyes gleaming with tears, Luke shook his head. “Why?”
“Because one of our neighbors, Mr. Henderson, saw Bess coming home from school. He worked at a local diner and had brought home a sack of burgers for his kids. He had an extra one and gave it to Bess. She ate it. And Grandmother saw her.
“My twelve-year-old sister, who weighed sixty-two pounds, ate a leftover burger from a greasy spoon and our grandmother nearly killed us for it.”
* * *
Luke held Isabelle for a long time. His wolf paced and snarled in his head, looking for something to savage.
“Christ,” Luke said. Again. He wasn’t sure if he was swearing or praying, but he’d been saying it a lot since his mate had stopped talking and settled into his arms. She wasn’t crying. Though, he wanted to. For her. For Bess and the childhood they should have had. And for everything he’d been putting her through since they met.
Tipping her chin up so he could look into her eyes, he said, “I’m sorry. Not just about what happened to you, but for how I’ve been pushing you. I—”
Isabelle’s fingers pressed against his lips. “Luke, don’t. You didn’t know. I hate admitting this, but you were right. I’m only hurting myself and making myself more unstable by following what that old bitch wanted.”
Grinning, he nipped her fingertips. “Can you repeat that?”
“What?”
“That I’m right. You know I love that. Wait. Let me get my phone so I can record it.”
She rolled her eyes and elbowed him. “Jerk.”
The amusement lightening her eyes made him feel like he could accomplish anything. Such as... “Think you’re ready to try some lunch now?”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “Bring on the scary turkey.”
Brave female. “Great. And then we’ll go out for a short run. The snow’s all powder right now. It’ll make it easier on your paws until we toughen them up.”
She sucked in a fortifying breath and the hot pepper odor of fear rose in the air. For a moment, he thought he’d have to argue with her. But then she nodded, her jaw tight. “Yeah. Bring that on, too,” she said. “Can’t think of a better eff you to my grandmother than that.”
Reluctantly, he slid Isabelle back onto her own chair. As he watched her tackle her sandwich, the pleasure of feeding his mate dimmed with a thought that had been niggling at the back of his mind.
“Isabelle, your grandmother, is she...”
The glowing gold eyes of her wolf looked up at him. “She’s dead.”
There was only one answer to that. “Good.”