Chapter Nine
Callan’s heart sank.
Kate closed her eyes and dipped her head. “I can’t change who I am.”
“And I can’t change who I am. Part of that is taking care of my pack. The rest is me loving you.”
She lifted her head and looked straight at him. “I know that.”
“Then can’t you see how much I want to spend my life with you?” Couldn’t she see how he wanted to spend every waking moment with her? How he wanted to be beside her when they were asleep? Callan wanted to feel her working beside him, or at least in the same room with him, so that when he looked up and caught her eye, it was that much easier to deal with whatever it was that he needed to get through. He didn’t want to go through his days without her strength, her bravery and, most of all, her love.
Tears filled her eyes.
He knew the punch of overwhelming loss was aiming straight for him.
“I can’t be here, with you, as long as I view you and your pack as monsters.”
Frustration had him opening and closing his hands. “But I thought you’d been getting better about that.”
“I tried. I honestly tried.” Tears streamed down her face.
Callan stepped forward to wipe them away.
Kate held her hand up and the force of her emotion stopped him.
“I’ve gotten to the point where I can separate the people from their w-wolves, so I can treat everyone with respect—”
“Katie, love, we aren’t separate but equal. The wolf and me, we’re the same person, just with a different set of instincts guiding us.” At that, Callan knew it was well and truly over. Even more so when Kate looked at him in horror.
“I thought...” She shook her head.
“Thank you for trying, my love. I won’t ask you to live in the land of your nightmares any longer.” He picked up the bag she’d been packing. “Need anything else?”
Kate shook her head, her long ponytail swishing against the sides of her face and sticking in the tracks of her tears.
Callan would give almost anything to take away her pain and fear, but wishing he could be someone he wasn’t had never gotten him anywhere, and it wasn’t going to get him anywhere now. Once he said his goodbyes, he’d let his wolf take over and run until he was exhausted. “Let’s get you on the road and down the mountain before sunset and you can’t see where you’re going.”
“‘Kay,” she sniffled.
He hoisted her duffel bag on one shoulder and laid his hand along her lower back. She didn’t flinch away, which gave him the tiniest sliver of hope. When they got to her car, he put her bags in the backseat, then turned her toward him. “Katie, love, I’ll always be here, and you will always be welcome. You’re pack now, whether you want to be or not. Like it or hate it. And everyone here is your family.”
“But why?”
“Because I belong to you. I wish you belonged to me.” He tried to smile at her, but knew he’d failed. “I’m not quite sure if I’m strong enough to fight my instincts when they say that yes, you do actually belong to me and I’m not letting you go. But even if you don’t believe me, I love you and I do belong to you. You own my heart. You own my soul. And if you ever want to bring them back, I’ll be waiting.”
Kate reached up with both arms and dragged Callan’s face down to hers. Their lips touched and their hearts took over. Their mouths locked on to one another while their tongues dueled for dominance, implanting this one last taste in the brain. Callan lifted her in a hug that had their hands tugging at each other’s backs, her breasts rubbing against his chest.
He registered hands pushing against his shoulders and he lifted his head.
“Put me down,” Kate whispered.
Callan set her down and stepped away. He would not apologize for loving her. He wouldn’t. “Take care of yourself. Don’t let anything happen to you.”
“I won’t. I know better.” She gave him a small, watery smile and got in her car.
With that, his mate was gone. She’d walked away from him. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Callan had never heard stories of this happening.
He let all his frustration and anger and love transform him into his wolf mid-run down the mountain. He didn’t care about the torn clothes he was leaving behind. He didn’t care about anything except the love of his life, his mate, his very soul, driving down the mountain away from him.
Callan poured everything he was feeling into a howl that echoed through the trees and across the mountain.
Except it wasn’t an echo. It was his pack, his family, answering him back, not leaving him to face his future alone.
* * *
The doorbell rang and Kate ignored it, just like she had all the texts, the phone calls, the voice mails and the many missed FaceTime requests. Cindy’s car sat in the parking lot of the townhouse Kate was renting, but she didn’t want to see her. Not yet. Kate still had too many things to work through.
Then the pounding on the door started.
Well that would get annoying. And Kate’s neighbors probably wouldn’t appreciate it much, either.
“Go away!”
“You can’t just keep ignoring me, K.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I can. I’m doing just fine so far.”
“Open this door or I’ll three-name you at the top of my lungs.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Kathryn. Mari—”
“Fine!” Kate opened the door and emotions flooded her. Relief. Happiness. Anger. Betrayal. Sadness. Love.
Cindy wrapped her in a hug that threatened to overwhelm Kate if it didn’t suffocate her first. She abruptly turned loose and held Kate at arm’s length. “I don’t care how angry you are at me. How furious. We hash things out. That’s what best friends do. Don’t you dare try to hide from me ever again. I’ve missed you. I’ve needed you. And you deserted me. I get that you’re angry—”
“Slight understatement.”
“—but we’re gonna face our problems, not hide from them, got it?”
Kate couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. Tears she’d refused to allow to fall for the past few weeks had now broken through and she couldn’t stop them. Cindy pulled her in for a hug and held on while Kate ugly-cried on her friend for what seemed like hours.
“Why didn’t you tell me there were monsters in the world?”
“You already knew there were monsters in the world.”
“No I didn’t!”
Cindy shook her head. “Think carefully about what you just said to me, and think about the job you quit, and then tell me about the monsters you didn’t know existed.”
Kate fell back against her couch and sat with a plop. She felt dazed.
Of course she’d known there were monsters. She’d drawn them every single day in her job. Men and women described those monsters to her, and she’d absorbed those victims’ feelings every time she’d listened and turned their words into pictures that others could use to catch those monsters.
She’d even given herself a pep talk about having already faced some of the worst of society when she first met JT, and she hadn’t even known then what kind of monster he could truly be. She was basing his monstrousness only on his behavior.
Monsters weren’t what people looked like on the outside. Monsters came from within. And sometimes those monsters stayed in human form all the time. Or, as she now knew, sometimes those monsters turned into other forms, too. She’d now witnessed both.
However, she’d also met men and women who fought true monsters. Men and women who remained in human form at all times and fought human monsters, and men and women who took on wolf form and fought monsters who took on wolf form, too.
She knew all this.
Kate sniffed loudly and grabbed the tissues from her end table. In the time it took to blow her nose a gazillion times, she processed her thoughts. So if she knew all that, what was really going on? What was the real mental fight she was dealing with?
“Ah. I see you’ve figured some things out. What’s the deal now?”
“Jeez. Are you reading my mind? I was just asking myself that same question.”
“And what have you decided?”
Kate blew her nose one last time and dried the last of the tears that had streaked her face. “I think it boils down to control. The lack of it on my part and the fear I felt as a child. I couldn’t stop the wolves that mauled my friend. I watched every second of it and there was nothing I could do. Nothing. I felt the fear and the terror and was completely frozen and helpless. Lots of people have dogs as pets. But in my mind, since Ellie called them ‘big doggies,’ dogs are then animals that will always have the chance to go feral and can attack or destroy something of mine. When the wolves change, that’s what they look like—feral, out of control, dangerous, like they can attack and destroy not only something of mine but destroy me as well. And that scares me. Frightens me. Terrifies me. I don’t want to live every single day in fear.”
Cindy took a deep breath. “I can’t help you get over your fear. You have to do that on your own. You have to get control of your own mind. No one else can. I believe you’re strong enough to do that, but I can’t help you with that. What I can do is remind you that they’re not just feral wolves. They’re people, too. And the people don’t lose control.”
“I know that on some level, just not on the most powerful levels of my mind.”
“You’ll figure it out. For now, let’s call in a pizza and watch either a movie or binge watch a TV show.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Two medium pizzas and three hours of twenty-one-minute sitcom episodes later, Cindy stretched and got to her feet. “I’ve got to get home so I can hopefully make it to work somewhat close to on time tomorrow morning.”
“I’m sorry I kept you here so late.”
“Shut up. I’m happy to be here and I’m happy you’re talking to me again.”
“I’m sorry about that, too.”
“Shut up. One last thought I want to leave you with and then you’re on your own with processing everything. Can you think of some times when the personality of the human was easy to see in the wolf? Whether it was protectiveness or humor or kindness or even playfulness, can you pinpoint some incidents where the personality of the person as a whole—human and wolf—easily showed through both forms?” Cindy gave Kate one last hug. “That’s all I’ve got for tonight. Love ya. Send me a text tomorrow to let me know how you’re doing.”
“‘Kay. I will. Thanks for everything. G’night.” Kate shut the door, leaned her back against it and slid all the way to the floor on her butt.
Yeah, she could think of a few times when she’d seen Callan’s family shine through their wolf forms. Okay, several times.
She needed her sketchbook and pencils.