Chapter Eight
Outside Seyville, Nebraska
Cara
I am beautiful. He can’t believe how beautiful I am, and he wonders how his heart will stand it when I learn how to shift. He wonders if my pelt will be all black or black and white, maybe black and gray. He knows my eyes will be the same clear gray. With whatever coat I end up with, I will stand out in the snow and melt into the shadows, surefooted and wild and free.
I am strong. He sees my strength even as I fall in the snow, unable to go another step. He sees it as I throw the match on the van and watch everything I ever knew go up in flames.
He is furious over what my father said. He wants to punch him. He wants to torture the sheriff, wants to rip out the throats of the other men who tried to hurt me.
He wants me. He sees how I move, how I think, hears me talk, and all of him burns to claim me as his own, to show me just how devoted he’ll be to me every day that he is graced with my presence. He’ll show every inch of me, every second, every minute, every hour he can. He wants me crying and screaming and moaning and gasping. He wants me to tell him how I can’t take anymore but that I want him to never stop loving me. He wants me curled up into his body afterward, safe and warm, sweaty and sticky, so he can hold me through the night for the rest of his life.
I felt his stress over taking care of his pack. I feel his relief that they are all safe, that the borders are protected and the risks are low. I sense his fear that one day, those he loves and protects could get hurt, and his determination that he will be there to do what he needs to do to protect everyone.
He has dark shadows. Ugly shadows. He is violent and dangerous, full of sharp jagged edges that know how to slide and dice and hurt and kill. He is heat and sparks, sexy and seductive. He’s filled with passion and excitement and the intense desire to fully bond with the shifter he is meant to share his endless energy with.
A small part is warmth and light, a part he hasn’t fully explored yet, a part that has grown since he found me. He will do what it takes to claim me, to make me his forever. Even if it involves deception. Even if it involves pushing boundaries. Never anything against my will unless he truly believes it to be necessary to protect lives. But he will also do what it takes to make sure that I know that he is mine forever. A true partnership.
He was exactly what he said he was. He is no Sheriff Whitmore, and I can’t help but feel ashamed that I ever said such a thing.
“Cara,” a voice says, and like someone spinning a faucet valve off, the waves of emotions suddenly stop and I am in his arms. “Cara. I’m sorry. It’s too much right now for you.”
“I need to sleep.”
I don’t need to be connected to him to know that I just hurt him deeply. He opened himself up to me, and I cut him out. But all he did was loop an arm around me, and helped me to my feet. Guided me to the master bedroom. Took me to the walk-in closet, showed me where the hidden entrance was to the secret basement, told me that if anything happened I was to go down there and not wait for him. And then I was in bed, surrounded by the most luxurious sheets I’ve ever been cocooned in, and felt lonelier than I’d ever felt in my life.
Outside the room, I heard the scraping noise of a sofa getting pushed near the door, so that he could stand guard against those hunting us… and I drifted away, feeling the slightest bit less alone than the last time I went to sleep.
***
“Keep running,” the sheriff called out behind me, closing in quickly. I skidded sharply to one side, paws scrabbling against the frozen ground. I’ve never run faster in my life, but there’s something heavy around my neck. The necklace. Fear bolted through me—Wyatt can’t find me. I fall snout over paws, scrabbling at my neck, trying to be free…
Strong hands grabbed mine and I bolted upright, gasping and panting. I’m in a pitch-black room and a huge form looms over me, pinning my arms down.
I screamed.
“Cara, wake up.”
Wyatt. I was in the hideaway cabin, miles away from civilization, with a man who could turn into a wolf, who thought I could turn into one too, and that we’d live happily ever after as wolf people.
“It was just a dream.” I told him, as much as I was telling myself.
“I heard you screaming and you were clawing at your throat…” He sat on the edge of the bed and, ever so gently but oh so firmly, tucked his hand under my chin and tilted my head back so he could examine my neck. It stung, but there was no bad pain as he gently maneuvered my head from side to side and up and down. “No permanent damage. You scared me there for a moment. What happened?”
“Nightmare. I was being chased by the sheriff and… the necklace was on my neck. I needed to get it off.” I needed you.
I sat up a bit more and got a look at him and what he was—or rather wasn’t—wearing. Jeez, I needed a bucket full of ice if I was expected to share such tight quarters with a shifter like this.
Before, when he had clothes on, I could feel the ripped body underneath. Now that he was just wearing shorts… he looked even more delicious than I could have possibly imagined, with all sorts of fascinating scars telling stories up and down his chest, his arms, and who knew where else.
“The sheriff isn't going to find you.”
I scoffed, the moment broken. “You don't know that.” Then my eyes widened. “You telling me he's dead?”
“I'm telling you that people will only get to you over my dead body. And there is no way in hell I am losing to that piece of human shit.” He looked dangerous. Hot and dangerous. Sexy and dangerous.
And to think that the steam room was still just one small doorway away…
I could tell the second that he sensed my shift in interest when his eyes darkened, and the fingertips that had been so caring on my skin changed. Became sensuous, demanding. Before they were there to sooth my pain, and now his touch ran over me, stroking across the planes of my face with something very different in mind. His fingertips trailed up my jawline, traced my eyebrows, teased my eyelashes, stroked along my lips like a man determined to memorize every single piece of me. The heat, the sensual tension that never truly went away, built swiftly between us until each second spun out into an eternity where there was just the two of us in this room with his touch warming me from inside out.
Then he sighed and pulled his hand back. I felt the loss keenly, like someone had opened the front door and let the cold air pour in. “I didn't tell you to stop,” I whispered.
“You also didn't tell me to keep going. You've been through a lot, and there's no need to rush anything. You need to rebuild your trust, and I need to make sure that you're safe.”
“Are you saying that you don't want me?”
The look in his eyes answered my question. “I don’t want to make more of a mess of everything, Cara, but let me be perfectly clear. One day, you will be mine as much as I am already yours. And I don't want you to fear that. And when you are ready, you will come to me, and you will tell me so.”
“I don't know if I will ever be able to do that.”
He smirked. “Don't bet the farm on that.”
I laughed, surprised by how charming I found his arrogance. Usually it was a turnoff, but I think I knew this man better than I'd ever known anyone else. And to think that it's only been… “Holy shit, how long have I been sleeping?”
“About twenty hours.” He stood up, walked over to the windows, and pushed the blackout curtains open. Soft predawn light spilled in along with the sight of snowbanks piled so high against the cabin wall that I could see it against the bottom few inches of the windows. “You slept all of yesterday and then all through another night. You desperately needed it. It stopped snowing, but I will need to start digging tunnels in case anyone comes here. The snow will slow them down, but I don't like the idea of being trapped.”
“There’s always the basement.”
“Never, ever depend on only one backup plan.” He tilted his head toward the walk-in closet. “Do you remember the instructions I gave you yesterday on how to get in there?”
I dutifully repeated them like a student chanting times tables. He nodded approvingly. “Good. There are also pancakes staying warm in the oven. And coffee. I wasn't able to use the best possible ingredients given we’re a bit limited to what’s in stock here, but I know you’re probably ravenous.”
“What's happened since I fell asleep? What are the new updates from your friends?” What else do I call them? Shifters, wolves, packmates, coworkers? I considered asking about my father, but didn’t. I needed a bit of distance.
“Not much that would mean anything to you, but some interesting things for me. Still happy to bore you with the reports if you’d like, though. It also reminds me that I'm going to need to know everything that you know about that necklace. It was stolen out of police evidence before we could get our hands on it. If that thing was shielding you from being detected by shifters, it could be used by our enemies.”
“What enemies? I thought that things were better?”
“The usual suspects. Just because we have fewer enemies, sadly doesn’t mean they’ve all been neutralized. To be clear, things are tenfold better. But you'll always have warring shifter packs. You'll always have rouge shifters causing trouble. Any human who finds out about shifters needs to be taken care of one way or another, or they inevitably cause trouble as well. We're really not that different from violent humans, and in many ways, I like to think that we’re better. But the one main group that you're going to hear about sooner rather than later, are wizards.”
That…was not what I was expecting. I carefully slid out of bed, took a few tentative steps. My muscles still felt wobbly, but my whole body had that delicious-feeling soreness that came several days after tough workout, where the good easily outweighed the bad. I felt refreshed, I felt strong, and I felt ready to take on whatever was next.
Whatever the hell that was.
“When you say wizards, I assume they aren’t from a wizarding school or a kids’ show.”
He let out a humorless laugh. “They sound fun, but not when there’s a fucking fireball coming at you almost faster than you can dodge it. Shifters and wizards have been at war for as far back as we can remember, but after a particularly brutal, secret battle a century ago, we all but wiped them out. They've been slowly growing again, building strength on the sly. Something’s up and we need to figure out what it is.”
“What does the necklace have to do this?”
“I highly doubt that that necklace was passed down from your mother.” He saw whatever crestfallen look I had my face and sighed. “I'm sorry Cara, but I truly do think this is one of those lies your father told you in an effort to protect you, no matter how misguided that I think it was. It essentially hid us from recognizing you as a shifter. I don't know if it also stopped you from shifting, but either way, it’s a massive security concern.”
“I can see why that would freak you guys out. But my father didn’t wear one.”
“Did he have a ring? Maybe with similar stones as whatever was in your necklace?”
“His wedding ring…” I said, shocked.
“Shifters don’t wear jewelry for obvious reasons. Certainly not weddings rings. Chances are the ring he wore was inlaid with the same stones and spells your necklace was. Now, where did he get it? Did he bribe or blackmail a wizard into it? Or find a rogue wizard with a kind heart? How many other wizards can do this, and how many charmed things are there in the world? It couldn’t have been cheap. Your father would have given up everything he had to protect you.”
“Are you sure about that?” I said bitterly.
“Yes.” His voice sounded so sure, so confident that he was speaking nothing but the pure truth. “No matter how much I might want to have some, let's just say, tough words with him, and as much as I disagree about how he handled everything, his wife was murdered that night in a situation that we should have protected your family from. He did the best that a grieving, furious, heartbroken shifter could do to protect his daughter. You are the only family on this entire planet that he has left. Given that a shifter could let the world burn to save their mate, and knowing just how precious cubs are to us, he did something nothing short of miraculous.”
“I keep picturing a baby wolf wearing an oversized necklace when you say the word cub,” I grumbled.
He smiled. “There are few things cuter than cubs.”
“So, you want cubs, then?” I asked doubtfully.
“I love cubs,” he said sincerely. “I'm not going to lie. I’ve always wanted them. Shifter society is very supportive of maximum procreation. But that is ultimately up to you.”
I winced. I've known this guy for less than forty-eight hours and I just asked him if he wants to have kids with me. Time to get my shit together again. I flipped on the bedroom lights, and then headed to the bathroom. I left the door wide open, not caring if he saw me freshen up. “I want to learn how to shift.”
He prowled over to the door, bracing himself on either side to that he took up the entire space. It was scary how much I loved watching him move, all that raw power so carefully controlled. “It would be my pleasure to teach you, but I don't know if this necklace impacted your ability to shift at all. I'm sure you'll be able to one day, but it could take either hours or it could take years.”
“What's it like?” I dragged a brush though my hair.
“Do you want me to shift and fully connect my mind with yours? That actually might be the best way to show you what it feels like.”
“Yes.” I give myself a critical look in the mirror after splashing cold water on my face. It was about as good as it'll get anytime soon outside of a spa day. “But I want my damn pancakes first.”
“And coffee. Don’t forget the coffee.” He held his hand out to me, and after a moment's hesitation, I slid mine into his. I was braced for another shockwave of emotions and feelings, but all I felt was a low, pleasurable hum. A mix of warmth and safety, pleasure and excitement. “Do you feel that when you touch me?”
“I feel everything when you touch me,” he said quietly.
I melted a bit inside. Damn him. “This is putting a lot of pressure on me.”
He exhaled heavily. “I know. That's why I'm really trying to take it slow. But you need to understand, I've been looking for you for over twenty years. And now that you’re with me, I want to teach you everything. I want to show you everything in my life.”
“First, pancakes,” I said firmly, trying to not show just how deeply I felt those words. No one had ever made me feel as much as him. “Then, shifting.”
“And after shifting lessons?”
“I guess we’ll see,” I said noncommittally. He pulled at my hand, tugging me behind him as we went through the living room toward the kitchen. Sure enough, he had shoved the sofa against the wall yesterday, protecting me while not invading my privacy.
It's a big bed. You should invite him in.
Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad.
Yet so good…
I squinted at his back. “Can you hear my thoughts right now?”
“I can’t hear your thoughts as much as get a sense of what you’re feeling, although some couples can communicate with startling accuracy after a while. I've tried to block them off to give you privacy. But I'm going to remain tuned into strong ones because if you're ever in danger, I need to know as soon as possible.”
“Then shouldn't I have access to your strong emotions in case you’re ever in danger?” I expected him to laugh, to tell me that his job was to defend me and not the other way around. He did smile, but it wasn't condescending. It was pleased. “I'm picturing you with that gun right now, taking out someone who's trying to attack me.”
“Such violent fantasies you have,” I teased. Wyatt opened the oven door and the smell of pancakes poured out. Backlit by the oven lights was a plate with a huge stack of pancakes, already precariously tipping to one side “Oh, holy shit. That is amazing.”
“I found syrup, but there’s no butter. There's also no milk unless you’re fine with a powdered creamer in your coffee—but you did say you didn’t do dairy. Everything here is designed to last through an apocalypse.”
It didn't take long for Wyatt to scarf down not only more than half the pancakes, but several pieces of baked chicken breast he’d made on the side. While I admired his dedication to protein intake, I stuck to carbs. I tore through my breakfast in record time, too, both because I was starving and because I was suddenly desperate to find out this whole other side of me that I had never known about.
“I clearly didn’t feed you enough before you passed out.”
“I want to see if I really have some fangs and fur going on,” I said. “Wait, does this mean I need to be naked in front of you?”
“I wouldn't complain.”
“Not gonna happen, you horndog,” I snapped, embarrassed.
He laughed. He really laughed, leaning back in his chair, arms out to the side, the humor seeming to bubble up from his stomach and pour out his core in a way that I found both dangerously sexy and agonizingly irresistible. “You're the one who brought it up, Cara. Keep playing with fire and…”
“I'll get burned?”
He sent me a slow, saucy wink. “Where's the fun in that? No, you'll feel the heat.”
“Keep your dirty thoughts out of my head.”
“They’re all yours,” he told me, smug.
It didn't take long for us to figure out a compromise. There was a large glass back door in the rear end of the living room, and we decided that he would shift inside, then run around outside for me to get a feel for what being a shifter was like. I would strip down, wrap myself in a blanket, and stay inside to see what I could do.
When he started to take off his clothes, I turned around as I usually did. “Are you ready to let me push the connection between our minds?”
Oh, shit. All he's going to see is my intense desire to turn around and stare at him. “How about I just have access to yours?”
“Is that because you’re thinking dirty thoughts about me being naked?”
“Not in the slightest,” I lied.
His voice moved closer to me, and the hair on my neck stood straight up. “You sure about that? Didn’t seem like it when you saw me with my shirt off this morning.”
“Just to get your fur on, wolf boy,” I snapped.
A moment later, the now-familiar connection expanded past the constant thread. Through the usual tangle of sexual awareness and dark strength, he was also focusing on how excited he was to shift, his desire to show me how I could, too. “Are you ready?”
I braced myself. “Yes.”
Shifting… hurt. I was startled by the sensations Wyatt was channeling into my mind. Bones felt as though they were twisting, muscles cramped and roiled, organs reformed themselves. But even though there was pain, it was more muted than I thought it would be. Like a really bad set of monthly cramps.
But there was a pleasure to, pleasure that outshone the pain. Senses changed, some growing duller, most turning sharper. Just like what I had experienced after the necklace fell off. A moment later, I heard a bark, and felt a wave of excitement crash through me. Turning, I watched him throw himself through the open doorway, digging furiously as he tunneled through the formerly pristine snowbanks. There was an almost childish joy pouring out of him and into me, one where everything in this bright, happy world was his playground. I ached to join him, and focused on the sensations I’d felt secondhand as he changed.
That strange rippling sensation that I had before came again, but this time, it hurt. I blindly reached for the sofa as my entire body felt caught somewhere between uncomfortable and in pain. Am I shifting? I clung to the sensations Wyatt showed me, focused as hard as I could on what I imagined being a wolf was like. The joy of digging through the snow, four legs pumping hard, wagging my tail, the image of Wyatt's wolf, but giving it my hair and eye color. And for a brief second, I thought I would reach it…
I collapsed on the ground, naked under the blanket, sweating as though I'd sprinted a mile. Wyatt's wolf was next to me, snow clinging in chunks to his thick fur, tongue hanging out. “Did I change into a wolf there?” I asked him.
He shook his head.
“I felt something.” I told him. “I think I was close.”
He licked my cheek.
We practiced for hours. Over and over again, he shifted back and forth between his human and wolf form, carefully and patiently sharing every single ounce of experience he possibly could through our connection. Over and over again, I could feel the changes in my body, but I never quite made it over that final hill. After the umpteenth time, I flopped onto the sofa. He’d already changed into sweats and had been lounging on the sofa, watching me struggle and offering the occasional piece of feedback. “I need a break. How did you do this when you were a kid? Did someone teach you how to do this?”
“As far back as I can remember, we could always do it. As a child, the shift was often instinctive, and not something planned. It's why we always try to keep our children hidden from humans, because all it takes is a car backfiring and your cute little toddler will suddenly change into a snarling pup. Tough to explain to anyone who saw it, especially with all the filming and social media these days.”
“Do you guys stay away from humans?”
“We keep the cubs separate. As for adults, some are quite happy to live with and work around humans. Others prefer to stay completely away, live tucked away in some remote forest where they could easily live out their days without a human ever laying eyes on them. It depends on the pack, it depends on the shifter, and it depends on how rural or urban the shifter wants to be.”
“Does that mean I shifted when I was a child?”
“You probably did. Or maybe you were a delayed shifter. My brother didn’t shift until he hit puberty. Worried the shit out of everyone. That's something you'll have to–” He cut himself off.
“Something I’ll have to ask my father?”
He growled. “I don't want any more of his fucking lies poisoning what's between us.”
“I'm not going to completely stop talking to my father,” I told him.
He visibly struggled for a moment. Finally, he said, “I know that. It would be wrong of me to expect you to do it.”
“Yet you want to.”
“There is a difference between me wanting you to do something and me expecting you to do it.”
“My father is the only family I left on this earth,” I shot back. I don't know why I was being this petty. I felt cranky, tired, and frustrated with myself for not being able to do the one thing I desperately wanted to do right now–learn how to control this new reality I had inexplicably been granted access to.
“You have me now,” he said quietly.
“It's not the same.”
“I hope that one day, not only will it be the same, but it will be better.”
I didn't know what to say to that without sounding like a colossal bitch, so I held my tongue.
There was an uncomfortable silence, then he wiped away a small drop of sweat from my face. It felt like an apology for his ways, and a reminder that he was there for me. My heart ached. “Want to try a few more times?”
I didn't, but the only way I would learn is to keep failing for a little bit longer first. “Let's do this.”
I kept practicing while he wandered around outside, digging tunnels and touching base every few minutes to make sure I was safe. At one point, he dragged a small, ratty-looking fir into the cabin and pronounced it our Christmas tree, decorating it with random ties and sashes he found in the closets. I laughed until I nearly cried, but there was more cheer in that pathetic looking pile of twigs and threads than every other holiday season I’d ever had before. When I told him that, he reached out and squeezed my hand. Just once.
And it was perfect.
Whenever I needed a break, he told me all about his pack. About his parents who had died a few years ago. He told me about the different shifters he had under his command, about the cubs that were soon to be born and the ones who were going from sweet-cheeked kids to sulky teenagers.
He told me stories about the surrounding packs, who led them, and what the politics were and his role in them. He explained what really happened to the sheriff and about Talin’s recovering children, and I cried and told Wyatt that I wanted to thank them in person. They quite possibly saved my life that night. He told me lore and fairytales that were told to him as a child, and shared some truly harrowing stories about wizards.
He explained more about what a mate meant to a shifter, and how when mates touched for the first time, a painful, identical mark would flare up instantly—which is where our matching diamonds came from. I soaked up everything he told me like a sponge. This was a whole new world, one where I not only might have a place in it, but someone had rolled out a red carpet for me.
In exchange, I told him things I could remember from childhood, all of the strange, sweet, and unforgettable characters I'd met while being dragged from town to town. I focused on the entertaining stories, the ones that you share over a drink with friends and laugh good-naturedly about. But the more questions he asked, the darker some of my reflections were, and it wasn't long before I could feel the anger in him. “I hate that you went through these things as just a child. This is not what my parents wanted.”
“There were some close calls, but no one ever laid a hand on me. In that way, compared to some of the other people I've met in my life, I had a damn good deal.”
“Everyone has a damn good deal when you sent the bar low enough it’s buried in the ground,” he grumbled, but let it go for now. “Anyway, I’m going to make dinner. Keep practicing?”
“Throw in a bottle of wine if there’s any,” I yelled after his retreating back. “Wine solves everything.”