“Yeah. Just thinking.”
“No, I mean . . . You were seeing Sem first thing in the morning. You’re not dying or something, are you?”
I blink at her, and all at once I’m not quite sure how to breathe, or speak, or interact with the world surrounding me. It’s like I’ve been locked in a cupboard for months. But its door has been ripped open, and now there’s light. There’s air. There’s a fucking future.
I don’t have CSD. Which means that I have more than just months left. I can make choices. I can go back to the Southwest, see Ana grow up, watch Misery be the worst parent on the planet. I can be a journalist again, or a financial advisor, or dedicate the next ten years to learning how to solve Rubik’s Cubes. I can apply for a loan, buy a cabin close to the Pacific Coast, and spend my mornings exploring the shoreline. I can annoy Koen ad infinitum.
The joy of it sings so loudly in my blood, the car is too small to contain it. I have to trap it within my body and let go of it little by little, in slow puffs of air.
“No,” I say at last. Because for the first time in months, I can. “As it turns out, I’m not dying.”
“‘Kay. Good.”
“I . . . Brenna, could we stop by the store?”
“Sure. Why?”
“I . . .” A tear slides down my cheek. I cover my smile with the palm of my hand. “I just realized that I’m going to need some sunscreen.”
I SPEND THE DAY ALONE IN THE CABIN, WITH FREQUENT VISITS from the Weres patrolling the surrounding area. A couple of them I know. Several introduce themselves. All of them are naked. I must be adapting well to the Northwest lifestyle, because I barely notice.
They check in, see if I need anything. Ask the same questions, in the same order, with the same wording, which may take away some of the spontaneity but makes them feel even more like the proxies of the man who sent them.
I talk on the phone with Ana, then Ana and Misery, then just Misery. It’s hard not to share that I’m not yet headed for the mushroom suit.
Can’t tell them about the sequel if you didn’t let them watch the original.
I putter around the house. Clean the sheets. I’m not hungry, but I open the fridge anyway, just to glance affectionately at the still prominently placed unicorn waffles. I play the piano, sure it’s silently cringing at how ghostly I pale in comparison to its owner. I try not to think about Koen’s hands. I nap, hoping I won’t wake up in flames. Or uncontrollably horny.
Heat spotting, Layla called it.
They are surges that happen before Heat itself. Not long lasting, but can be intense. I suspect that your high fevers may have been surges left unattended.
Koen returns a little before sunset, while I’m going to town on a seven-year-old half-completed crossword I found under his bed. I have a whole speech ready- about what happened last night, about my lifespan’s sudden growth spurt, about how I never meant to force him to break his covenant. About how sorry I am that he spent his day dealing with Vampyre commandos who are after me, and the fact that yes, I’m absolutely judging him for letting nearly a decade pass without filling in seven across: diminishing marginal utility. But he walks inside, dark circles under his eyes and tousled hair, caught at a rare unguarded time, and all I can squawk out is “I made dinner.”
He turns. Stares. Sucks in his cheek. “Did you.” He sounds suspicious.
“Yup.”
“Saul said you’ve been asleep for the past four hours.”
“I lied. I’m good at it, as you know. Plus, by the fourth person who knocked to ask if I needed anything, I kinda knew the- What happened to your side?” A large stain seeps into the dark gray of his cotton Henley. He glances at it like he’d forgotten about it.
“I’m going to get changed.”
The closer I get, the easier it is to smell it- the coppery tinge of fresh Were blood, so different from the iron of mine. “Sure, sure. ‘Tis but a scratch. You’ve proven your Alpha unflappability. Your pain threshold is so high, it’s wondering if the color blue you see is different from the color blue I see. I am adequately impressed- now take the shirt off.”
“And if I’m deathly wounded?” His eyebrow twitches skeptically. “What are you going to do about it, doctor?”
I gasp. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to pretend I know Were anatomy, loudly debate whether you need stitches, decide that you don’t, because I have no idea what stitches even are, and clean the general area of the wound with a cotton swab while ignoring the grosser bits. Most importantly, I will not pass Go before retrieving my physician assistant diploma. Any objections?”
He hides a smile, but I spot it anyway, even as he reaches over his shoulder, grabs the upper back of the shirt, and pulls it off.
The wound is not a scratch, but neither is it as bad as the pooling blood suggested.
“Alpha,” he murmurs from above my head. “We heal quickly.”
And yet just last night, he was whole. That very spot beneath his ribs was unbroken and smooth. Except, what do I know? I didn’t get to touch him. I touched myself while no one took care of him. So unfair, I could scream. “What happened?”
“Vampyre.”
“I thought they were all . . .”
“Dead?”
I nod.
“We kept a couple for questioning. One’s restraints were a bit loose.”
“And then?”
“Then he wasn’t alive anymore. No big deal.” He disappears into his room, and I shiver, picturing blood the same color as Misery’s. I busy myself warming up dinner, setting the table with the few plates he owns, rinsing the-
Koen comes up behind me, hands bracketing my sides. I jolt. The glass slips from my hand, straight into the sink, but doesn’t break. His body barely touches mine; it’s such an inappropriately intimate, jarringly mundane gesture, my heart cracks.
And then it breaks into a million pieces when his nose nuzzles the crown of my head. His voice is as rough as coffee grounds. “Why does it feel like you’re playing house again, killer?”
Because I am. “Playing” being the key word. “I’m sorry.” My mouth is dry. “I didn’t mean to- “
“C’mon. I didn’t say stop.”
I kill the faucet and turn in his arms. He showered off the blood and put on jeans and a flannel, which hangs open over his bare chest. The look we exchange is worth a million unspoken words but could be condensed to fewer than ten.
It’s wrong. Let’s do it anyway, though.
I reach up. Fasten the buttons of his shirt. Each one feels like a choice, like whittling the rest of the world away to carve out this night just for us. Excising a moment in time. It’s just me and him. And the face he makes a couple of minutes later, when he puts the first bite of dinner in his mouth. “Fuck me.”
I beam. “You are such a better audience than Misery.” I don’t care if Vampyres don’t eat. I’ll take her refusal of my cooking personally till the day I die.
“Holy fuck.” He continues shoveling pasta with meat sauce in his mouth, and I consider taking a picture of it and scrapbooking it. I’ve written an award-winning expos? on the largest embezzlement scandals in The City and covered one of the most abstruse monopoly trials ever recorded, but . . .
Okay, I’m still prouder of those. But it’s satisfying, watching him inhale something I made. Why do I care about some dude’s opinion?
Because he’s not some dude.
“At the Collateral mansion we weren’t allowed to prepare our food, so cooking feels like an insurrectionary action that doesn’t require me to put on clothes and go outside.”
He says “Please, insurge away” over another mouthful, and I decide to just let myself enjoy this. I ask him if he can cook. He says not well, but I tell him that I don’t believe him, not after the piano stunt, and he shakes his head, which I’ve learned is his way of laughing when he doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction of having amused him.
“I can’t believe you let me teach you the C major chord. Why are you that good, by the way?”
“My dad taught music.”
More Kickass Werewolf Reads
Dive into our collection of free werewolf romance novels—where fierce Alphas, daring heroines, and heart-stopping twists await. Every story burns with forbidden desire, loyalty, and destiny. Don’t wait—here’s a world where love bites hard and nothing is stronger than the call of the mate.
Leave a Reply