by SM Reine
Summer lost control of her second skin. Fingers emerged from her paws, fur fell away, her nose shortened. It was a lot colder without the protection of dense fur, and her lacerated skin burned.
As soon as she had a mouth, she said, “I thought you said that you’re a human.” She groaned when Nash scooped her off the ground and stood.
“I never said any such thing.”
“What are you?” she whispered, struggling to focus on him as her vision darkened at the edges.
The last thing she heard before passing out was a single word: “Angel.”
Then she was gone.
seven
Memories flitted through Summer’s dreams. Memories of bears, caves, and broken bones. Dragging Abram out of the ravine had been a two person job after he broke his ankle, and Gran and Uncle Scott prioritized getting him to the truck. That left Summer healing in the cave with no company but a dead bear.
It couldn’t have been longer than ten minutes before Summer was healed enough to follow them, but to a nine year old, it felt like months. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the bear’s unseeing gaze as the healing fever wracked her body.
She had never experienced anything like the pain of falling under a bear’s claws, yet she still felt sadness at seeing it dead. A force of nature had been destroyed. Gran had proved herself the real apex predator.
Once Uncle Scott returned with a spare sweater, Summer changed back, dressed, and followed him to the cottage.
Gran had already driven Abram home. She didn’t look angry when she emerged from his room a couple of hours later. “He’s okay,” she said, sitting next to Summer on the couch. “And stop looking like you swallowed a rotten egg, because you’re not in trouble. I reckon your experience was lesson enough.”
But that wasn’t why Summer had been struggling to hold back tears. She leaned her head on Gran’s shoulder. “Are you sorry that you killed the bear?”
“No,” Gran said, stroking a hand over her curls. “But I’m sorry that you put me in a place where I had to.” She still didn’t look mad, but Summer felt as though she had been slapped across the face.
“We’re not normal, are we?” Summer asked, hot tears sliding down her cheeks.
“No,” Gran said. “You’re special. Both you and your brother.” She then kissed Summer’s forehead. “Your life’s a gift, pumpkin. Show a little appreciation for it.”
Summer had healed her wounds from fighting a bear in minutes, but when she woke up in the passenger’s seat of Nash’s sports car, she still hadn’t healed all of the scratches inflicted by the winged children. Nash’s jacket draped over her wasn’t doing much to protect the upholstery. Blood and fur was everywhere.
He ignored her protests as he pulled her out of the car and carried her up the front steps to his house. Summer curled against his chest, head tucked under his chin and fingers gripping the collar of his damp shirt.
Margaret met them at the door. “Another dress, please,” Nash said, and the maid disappeared to follow his instructions.
“I can walk,” she said as he mounted the stairs.
“And you would surely walk straight out my door. No, I don’t think so. I’m not letting you out of my sight again.”
“But my brother—”
Nash turned his blazing stare on her. “Your brother is fully capable of taking care of himself. The claws of a balam aren’t poisonous to humans. He’ll be fine. You, on the other hand…”
Summer gave a shaky laugh. “You say that like I’m not human.” She felt his throat humming next to her ear and realized that he was laughing.
It was pretty ridiculous to claim she was normal now that he had seen her shapeshift, but all of Gran’s warnings through the years resonated through her skull. You can’t ever tell anyone. You can’t ever show anyone. We have to be careful, babe, because we’re alone in this world.
But Nash had wings. Wings. Gran had been wrong about one thing—they weren’t alone after all.
He kicked open heavy double doors and carried Summer into a room she hadn’t seen before. There were more bookshelves, a four-poster bed with filmy curtains, and a fainting couch underneath the bay window overlooking the lake.
Surprise rolled through her. Nash had taken her to his bedroom.
His movements were surprisingly graceful as he set her on the end of the bed. She hugged his jacket tight around her. “Don’t move,” he said, stepping into the adjoining bathroom and returning with a wet washcloth.
“I’m fine,” she said when he lifted her arm to wash the scratches.
He scowled as he washed the blood away. “Can’t turn my back on you,” he muttered, turning to her other arm. Margaret entered with another dress, which only looked like a pile of white cloth in her hands. “Put it on the desk,” Nash said without looking up.
“Can’t I just wear it now?” Summer asked, watching Margaret exit with longing eyes.
“No.”
He yanked his jacket away from her, and his eyes skimmed her naked body. Summer’s hands flew to cover her modest breasts.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“You’re a werewolf,” Nash snapped, swatting her hands aside. He didn’t seem interested in her bare skin. Only the injuries. “You’ll never heal these wounds unless we clean them. A balam’s claws are silver.”
“But—”
He lifted her into his arms again and strode toward the bathroom. Summer kicked at him half-heartedly. Not only were her injuries failing to heal, her muscles felt weirdly liquid, as though the strength had been drained from her.
Nash propped her against the marble counter and started twisting brass knobs on his claw-footed tub. Steaming water poured from the first tap; soap came from the second. “We’ll have to flush the silver from your system before it gets too deep,” he said, testing the temperature on his wrist. “I’m impressed that your symptoms aren’t worse by now.”
She twisted to inspect her body in the mirror. A long slice marked her from underarm to hip on the right side, her neck had four parallel gashes, and it looked like her arms had been chewed. Those children had been brutal in the moments that she had been pinned below them. She hated to think of what they could have done with a few more seconds.
“You seem to know an awful lot about shapeshifters,” Summer said, wincing as she gently probed the biggest injury with her fingertips.
She watched Nash move behind her in the reflection. He flicked the water off of his hands into the tub. “Of course I do. You’re hardly the first werewolf I’ve met.”
Nash faced her again, leaving the tub to fill behind him. Only now did he look at her—really look at her, and not just the injuries. She lost herself in the endless depths of his gaze, and the worry betrayed by his frown. Nash was worried about her. The glow of that knowledge pushed away everything else, including the pain of the slices, her aching muscles, and her embarrassment.
Well, maybe not that last one.
Summer grabbed a towel off the rack and covered herself with it.
He promptly tugged it out of her hands. “Don’t touch that. It’s expensive, and you’ll bloody it.”
“Excuse me,” Summer said, trying to pull it back, and failing. Most pathetic game of tug-of-war ever.
“You can’t tell me that you’re embarrassed. I’ve never met a modest werewolf.”
“You keep saying ‘werewolf.’ What’s a werewolf?”
Nash’s eyes widened in surprise. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” she asked.
He twisted the knob to turn the water off again. The bath was full to the rim. “Come,” Nash said, steadying her arm as she slipped a foot into the water. She hissed at the burn of the heat. Water slopped over the sides.
Settling into the tub was sin on her sore muscles. Summer sank against the porcelain, suddenly forgetting that she was supposed to be embarrassed. The water swirled with bubbles and waves of heat, and the tips of her hair floated on the
surface. Hopefully, angels were well-stocked with oils and conditioners, or else she was going to have an afro when she came out.
“What’s a werewolf?” she asked, opening her eyes to lazy slits. “What are you?”
“You really have grown up in Hazel Cove,” Nash said, his voice tinged with wonder. He kneeled beside the tub, unbuttoned the wrists of his shirt, and rolled the sleeves to his elbows. “It explains why you didn’t recognize my name, my eyes, or my smell. Had you grown up among kin, you would have realized that I’m an angel the instant we met.”
“Where did you come from?” she asked.
Nash leaned his elbows on the edge of the tub. “Where do you think I came from? What do you know of my kind?”
“My grandmother said that the world used to be full of angels and demons, but that all of them have been gone for a while. Gran, my brother, and I are the only paranormal things remaining.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is that what she told you?”
“I don’t like the accusation in your tone,” Summer said, pulling the bubbles toward her chest. “Can I get dressed now?”
“Are you healed?”
She lifted her arm. Some of the smaller cuts were gone. “Not quite.”
“Then no,” he said, pushing her arm back into the bath. He took a fresh sponge out of a basket on the counter and dipped it in the water. “Tell me how you attracted the notice of the balam.”
“I don’t know. I heard Abram crying out. I found him.” She flinched at the contact of the sponge against her wounds. “I meant to save him, but…I wasn’t strong enough. I’ve never had to fight before.”
“You shouldn’t feel shame. You and your human brother are poorly matched against the balam. They are of ethereal blood, born from the same power as angels, and much stronger than any mortal. The real question is how they reached this place.”
“I guess they came to Hazel Cove the same way you did,” Summer said. She ventured a smile. “Which was…how, exactly?” Nash gave her a blank look. “What, so I have to be naked around you, but you’re not going to get naked around me?”
His right eyebrow quirked. “I could get naked.”
“Not like that,” she said, but the damage was done. A blush was permanently affixed to her cheeks.
Summer couldn’t hold a proper conversation while naked in Nash’s huge bathroom of marble and brass fixtures. Especially not when it looked like he was set on sponge bathing her. She bit back the rest of her questions and complied with Nash’s orders, which were kept short. “Lift your arm.” “Now your other arm.” “Lean forward.” That kind of thing.
One by one, he gently washed out her cuts with the sponge until the water was dark with her blood, the air stunk of silver, and her wounds began to fade.
Nash’s fingers dipped beneath the surface and brushed against her hip. She just about jumped out of her skin, but he only unplugged the drain stopper.
“You’re also the only nervous werewolf I’ve encountered,” he said, a smile teasing at the corners of his lips.
“I’m not nervous,” Summer said. “It’s just…you make me nervous.”
He was still leaning forward, and their faces were centimeters apart. His warm, soapy hand cupped her jaw. “I can’t imagine why.”
She held her breath, expecting him to finally cross the line that he had been threatening to cross since the moment she ran into him in Hanlon Hall. But a shadow crossed his eyes, his hand fell, and he stood.
Nash was suddenly extremely interested in drying off his arms on one of his fluffy white towels.
“You’ll need to shower the rest of the silver away,” he said. “I trust you can do it on your own.”
He left, shutting the door behind him. The water drained from the tub, leaving Summer naked and alone.
Summer wrapped herself in a towel before emerging from the bathroom. The last of the blood had sluiced away in the shower, allowing the wounds to close properly, and now she was in good shape…physically speaking. Her confused emotions were a totally different matter.
Nash waited in the bedroom, wearing a clean change of clothes and facing the storm outside his window. There were no holes in the back of his shirt, no bulges, no indicator that there had once been wings there at all.
“Margaret is preparing the adjacent bedroom for you,” he said.
“You can keep saying that, but it doesn’t mean I’m staying.” Summer picked the dress up off the table and held it up. Looked like another good fit. “I have to get back to Gran and my brother.”
“Why? You’ve clearly been lied to for your entire life. Your grandmother has led you to believe you’re simply special, when the truth is far more disturbing.”
Summer’s grip on the dress tightened until her knuckles whitened. “And what truth is that?”
Nash offered his cell phone to her.
“Why don’t you ask your grandmother yourself?”
“I will, as soon as I go home,” she said, hugging the towel around her body. “Am I going to have to run in my second skin, or are you going to give me a ride?”
“You’re not going home. Somehow, something has crossed into this world, and it wants to kill you. I’m not going to allow that.”
“They didn’t originally attack me; they attacked Abram. I have to make sure he’s okay.”
He still held the cell between them, arm unwavering. “Then that’s something else you can ask when you call your grandmother.”
Summer bit her bottom lip, but she took the phone.
She sat on the edge of Nash’s bed to dial. The first time he had set her there, she hadn’t noticed how soft the mattress and silken bedspread were. There was a smudge of blood on one of the fleur-de-lis.
It only took two rings for Gran to pick up. “Hello?” Her voice was reserved.
“Gran! It’s me!”
“Summer,” she sighed, all of the caution vanishing instantly. “Oh, thank God. Are you all right? Where are you?”
“I’m safe,” Summer said, shooting a look at Nash. He was still by the window, pretending not to listen. “Did Abram get home?”
“Yeah, and what a fine mess he is. The things he’s telling me… Are you on your way home?”
Summer ignored the question. “But he’s okay, right?”
“As okay as someone with a good thump on the head and blood loss can be, but you know Abram. He’s tougher than a tiger. He’s already trying to talk me into giving him the key to my gun safe—which is not happening, son, because you are not hunting those things!” Gran’s volume rose on the last few words until it sounded like she was shouting across the house. If she was yelling at Abram, he definitely had to be in pretty good shape. It was a relief to hear it.
Which left only one question.
“You said that we were alone,” Summer said, dropping into a whisper. “You said we were special. You didn’t say that there were others.”
Gran fell silent.
Summer’s grip grew tighter and tighter on the phone as the silence dragged on. Her heart sank.
“You haven’t been keeping things from us, have you?” Summer asked in a tiny voice.
A heavy sigh blew over the other end of the line. “Guess it’s time we have a talk, babe. Not over the phone. When will you be home?”
Nash was right. Gran had lied.
The shock of it settled into her bones.
“Soon,” Summer said, ducking her head. The tips of her damp hair dripped on the bedspread, leaving little circles like tears. “I have to go.”
“Love you, pumpkin.”
Summer hung up without responding.
Nash stood on the balcony, alone with the wind and the sprinkling rain. It took incredible amounts of self-restraint not to peer through the curtains and watch Summer get dressed.
It should have been impossible for the balam to cross over, yet he had seen the flare of gray light and fought the creatures personally. It hadn’t been a hallucination after millennia of isolation. And if
the balam had come in, then that meant there was a way out as well.
A door must have been opened. Nash was so close to escape.
Yet what had seemed like a simple goal just hours earlier was suddenly much more complicated.
Mortal affairs were inconsequential to him. Lies and betrayal—these things fell from human mouths like ripe fruit from a tree, and he had long since learned not to trust what any mortal said. But this betrayal from her grandmother had wounded Summer in a way that the balam had not, and he could not heal these wounds with a hot bath and a change of clothes.
The fact that he wanted to heal her was the most befuddling part of all.
He prowled back and forth on his balcony. The lake’s surface roiled with the storm, black and murky, like the confusion that beat within his chest.
The door to his bedroom slid open and Summer stepped out wearing the dress Margaret selected. It had a low, swooping neckline, short sleeves, and a loose skirt that terminated at an indecent length. He couldn’t help following the curve of her bare thigh down to her calf, her delicate ankle, her shoeless feet.
Summer leaned her elbows on the railing beside him. “The view out here is beautiful,” she said. The wind blew through her wild, unkempt curls, baring her throat in tantalizing glimpses. Nash had never found himself so fascinated by a woman’s form before.
What was it about Summer that entranced him? Was it what her existence meant—the freedom she would allow him to reach? Or was it something else completely?
He pinned her against the side of the rail with his arms on either side of her body. “Why are you so different?” he asked in a low, husky voice. Summer braced her hands behind her for balance. “Tell me, woman.”
She smiled, and he thought that he had never seen a smile so sweet and coy. The apples of her cheeks dimpled. But the smile still showed hints of sadness, and she didn’t have the usual fire in her voice. “It’s the fur, right? Nobody can resist the fur.”
The suggestion of someone else finding her irresistible made jealousy choke him. Nash’s hand slid to the back of her neck, and her lips parted softly, as if silently gasping at his touch.