by Kat Kinney
“Great,” she muttered.
“You do remember there’s someone after you?”
She scoffed. “Totally slipped my mind. And not that you asked, but we’ve busted our asses to get where we have. So sorry, but this sucks just a little for me.”
We stared each other down. Fine. We’d do this the hard way.
“Can you take a break? Something you need to see.”
She let out a little huff. But a second later, the screen door slammed and she followed me out into the bright Texas afternoon. Stalked me was more like it. I got the feeling she was only coming along for the opportunity to do some yelling. Which I probably deserved. I weaved us between busted washing machines and sticky picnic tables swarming with flies towards the chain-link fence at the edge of the property.
She slapped a clothesline out of the way. “Was Lacey the one who texted you last night?”
I ducked under a tree branch. “Yep.”
“So when I asked if you were with anyone—”
“I’m not. We’re not together.”
She narrowed her eyes. “But you are sleeping with her.”
Shoving up my glasses, I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “Was. Past tense. And it was just hooking up. There was never any relationship. I don’t do the girlfriend thing.”
Hayden slowed, the answer clearly not what she was expecting. “Ever?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I just don’t.”
She said nothing. And as usual, from her, silence was like getting punched in the junk. I shouldn’t have cared. We weren’t together. And I’d never been particularly good at owing people explanations. It had always been easier to keep my distance. No strings attached.
But this was Hayden Crowe, the one girl who’d always gotten under my skin, lodged herself between my ribs with the heat of a café mocha on a cold day. Who on that fateful Halloween night, whispered my name in a way no one, no one, had ever said it, before or since. Who stared down at the daisy latte with tiny points I’d poured to match her cat ears, then sat across from me on a stool, heart pounding so hard my wolf clawed at my ribs as I slowly drew a pen across her skin, not even trying to disguise the fact that she wanted me. And when our lips finally touched, it was like I’d never known the taste of air.
Hayden, whose heart I shattered that night. My girl with her daisies, who I’d destroy if I ever tried to love.
But right now, my priority was protecting her. Even if that pissed her off.
We reached the edge of the property. Trash and empty beer bottles littered the overgrown weeds. Beyond the chain link, barbed-tongue grass and mesquite snarled the live oaks and scrubby Texas cedar. They must have gotten rattlesnakes crawling out of here like crazy every summer.
I squinted out at the trees.
“Look, I told you last night, we all have our own ways of caging our wolves. Brody runs. Cal hunts. West and August box.” Then there were the ways of not dealing with shit, like Dallas and River’s, but I decided we could wade into that cesspool later.
She rolled her eyes. “And you sleep around.”
“You remember how it felt last night? That fear you’re going to lose control when the moon rises, hunt someone, kill them, like it?” I heard her inhale of surprise when I stepped into her space. “I’ve spent the last seventeen years, since the day I came to stay with Ben and Sofia, fighting every day to keep the monster inside me in check. So don’t tell me you want to hurt yourself one day, then turn around the next and look down your nose at me for doing what I have to so no one gets hurt.”
Her gaze stayed steady. Heat flared through our bond. I didn’t back down. It was a dumb, reckless thing. We couldn’t be together. Hell if I didn’t know that. But part of me, that part I never allowed to surface, wanted to pretend just for a little while like maybe we could. That I could have this. Have her.
“Thought you didn’t do real.”
My lip twitched. “Thought you didn’t care.”
I closed the distance between us. Her eyes lifted to mine, glacier-blue irises I’d sketched a thousand times and never managed to get right. And hell, I wanted to kiss her.
Not like last night, a wild clash of lips and tongues, or even the way I’d kissed her the night she turned nineteen, so drunk off the taste of her I would gladly have sacrificed air never to stop, but hot and slow, the sort of kiss she’d immortalize in a song, then blush like mad every time she had to sing it up on stage.
Tipping her chin, I traced the bones of her face. Her breath stuttered. She was so nervous I could feel her shaking. Her gaze dipped to my mouth, just for a fraction of a second, and I knew somewhere, buried deep, part of her still wanted us, too.
“Hays?” I asked, voice husky. Wanting permission. Because we both knew I was the one who turned our first kiss into a scar. If this was going to happen, for real this time, it had to be on her terms.
But like I jinxed it, just as I started leaning in, Hayden stepped away. And damn if it wasn’t like getting knifed in the chest. She crossed her arms, chewing that lip ring that less than a second ago was about to be mine.
“You’ve never known what you wanted, Ethan,” she said at last. “You didn’t on my birthday. Much less last night.”
The hell I didn’t.
Hayden flinched when I gripped the back of her neck. My fingers slipped beneath the collar of her jacket, finding the thin ridge of my claiming mark. Her eyes drifted closed, and I had to grip her hip to keep her from falling.
Thirteen years’ worth of English teachers could have told you I was hopeless with words. Give me a pad of paper and a box of charcoal, canvas and paint, or the freaking dust on the side of my truck, and suddenly it was like trying to hold back the tide with a broom. Sofia once caught me out on the back deck at three in the morning, barefoot and in my pajamas, sketching by the thinnest sliver of moon. I never even heard her come up, didn’t notice her take a seat on the porch swing, didn’t see her pull the quilt up over her lap. Only when the wind stirred through the grass and I finally caught her scent did I look up, guilty. She smiled, came over to kiss the top of my head, and reminded me there was school in a few hours, so I should try to get some sleep.
To this day, that drawing of moonlight filtering in through the lazy sway-back live oaks off the back deck was framed in the kitchen right over the sugar cannisters.
There was something raw and terrible about linking yourself to another person through a bond, at being able to feel ripples of their anger and hurt, lust and hunger, pride and shame, shivering through you night and day. It was one reason I fought tooth and nail to keep the pack bonds with my family closed down. Why I’d made a point never to let things with any girl go too far.
I stared down at Hayden, feeling that familiar urge to run, to shut down. I clawed it back. Her fingers encircled my wrist where her claiming mark pulsed just above my leather cuff, the raw connection of the bond flaring sharp as sunlight. Her eyes widened fractionally, and I leaned in, a breath from her lips.
“Yeah, the first part? Not true. There’s a difference between not knowing what you want and knowing you can’t ever have it.”
Hayden shivered, but I knew like this, linked with me, she could feel my absolute sincerity. That it wasn’t nothing. That we weren’t nothing. Not to me. Not ever.
“As for the second?” I smiled sadly, because we both knew I couldn’t promise she wouldn’t wind up getting hurt. Somehow, everyone around me always did. “I’ve always known the right thing was to stay away from you. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been absolute torture.”
I released Hayden. She stared up at me, eyelashes fluttering black as ash against the pale expanse of her cheeks. But I’d been listening, even if she thought I hadn’t. This was happening too fast for her. Fine. I was in it for the long game.
Taking her hand, I weaved us around broken beer bottles and an old pizza box to the corner of the fence. This time, she didn’t pull away.
“Sm
ell anything?”
Hayden wrinkled her nose. “Dog piss?”
“Cute. And not far off.”
I waited while she frowned, fingers hooking into the chain link. Her head whipped around.
“Say hello to your stalker.”
5
Hayden
“WOULDN’T WE BE SAFER BACK IN TOWN?” Settling back against the window of Ethan’s truck, I tucked one foot under my knee and stretched the other out across the floorboard. The old Ford rocked under a blast of brisk autumn wind, dappled sunlight filtering in through the leaves of the old live oaks out on the Caldwell property.
Across from me, Ethan dunked a triangle of grilled cheese into a paper cup of tomato soup. “You were bitten in the middle of Austin. How’s that safer going for you?”
“I was probably the only non-vegan food source for miles.”
“Other than, you know, Stubb’s, Franklin’s, Hut’s—”
“Why do I keep you around?”
“I know to ignore your instructions and dangle food in front of you when you start hangry-texting.”
“Bitch. And that so isn’t a thing.”
“You wanna ask your sister?”
“She’ll take my side.”
“Uh huh.”
Flipping him off, I bit into my sandwich. Layers of gooey smoked cheddar and gouda were melted between thick slices of crusty sourdough bread, the layers exploding with butter.
I scrolled through his phone, cueing up Dirty Projectors. The bass pounded out the opening rhythm, the drums laying down a beat that was both dark and defiant. The fingers of my left hand started to twitch. As the guitarist came in on the first chords, the hair at the back of my neck rose, the shiver that traced up my spine lighting me up better than sex.
Ethan stared out at the horizon. “Brody agreed to hold off calling the Council for a few days. We don’t know yet that your case is linked to the disappearances. He’s going over to the trailer park now to make some noise.”
I shivered. “So we’re basically out here as bait?”
Ethan met my eye. “He won’t touch you, Daisy.”
The cab of the truck fell silent. The next song started up, a bassline I’d have recognized anywhere. Since, you know, I wrote it.
At the corner of his instep, in one of the empty spaces of his checkerboard Vans, the faded remnant of a penned-in daisy stared up at me. My toe gently nudged his, our feet rocking back and forth in a lazy rhythm.
Picking up my foot, he tugged it into his lap. “Came to see you once, you know.”
“You mean—?”
He twirled one of my shoelaces. “Down in Austin. It was that show your band played at Hole in the Wall. You guys were amazing.”
“Why didn’t you come up to talk to me after the set? I would have—"
“Because it wouldn’t have changed anything.” His fingers ran absently over my ankle. “I just… needed to know you were okay, I guess, after everything that happened with your dad. And after the way we left things.”
“Wow… okay.”
Ethan’s eyes flicked to mine, irises the heated amber of an autumn sunset. And despite everything, my stomach fluttered. Damn Ethan Caldwell and his dark looks and stupid mouth I both wanted to slap a hand over and kiss senseless.
“Got something to say, then say it.”
“I don’t.”
He looked down. “We doing the bullshit thing now, Daisy?”
I took a sip from the to-go cup he’d brought me from Dark, tasting cocoa, vanilla and peppermint. A wax paper sack of Thin Mints was tucked into the console, a pale-yellow post-it with a cartoonish muffin on it taped to the side of the cup. Three years, and he still remembered exactly what I liked. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
Ethan squinted out at the trees. “You heard from Zane? It’s been, what, four years?”
I shrugged, picking at a frayed spot on the leg of my jeans. “Meera thinks law enforcement or the hospitals would have contacted us by now if he was dead. He owed a lot of people money.”
Ethan’s fingers moved gently back and forth over the bones of my ankle. “Are his dealers giving you or Ellie trouble?”
“No. Not since—"
Blinking when my eyes started to sting, I quickly turned to stare out the window.
When my dad hadn’t come home, I'd done everything I could to cling to the illusion of normalcy for Ellie’s sake. We would find a way, I reasoned, even after he was let go after a week of failing to show up to work. After Ellie and I were dropped from his insurance coverage. When my meager checks at Dark had to go to his dealers rather than paying for food. Every morning I waited until Ellie was at school to call the hospitals, to scream at creditors that I had no idea where my father was, so to stop calling already. I took every shift Ethan could give me at Dark and moonlighted on the weekends in Austin driving for Uber. And it still wasn’t enough.
How easy it had been in those dark, hopeless months for exhaustion, fear and stress to distort the way I perceived the world. I’d finally broken down one night in the parking lot when Axel wouldn’t start, curling up on the sidewalk and sobbing into the frayed knees of my jeans. Ethan had found me there, pressed until I eventually confessed the truth.
A week later, it had all stopped. The phone calls. The late-night knocks on our door. I asked him, just once, if it had been him. No idea what you’re talking about. And, hey. Cappuccino. Table four.
Which had only driven my secret crush to epic proportions.
There was an article Meera had left taped to my door, the one that said kids who grew up in a house without a stable adult figure isolated ourselves, that we were approval seekers who repressed our feelings, confused love and pity, and sought out partners as screwed up as we were.
Was that what I was doing? Maybe. The last thing I wanted was to end up in another relationship where I would be constantly let down, jerked around, and abandoned. Undeniable chemistry aside, if Ethan and I couldn’t get our shit together, we were better off as friends.
“That night you left?” Ethan stared out at the wind whipping through the tall grass. “I should’ve gone after you. It was a dick move to let you leave, let you think I’d just been hoping to hook up.”
“Weren’t you?” I countered. “I thought that’s what you did.”
“Yeah, but not with you.”
“Because I was human?”
“No. I’ve—” He stopped short, fiddling with my shoelaces.
I gave him a pointed look. “Been with human girls?”
He hesitated, like this was the last thing in the world he wanted to tell me. “It’s permitted as long as we’re careful. Obviously, humans can’t find out what we are. One-night stands are fine. Except for a day or two at the full moon when our viral levels rise, there’s virtually no risk of transmission. But a relationship would have put both of us at risk.”
“So why kiss me?”
“Because just for a second, even though I knew I shouldn’t, that we couldn’t ever… be anything, I wanted to pretend like we could. Wanted to kick myself for weeks afterward, for screwing with your head that way.”
“You never even considered telling me the truth?” I said, testing the next words carefully. “Because you can’t tell me humans and weres never get into relationships. I’ve read too many romance novels.”
“Oh, it happens,” he said dryly. “Just not quite in the hearts-and-flowers way you’re probably picturing. It never would have been allowed—at least not while you remained human. Had the Council found out, they would have ordered you forcibly changed. And no way could I have done something like that to you, stolen your chance at a normal life.”
Which, okay, was kind of noble. For a beat, the wind rocked the car. I took a steadying breath.
“And now?”
Ethan tugged at my foot, dragging me across the bench seat into his lap. “I’ve always told myself finding someone was out of the question, that I could never live that sort of life. Never
be—”
He trailed off, brow furrowed. I skimmed fingertips over his stubble, wanting to taste his skin, feel his beard rough against my chin as his tongue swept through my mouth. He closed his eyes at the touch, and I felt my heartbeat as a tangible, physical ache in my chest.
“And now you’re here. You’re a were, and not because I snapped and stole your life from you. I don’t know, Hays. I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been constantly on my mind since the moment you showed up last night. That you and I, that maybe we could.”
He smoothed loose strands of hair back from my face, fingertips rough and calloused, waiting, asking permission. I held my breath, trembling in anticipation.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Ethan gripped the back of my neck, drawing me in. Fingertips skated up my spine. I shivered. When his mouth touched mine, it wasn’t hard, wasn’t hungry. Ethan kissed me as if he feared he might break me. Might break us. And in that dizzying, incandescent moment, for just a second, I let myself believe.
“Hays,” he whispered, just as we were interrupted by his phone. Tracing my cheek, he swiped to answer it. “Yeah, August, go ahead.” There was a pause. “Hang on. I’m going to put you on speaker.”
Traffic hummed in the background. “Something’s up. Does Ellie have a boyfriend? Anyone who’d have access to her car?”
My breath stilled. “No. Not that I know of, anyway.”
For a beat, August was silent. “Checked her car a little while ago when she went to class. Someone’s been sniffing around. They tried all the door handles, poked around with the latch to the trunk—”
“Another were—”
“No,” August said quickly. “Scent was fresh. Human male.”
“Could he be working with someone?”
“Might be nothing. Some rando trying to decide if she had anything valuable in the trunk who got freaked and bolted when someone walked by. But I’ll keep an eye out.”