Sam rewarded me with the lightest of kisses on my ear before he spoke into it. “Isn’t it amazing?”
I opened my eyes; colors seemed dull in comparison with what I had just experienced. I couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound trivial, so I just nodded. He kissed me again, on my cheek, and gazed at my face, his expression bright and delighted with whatever he saw in mine. It occurred to me that he hadn’t shared this place, this experience, with anyone else. Just me.
“I love it,” I said finally, in a voice so low I’m not even sure he could hear it. But of course he could. He could hear everything I could.
I wasn’t sure if I was ready to admit how not normal I was.
Sam released all of me but my hand, and tugged me deeper into the shop. “Come on. Now the hard part. Pick something. What do you want? Pick something. Anything. I’ll get it for you.”
I want you. Feeling the grip of his hand in mine, the brush of his skin on mine, seeing the way he moved in front of me, equal parts human and wolf, and remembering his smell — I ached with wanting to kiss him.
Sam’s hand squeezed on mine as if he was reading my thoughts, and he led me to the candy counter. I stared at the rows of perfect chocolates, petit fours, coated pretzels, and truffles.
“Cold out tonight, isn’t it?” the girl behind the counter asked. “It’s supposed to snow. I can’t wait.” She looked up at us and gave us a silly, indulgent smile, and I wondered just how stupidly happy we looked, holding hands and drooling over chocolates.
“What’s the best?” I asked.
The girl immediately pointed out a few racks of chocolates. Sam shook his head. “Could we get two hot chocolates?”
“Whipped cream?”
“Do you have to ask?”
She grinned at us and turned around to prepare it. A whuff of rich chocolate gusted over the counter when she opened the tin of cocoa. While she dribbled peppermint extract into the bottom of paper cups, I turned to Sam and took his other hand. I stood on my toes and stole a soft kiss from his lips. “Surprise attack,” I said.
Sam leaned down and kissed me back, his mouth lingering on mine, teeth grazing my lower lip, making me shiver. “Surprise attack back.”
“Sneaky,” I said, my voice breathier than I intended.
“You two are too cute,” the counter girl said, setting two cups piled with whipped cream on the counter. She had a sort of lopsided, open smile that made me think she laughed a lot. “Seriously. How long have you been going out?”
Sam let go of my hands to get his wallet and took out some bills. “Six years.”
I wrinkled my nose to cover a laugh. Of course he would count the time that we’d been two entirely different species.
“Whoa.” Counter girl nodded appreciatively. “That’s pretty amazing for a couple your age.”
Sam handed me my hot chocolate and didn’t answer. But his yellow eyes gazed at me possessively — I wondered if he realized that the way he looked at me was far more intimate than copping a feel could ever be.
I crouched to look at the almond bark on the bottom shelf in the counter. I wasn’t quite bold enough to look at either of them when I admitted, “Well, it was love at first sight.”
The girl sighed. “That is just so romantic. Do me a favor, and don’t you two ever change. The world needs more love at first sight.”
Sam’s voice was husky. “Do you want some of those, Grace?”
Something in his voice, a catch, made me realize that my words had more of an effect than I’d intended. I wondered when the last time someone had told him they loved him was.
That was a really sad thing to think about.
I stood up and took Sam’s hand again; his fingers gripped mine so hard it almost hurt. I said, “Those buttercreams look fantastic, actually. Can we get some of those?”
Sam nodded at the girl behind the counter. A few minutes later, I was clutching a small paper bag of sweets and Sam had whipped cream on the end of his nose. I pointed it out and he grimaced, embarrassed, wiping it off with his sleeve.
“I’m going to go start the car,” I said, handing him the bag. He looked at me without saying anything, so I added, “To warm it up.”
“Oh. Right. Good thinking.”
I think he’d forgotten how cold it was outside. I hadn’t, though, and I had a horrible picture in my head of him spasming in the car while I tried to get the heat higher. I left him in the store and headed out into the dark winter night.
It was weird how as soon as the door closed behind me, I felt utterly alone, suddenly assaulted with the vastness of the night, lost without Sam’s touch and scent to anchor me. Nothing here was familiar to me. If Sam became a wolf right now, I didn’t know how long it would take me to find my way home or what I’d do with him — I wouldn’t be able to just leave him here, miles of interstate away from his woods. I’d lose him in both his forms. The street was already dusted with white, and more snowflakes drifted down around me, delicate and ominous. As I unlocked the car door, my breath made ghostly shapes in front of me.
This increasing unease was unusual for me. I shivered and waited in the Bronco until it was warmed up, sipping my hot chocolate. Sam was right — the hot chocolate was amazing, and immediately I felt better. The little bit of mint shot my mouth through with cold at the same time that the chocolate filled it with warmth. It was soothing, too, and by the time the car was warm, I felt silly for imagining anything would go wrong tonight.
I jumped out of the Bronco and stuck my head in the candy shop, finding Sam where he lingered by the door. “It’s ready.”
Sam shuddered visibly when he felt the blast of cold air come in the door, and without a word, he bolted for the Bronco. I called a thanks to the counter girl before following Sam, but on the way to the car, I saw something on the sidewalk that made me pause. Beneath the scuffed footsteps Sam had made were another, older set that I hadn’t noticed before, pacing back and forth through the new snow in front of the candy shop.
My eyes followed their path as they crossed back and forth by the shop, steps long and light, and then I let my gaze follow them down the sidewalk. There was a dark pile about fifteen feet away, out of the bright circle of light of the streetlamp. I hesitated, thinking, Just get in the Bronco, but then instinct pricked me, and I went to it.
It was a dark jacket, a pair of jeans, and a turtleneck, and leading away from the clothing was a trail of pawprints through the light dusting of snow.
It sounds stupid, but one of the things that I loved about Grace was how she didn’t have to talk. Sometimes, I just wanted my silences to stay silent, full of thoughts, empty of words. Where another girl might have tried to lure me into conversation, Grace just reached for my hand, resting our knotted hands on my leg, and leaned her head against my shoulder until we were well out of Duluth. She didn’t ask how I knew my way around the city, or why my eyes lingered on the road that my parents used to turn down to get to our neighborhood, or how it was that a kid from Duluth ended up living in a wolf pack near the Canadian border.
And when she did finally speak, taking her hand off mine to retrieve a buttercream from the candy shop bag, she told me about how, as a kid, she’d once made cookies with leftover boiled Easter eggs instead of raw ones. It was exactly what I wanted — beautiful distraction.
Until I heard the musical tone of a cell phone, a descending collection of digital notes, coming from my pocket. For a second I couldn’t think why a phone would be in my coat, and then I remembered Beck stuffing it into my hand while I stared past him. Call me when you need me was what he had said.
Funny how he had said when, not if.
“Is that a phone?” Grace’s eyebrows drew down over her eyes. “You have a phone?”
Beautiful distraction crashed around me as I dug it out of my pocket. “I didn’t,” I said weakly. She kept looking at me, and the little bit of hurt in her eyes killed me. Shame colored my cheeks. “I just got one,” I said. The phone rang aga
in, and I hit the ANSWER button. I didn’t have to look at the screen to know who was calling.
“Where are you, Sam? It’s cold.” Beck’s voice was full of the genuine concern that I’d always appreciated.
I was aware of Grace’s eyes on me.
I didn’t want his concern. “I’m fine.”
Beck paused, and I imagined him dissecting the tone of my voice. “Sam, it’s not so black-and-white. Try to understand. You won’t even give me a chance to talk to you. When have I ever been wrong?”
“Now,” I said, and hung up. I shoved the phone back in my pocket, half expecting it to ring again. I sort of hoped it would so that I could not answer.
Grace didn’t ask me who it was. She didn’t ask me to tell her what was said. I knew she was waiting for me to volunteer the information, and I knew I should, but I didn’t want to. I just — I just couldn’t bear the idea of her seeing Beck in that light. Or maybe I just couldn’t bear the idea of me seeing him in that light.
I didn’t say anything.
Grace swallowed before pulling out her own phone. “That reminds me, I should check for messages. Ha. As if my family would call.”
She studied her cell phone; its blue screen lit up the palm of her hand and cast a ghostly light on her chin.
“Did they?” I asked.
“Of course not. They’re rubbing elbows with old friends.” She punched in their number and waited. I heard a murmur on the other end of the phone, too quiet for me to make out. “Hi, it’s me. Yeah. I’m fine. Oh. Okay. I won’t wait up then. Have fun. Bye.” She slapped the phone shut, rolled her brown eyes toward me, and smiled wanly. “Let’s elope.”
“We’d have to drive to Vegas,” I said. “No one around here to marry us at this hour except deer and a few drunk guys.”
“It would have to be the deer,” Grace said firmly. “The drunk guys would slur our names and that would ruin the moment.”
“Somehow, having a deer preside over the ceremony of a werewolf and a girl seems oddly appropriate, anyway.”
Grace laughed. “And it would get my parents’ attention. ‘Mom, Dad, I’ve gotten married. Don’t look at me like that. He only sheds part of the year.’”
I shook my head. I felt like telling her thanks, but instead, I said, “It was Beck on the phone.”
“The Beck?”
“Yeah. He was in Canada with Salem — one of the wolves who’s gone completely crazy.” It was only part of the truth, but at least it was the truth.
“I want to meet him,” Grace said immediately. My face must’ve gone funny, because she said, “Beck, I mean. He’s practically your dad, isn’t he?”
I rubbed my fingers over the steering wheel, eyes glancing from the road to my knuckles pressed into a white grip. Strange how some people took their skin for granted, never thought of what it would be like to lose it. Sloughing my skin / escaping its grip / stripped of my wit / it hurts to be me. I thought of the most fatherly memory I had of Beck. “We had this big grill at his house, and I remember, one night, he was tired of doing the cooking and he said, ‘Sam, tonight you’re feeding us.’ He showed me how to push on the middle of the steaks to see how done they were, and how to sear them fast on each side to keep the juices in.”
“And they were awesome, weren’t they?”
“I burned the hell out of them,” I said, matter-of-fact. “I’d compare them to charcoal, but charcoal is still sort of edible.”
Grace started to laugh.
“Beck ate his,” I said, smiling ruefully at the memory. “He said it was the best steak he’d ever had, because he hadn’t had to make it.”
That felt like a long time ago.
Grace was smiling at me, like old stories about me and my pack leader were the greatest thing in the world. Like it was inspirational. Like we had something, Beck and me, father and son.
In my head, the kid in the back of the Tahoe looked at me and said, “Help.”
Grace asked, “How long has it been? I mean — not since the steaks. Since you were bitten.”
“I was seven. Eleven years ago.”
She asked, “Why were you in the woods? I mean, you’re from Duluth, aren’t you? Or at least that’s what it said on your driver’s license.”
“I wasn’t attacked in the woods,” I said. “It was all over the papers.”
Grace’s eyes held me; I looked away to the dim road in front of us.
“Two wolves attacked me while I was getting onto the school bus. One of them held me down, and the other one bit me.” Ripped at me, really, as if its only goal had been to draw blood. But of course, that had been the goal, hadn’t it? Looking back, it all seemed painfully clear. I’d never thought to look beyond my simple childhood memory of being attacked by wolves, and Beck stepping in as my savior after my parents had tried to kill me. I had been so close to Beck, and Beck had been so above reproach, that I hadn’t wanted to look any deeper. But now, retelling the story to Grace shoved the unavoidable truth right at me: My attack had been no accident. I’d been chosen, hunted down, and dragged into the street to be infected, just like those kids in the back of the Tahoe. Later Beck had arrived to pick up the pieces.
You’re the best of them, Beck’s voice said in my head. He had thought I’d outlive him and take over the pack. I should’ve been angry. Furious at having my life ripped away from me. But there was just white noise inside me, a dull hum of nothingness.
“In the city?” Grace asked.
“The suburbs. There weren’t any woods around. Neighbors said they saw the wolves running through their backyards to escape afterward.”
Grace didn’t say anything. The fact that I’d been deliberately hunted felt obvious to me, and I kept waiting for her to say it. I kind of wanted her to say it, to point out the unfairness. But she didn’t. I just felt her frowning at me, thinking.
“Which wolves?” Grace asked finally.
“I don’t remember. One of them might’ve been Paul, because one of them was black. That’s all I know.”
There was silence for several long moments, and then we were home. The driveway of the house still stood empty, and Grace blew out a long breath.
“Looks like we’re on our own again,” she said. “Stay here until I get the door unlocked, okay?”
Grace jumped out of the car, letting in a blast of cold air that bit my cheeks; I turned the heater up as high as it would go to prepare myself for the journey inside. Leaning on the vents, feeling the heat sting my skin, I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to will myself back into the distraction I had felt earlier. Back when I was holding Grace against me in the candy shop, feeling her warm body searing against mine, watching her smell the air, knowing she was smelling me — I shivered. I didn’t know if I could stand another night with her, behaving myself.
“Sam!” called Grace from outside. I opened my eyes, focusing on her head poking out of the cracked front door. She was trying to keep the entryway as warm as possible for me. Clever.
Time to run. Shutting off the Bronco, I leaped out and bolted up the slick sidewalk, feet slipping a bit on the ice, my skin prickling and twisting.
Grace slammed the door shut behind me, locking the cold outside, and threw her arms around me, lending her heat to my body. Her voice was a breathless whisper near my ear. “Are you warm enough?”
My eyes, starting to adjust to the darkness in the hall, caught the glimmer of light in her eyes, the outline of her hair, the curve of her arms around me. A mirror on the wall offered a similarly dim portrait of the shape of her body against mine. I let her hold me for a long moment before I said, “I’m okay.”
“Do you want anything to eat?” Her voice sounded loud in the empty house, echoing off the wood floor. The only other sound was the air through the heating vents, a steady, low breath. I was acutely aware that we were alone.
I swallowed. “I want to go to bed.”
She sounded relieved. “I do, too.”
I almost regretted that she agre
ed with me, because maybe if I’d stayed up, eaten a sandwich, watched TV, something, I could’ve distracted myself from how badly I wanted her.
But she hadn’t disagreed. Kicking off her shoes behind the door, she padded down the hallway in front of me. We slipped into her dark bedroom, no light but the moon reflecting off the thin layer of snow outside the window. The door closed with a soft sigh and snick and she leaned on it, her hands still on the doorknob behind her. A long moment passed before she said anything. “Why are you so careful with me, Sam Roth?”
I tried to tell her the truth. “I — it’s — I’m not an animal.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said.
She didn’t look afraid of me. She looked beautiful, moonlit, tempting, smelling of peppermint and soap and skin. I’d spent eleven years watching the rest of the pack become animals, pushing down my instincts, controlling myself, fighting to stay human, fighting to do the right thing.
As if reading my thoughts, she said, “Can you tell me it’s only the wolf in you that wants to kiss me?”
All of me wanted to kiss her hard enough to make me disappear. I braced my arms on either side of her head, the door giving out a creak as I leaned against it, and I pressed my mouth against hers. She kissed me back, lips hot, tongue flicking against my teeth, hands still behind her, body still pressed against the door. Everything in me buzzed, electric, wanting to close the few inches of space between us.
She kissed me harder, breath huffing into my mouth, and bit my lower lip. Oh, hell, that was amazing. I growled before I could stop myself, but before I could even think to feel embarrassed, Grace had pulled her hands out from behind her and looped them around my neck, pulling me to her.
“That was so sexy,” she said, voice uneven. “I didn’t think you could get any sexier.”
I kissed her again before she could say anything else, backing into the room with her, a tangle of arms in the moonlight. Her fingers hooked into the back of my jeans, thumbs brushing my hip bones, pulling me even closer to her.
Shiver Trilogy (Shiver, Linger, Forever) Page 22