by Zoe Chant
Rowan was perfectly aware he couldn’t trust either Merritt Watts or Eliot Curtis are far as he could throw them, but it wasn’t as if he had many other options just now.
“Your word as a shifter,” he said, glowering. “No humans get mixed up in this. This is strictly between us.”
Curtis’s eyes narrowed slightly, but then he nodded. “My word as a shifter. You got it.”
Rowan hesitated only a moment longer. “Then let’s go,” he said.
Chapter Eight
Emilia
Staring out her bedroom window, Emilia bit her lip.
She’d seen the wolf – the werewolf, she supposed, though something in her still couldn’t quite believe it – transform into a man, and then watched as Rowan had followed him into the woods.
It had been about twenty minutes now, and Rowan hadn’t made his reappearance. She was starting to get worried.
Well, that’s an understatement, she thought, as she picked at the hem of her blanket, her stomach tying itself into a knot. Part of her longed to go out into the snow to check on him – but Rowan had made it very clear that it might not be safe for her to do so. The last thing she wanted to do was put him in danger because she’d wandered into something she shouldn’t. It made her feel sick to think he might get hurt because he had to protect her.
But if someone really wanted to hurt me, would me staying inside my house stop them?
She shivered, chewing on her lip. Something didn’t feel right.
Well, I guess that’s pretty obvious, she thought. It wasn’t every day a werewolf just materialized in your front yard, and she couldn’t imagine it boded anything good. Not from the way Rowan had reacted when he saw it.
Plus, the dogs had barked. They hadn’t barked at Rowan – perhaps they’d been able to sense his inherent goodness. There was clearly something different about the werewolf, and they had known it.
Finally managing to move away from the window, Emilia swiftly got dressed and headed downstairs. The dogs were all crowded around the front door, Max standing up on his hind legs to look out the glass pane at head height. Laurel, who was almost as big as him, was crowding at his haunches, while the smaller dogs schooled around them. Little Freddy, bouncing on his gangly puppy legs, was there too, a part of the group now.
“It’s okay, guys,” Emilia murmured, scrunching her fingers through the shaggy hair on Max’s head, trying to comfort him – though it wasn’t easy when she felt so uneasy herself. “I’m sure he’ll be back in a moment. He just has some, uh, some werewolf business to sort out.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, she didn’t feel particularly reassured at her own words. But what else could she do? She wasn’t even certain she should call 911 if Rowan didn’t return soon.
Gritting her teeth, Emilia shook her head. No, if he wasn’t back in five minutes, that was exactly what she’d do, she decided. Whatever secrecy there was surrounding shifters, Rowan’s safety came first. If the cops saw something that couldn’t be hand-waved away, well, he’d just have to explain it to them. Having to have an awkward conversation with the local deputies seemed like a small price to pay for Rowan’s wellbeing.
“All right. Clock’s ticking, Rowan,” Emilia said. She wondered if, in some small part of his mind, Rowan might have heard her. She certainly did feel a... a connection to him now. It was a feeling she wasn’t certain how to put into words – only that it felt right.
Right now, however, it was making her feel queasy.
If I’m connected to Rowan, would that mean that this feeling means he’s in trouble?
Emilia licked her lips. That did it. She was calling the cops. Provided her phone lines were back up, anyway.
She had just begun to make her way across the living room to the phone, when the sound of Max growling stopped her dead in her tracks.
She had never heard him growl like that before. Not even when she’d first taken custody of him, and he was coming out of an abusive home.
“Max?” Emilia whispered. “What is it?”
She glanced back at him, and found him with his teeth bared, his ears flat against his head. He looked fearsome – even more like a wolf than usual.
The other dogs were all clearly uneasy too: Jez let out a short bark, while Laurel and Coop’s teeth were bared.
Something had them spooked, and spooked bad.
Swallowing heavily, Emilia sidled along the wall to the window, looking out into her back yard. She couldn’t see anything – it was a sea of uninterrupted white, with the barn to her left, and her falling-down fence running behind it. Beyond that was the blackness of the woods.
Emilia remained completely still, staring out into the yard, scarcely daring even to breathe. And then, she saw it: the figure of a man, moving stealthily out from where he’d been concealing himself behind the barn.
Adrenaline shot through her, making the tips of her fingers tingle painfully. Fear made her stomach churn. And yet, along with the fear, Emilia could identify another emotion: pure anger.
How dare these people come into her home? How dare they frighten her, and take Rowan away just when they had begun to learn what they were to each other?
Emilia clenched her fists to stop her hands shaking in rage. Silently, she made her way across the living room to the kitchen door. The door out to her yard was here, across the room from her.
Crouching down so she couldn’t be seen through her wide kitchen windows, Emilia tip-toed to the stove – next to which hung one of the massive cast-iron skillets her grandmother had left her, along with the house. These were pots and pans from a different era, when things had been built to last. Emilia had memories of her grandmother using them to cook everything from huevos motuleños for breakfast to calabacitas con puerco for dinner, the smells that had wafted out from the kitchen enough to make her mouth water.
She might not have inherited her grandmother’s cooking skills, but Emilia had a different use in mind for the skillet now.
Taking it off the hook, she gritted her teeth. The weight of it in her hand was reassuring. Creeping across the room to the door, being sure to keep her head down, Emilia waited.
She almost jumped out of her skin when the door handle rattled. Gripping the skillet tight, she raised it above her head, waiting.
She heard the click of claws against linoleum, and looked up to see Max standing in the doorway from the living room. Managing to prise one hand free from the skillet, she touched a finger to her lips, hoping that, somehow, his doggy brain would understand.
The door handle rattled again, and Emilia heard the soft clicking sounds of the lock being picked.
Come on, you bastard, Emilia thought. If he took much longer, she’d have time to think about what she was doing... and then she was certain her heart would fail her.
In the next second, however, the door swung open – and the second after that, a tall man with long black hair stepped into the kitchen.
Emilia didn’t even take a moment to think – she swung the skillet with all her might into the back of his head. A satisfying CLANG rang out through the room, and the man, whoever he was, collapsed onto the floor, out cold.
Emilia heaved in several deep breaths, staring down at him. He didn’t move.
Oh my God, Emilia thought. Oh my God.
In the doorway, Max wuffed softly, and it was this that finally brought her back down to earth.
She needed to do something about this guy before he woke up. And then she needed to get out of the house.
She knew Rowan had told her to stay put, but Emilia was pretty sure that only applied so long as people didn’t actually break into her house to find her.
The adrenaline that had powered her through the last ten minutes was beginning to wear off, and Emilia struggled to lift the skillet high enough to place it on the kitchen counter.
All right, she thought, staring down at the prone form of the man. All right, deal with this guy first. Everything else, second.
Where to pu
t him? She definitely didn’t want to leave him in the house. Frowning, Emilia glanced out of her still-open back door, and her eyes fell on the barn.
I won’t put him in the barn – Harvey doesn’t deserve that, she thought. But next to the barn was a shed that had once been used for storage, but was now empty. It was a sturdy structure made of thick wooden beams, with a massive padlocked door. She couldn’t see someone escaping from there too easily, werewolf or not.
I just have to get him out there.
Well, there was only one way to do that, she supposed.
The man was tall and lanky, and a lot heavier than he looked. It took her some time to drag him out to the shed.
Thankfully, he didn’t stir the entire time, his breath creating little clouds of vapor in the wintery air.
Shouldering open the shed door after she’d unlocked it, Emilia dragged him inside and heaved him down at last. Allowing herself a sigh of relief, Emilia looked up, and to her surprise found that the shed was not as empty as she remembered.
Against the far wall were heaps and heaps of old Christmas decorations.
Even the old plastic tree they’d used when she was a kid, before Granny Bea had started insisting on getting a real one, was here. Tinsel, glimmering in the light from the doorway, peeked out of plastic trash bags, while a massive holly wreath covered in gold and red ribbons leaned against the wall. Christmas lights, having fallen free of their boxes at some point, snaked over the floor.
Emilia remembered now – she’d hauled all of this stuff out here right after Tom had broken up with her on Christmas Eve two years ago. At the time, they had seemed almost like they were mocking her – everything so bright and cheerful and celebratory, when her heart had been breaking. She had taken everything down that day, and put all of the decorations out in the shed where she didn’t have to look at them.
She hadn’t thought about it again since that day. She’d even forgotten they were here – or at least, had willfully put them out of her mind. There’d been no reason for her to think about them at all.
But now, here they were, reminding her of just how much she’d neglected them over the past two years.
Shaking her head, Emilia pushed the thought to the side. She’d deal with it later.
As she began to turn away, however, an idea hit her. She looked down at the man lying at her feet.
I really should try to secure this asshole as much as possible...
Dashing across the shed, Emilia yanked the Christmas lights out of their boxes, weaving them together to make a thick rope. Turning the unconscious man over with her foot, she grabbed his arms, pulling them behind his back. Then, she wrapped the lights around his wrists, over and over again, before pulling them into a knot. Sure, it wasn’t exactly the best tying-up job anyone had ever done, but the lights were made of tough wire and plastic – they might hold him for a little while, at least.
Snatching up more lights, Emilia repeated the process with his legs, wrapping them up tightly. If she’d actually plugged the lights in and turned them on, he would have resembled a Christmas tree more than a man at this point.
As she tied the lights into a thick knot, a golden glimmer from the corner of the shed caught Emilia’s eye. She looked up to see the Christmas star, the star she herself had often placed on the top of the Christmas tree, sitting alone in a corner.
She stared at it, remembering how once upon a time she’d made Christmas wishes upon it, every Christmas Eve. They’d always been little things, or at least, they’d seemed little to her at the time – please will Granny let me have a chocolate after dinner, please can I get a puppy next year, please can I have a million dollars – but somewhere inside of her, Emilia had always believed they’d come true. It had only been later that she’d stopped believing.
She realized she was being silly and sentimental, but right now, she was so frightened that she was willing to believe anything. And so, for the first time since she was a child, Emilia closed her eyes, and made a Christmas wish.
I know I haven’t been filled with Christmas cheer lately, Emilia thought as she opened her eyes once more. I know I haven’t always appreciated the season as much as I could have. But please – let me just make one Christmas wish, and have it come true.
She wished that Rowan was safe. She wished that everything would turn out all right. She wished, she wished, she wished...
The star glimmered, and just for a moment, Emilia had faith that her wish would be granted.
Just one Christmas wish, she thought. And then I’ll never ask for anything ever again. Hell, I’ll even start celebrating Christmas again. I’ll put up all the lights, decorate the tree, bake a ham, anything you want. Just let Rowan be safe...
The man finally secured, Emilia rushed to the door, slamming it shut and ramming the padlock’s shackle down, sealing him inside.
Her stomach churned as she headed back to the house. It had been way longer than five minutes now, and Rowan was still not back.
Emilia thought back over her plans to call 911, but she was less certain now that it was the right idea. Sure, someone had tried to break into her house, but she wasn’t about to sit here and wait for more werewolves to show up, and she wasn’t about to call the cops out to her empty house. And then there was the fact that she really didn’t have any idea where Rowan had gone. How was she going to explain that? Would the police even take her seriously? Rowan had gone with the werewolf of his own free will, after all.
And besides which... Emilia knew she couldn’t just sit here while Rowan might be in trouble. Just like the feeling in her chest she couldn’t explain, as if a missing part of her soul had finally been slotted into place, she also felt this. There was something tugging at her heart with an urgency that she simply couldn’t ignore.
He’s my mate.
The words came to her suddenly, without her conscious thought.
She knew Rowan would do whatever he had to in order to protect her. She had to do the same for him. No matter what. She couldn’t stand by hoping that someone else would come and save them – she had to stand up for herself, for the mated bond that she had only just discovered.
And for Rowan.
Determined, Emilia marched back across the yard.
Inside the house, Emilia found the dogs all waiting for her.
“Well, guys, it looks like we might have to figure something out,” she said. Licking her lips, she grabbed the skillet from the counter. Well, she had a weapon. Now all she needed to do was find Rowan.
Easier said than done.
Looking back at the dogs, she realized that Max was missing.
Going out into the living room, she found him sitting by the front door, looking up at her expectantly.
“Max?” she asked, cocking her head. “What is it?”
Max blinked his blue, wolf-like eyes, before lowering his head to nuzzle at something lying in a heap by her coat rack.
Catching her breath, Emilia realized it was the heavy winter jacket she had lent Rowan the day before, when it had become apparent that he – strangely, she’d thought at the time – didn’t have one of his own.
His scent. It smells like him.
Max had taken to Rowan immediately, Emilia thought. Faster than she’d ever seen him take to anyone. Even she had needed several weeks to overcome Max’s wariness of people.
“Max, do you think... do you think you could find Rowan?” Emilia asked.
At the sound of Rowan’s name, Max wuffed again, tail wagging gently.
“He’s really become your new favorite person, hasn’t he?” Emilia said, smiling. “Should I be jealous?”
Perhaps in response, Max nosed at Rowan’s jacket, sniffing at the collar where Rowan’s scent would be strongest.
“Good boy, Max,” Emilia murmured, crouching by him. She hoped Rowan’s scent was strong enough to have erased any lingering traces of her ex-fiancé Tom that might be on the jacket – she didn’t think she could stand it if Max led her acro
ss the countryside to him. But then, Max had never liked Tom.
“You got it, Max? You got his scent?”
Max raised his head, tail wagging. Emilia wasn’t sure if she should have hope that this would work, but Max had pulled Rowan’s coat off the rack for a reason.
Or maybe I’m just becoming a crazy animal lady, who assigns way too much importance to what her dogs do.
Well, maybe so. But right now, it was the only hope she had. And besides which, with Max with her, Emilia knew she’d be well protected.
Reaching out, she picked up Rowan’s jacket from where Max had pulled it down. As she did so, something slid out of the pocket, clattering to the floor: a cell phone.
Emilia stared down at it for a moment, realizing it must be Rowan’s. They’d been too.... distracted last night for him to have remembered it, clearly, and this morning he’d headed out too quickly to have thought to take it with him.
Frowning, Emilia lifted it up, and the screen, sensing movement, came to life.
Rowan had a ton of missed calls from someone called Hardwicke, as well as a lot of text messages all featuring some variation on ‘CALL ME NOW’.
Licking her lips, Emilia wondered if this Hardwicke was someone connected to Rowan’s work. It seemed likely – and given how antsy Rowan had been about making his call yesterday, it seemed like this Hardwicke was a hardass about checking in.
Maybe I could call him.
Emilia supposed she could try. If the crappy signal would allow it.
Swiping across the screen on one of Hardwicke’s missed calls, Emilia held her breath, waiting for the automated message telling her that her call couldn’t be connected.
But then, the phone rang. And rang. And then, someone picked up.
“Rowan? Where the – fzzzzzzz! – have you been? I’ve been trying to call you all – fzzz crackle – morning!”
Emilia blinked. Well, this was unexpected. And, in her heart, she realized she hadn’t truly believed that the call would connect.
She thought suddenly of the Christmas star glimmering in her shed, and the wish she had made.