Wild

by Meghan O'Brien

  “Tell you what,” Selene said, patting Eve on the back. “We’re going for a walk right now. This morning. Together.”

  Eve gave her a look of pure panic. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She gestured out the window at the morning sky, just beginning to lighten. “It’s still dark. I’ve got to go to work soon.”

  “The sun will be up in thirty minutes. When do you need to be at work?”

  Hesitating only a moment, Eve said, “Eight o’clock.”

  Selene gave her a reassuring hug. “That gives us plenty of time for a short stroll. We won’t go far.”

  Eve shook her head. “I vote for staying in and making love again.”

  Tempting as that was, Selene needed to help Eve overcome her lingering fears. Obviously Eve was an intelligent, logical, self-sufficient woman, and the introduction of unchecked fear into her ordered life had shaken her thoroughly. Even having known Eve only a short while, Selene couldn’t stand to see her like this.

  “Hey,” Selene said, grabbing Eve’s hand between her own. “You can do it. I promise. I’ll be right next to you. We won’t go anywhere near where it happened. We can stay at the edge of the park, if you want. If it’s too intense, we’ll turn right around.”

  “You’re going to make me do this, aren’t you?”

  Worried about overstepping in a brand-new relationship, Selene shook her head. “Not if you really don’t want to. But you’ll be miserable until you face this fear head-on. And I very much want to be there to help you do that.”

  Eve’s eyes shone with emotion. The jumble of love, affection, and surrender Selene could feel reassured her that she hadn’t pushed too hard. “Okay. We’ll take a walk.”

  “Good.” Selene hopped out of bed, offering her hand to Eve. “Let’s go have a quickie in the shower before we leave. There’s a coffee shop a couple blocks away. We can get our morning fix there.”

  That promise brought genuine pleasure to Eve’s face. She took Selene’s hand, allowing herself to be hauled to her feet, then gathered into a tight hug. “I like the way you think.”

  *

  For the first block, Selene felt almost as though she was dragging Eve along against her will. Eve gripped her hand tight, staying close to Selene’s side and darting her eyes around as though anticipating danger from all sides. Rank fear emanated from Eve’s pores, nearly choking Selene with its intensity. It wasn’t easy to stay relaxed in the face of such strong, instinctual dread, but it was the only way to ease Eve’s worries. This was as frightened as she had seen Eve since the immediate aftermath of her attack.

  As though reading her mind, Eve said, “I’m sorry. I’m being ridiculous.”

  Selene squeezed her hand, then wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “No, you’re not.”

  “Logically, I know the chance of something bad happening is slim to none. But I can’t stop flashing back to that moment when that man came running at me. It happened so fast, and I was totally unprepared.”

  “Focus on the fact that you’re not alone this time.” Selene raised Eve’s hand to her mouth, kissing her knuckles gently. “I would never let anything happen to you. Seriously.” It was a scary thought, but Selene meant what she said. For years, staying hidden had been her only priority. But she had no doubt that if given the choice between shifting in front of Eve to save her or seeing her hurt, she’d expose herself in an instant.

  That someone she’d just met could already mean so much to Selene unnerved her. Short of threat of death or physical harm, she never wanted Eve to know the truth. Undoubtedly such a revelation would end their relationship. Nobody wanted to be with a freak, especially not one who became a genuine monster under the light of the full moon.

  “Are you okay?” Eve said, giving Selene a sidelong glance. She rubbed a thumb over Selene’s knuckles. “Where did you just go?”

  Selene forced a nonchalant shrug. “Nowhere. Just thinking about how much I like you.”

  The last trace of anxiety melted from Eve’s face. “I like you, too.”

  “Good.” Selene stopped in front of the coffee shop two and a half city blocks from her house. Bumping Eve with her shoulder, she said, “Look. We made it.”

  Eve looked behind them as though internally measuring the distance they had traveled. Then she scanned their immediate surroundings. At seven fifteen in the morning, the streets were active if still quiet. A jogger moved purposefully down the sidewalk across the street, and a pair of older women waited at the corner for the Walk sign to light. Selene watched Eve take in the normalcy of the situation, her breathing now calm and controlled.

  “You’ve walked in this city hundreds of times, right?” Selene said quietly. “One time something bad happened. And maybe you don’t walk alone anymore, not in the park. But this is still your city. He hasn’t taken that away from you.”

  Nodding, Eve bit her lip and her nostrils flared. “You’re right.” She threw her arms around Selene, kissing her softly on the neck. “Thank you.”

  Selene returned the hug as her chest filled with so much love she felt like she would burst. Making Eve happy was the best thing she’d ever done. It stirred answering joy in her own heart, a feeling of hope and promise that had been missing from her life for far too long. Selene never wanted to lose that heavy fullness inside, this sensation of having her whole being entwined with another soul.

  Eve drew back from their embrace with a tremulous chuckle. “Should we get some coffee?”

  “Coffee sounds good.” Shaken by the depth of her feeling for Eve, Selene jogged to the entrance and held open the door. “After you.”

  Selene stood silently at Eve’s side as they waited through the short line and ordered their drinks. Eve drank her coffee black, which didn’t surprise Selene. As Selene stood at the counter dumping sugar into her own coffee, Eve gave her an indulgent grin.

  “You like the sweet stuff, huh?”

  Selene chuckled. “Half the appeal of that cake last night was sharing it with you.” She snapped the lid back on her coffee cup and took Eve’s hand, walking them to the door. “But, yes, I love sweet stuff.” As they stepped out onto the sidewalk, Selene bent close so nobody would overhear. “My favorite is your pussy.”

  Eve blushed fiercely, taking a sip of her coffee as she fought back a grin. “Wow.”

  Deciding to take advantage of Eve’s distraction, Selene steered them in the direction of the crosswalk. “Let’s walk back on the other side of the street.” She could sense how much Eve loved Golden Gate Park and how upset she was to have it associated with fear and death, so Selene wanted to help her reclaim that part of her city, too. “Prettier view over there,” she said, pointing at the tall eucalyptus trees that loomed over the sidewalk, signaling the edge of the park.

  Eve tightened her fingers on Selene’s. “Okay.”

  They crossed the street in silence, and Selene positioned herself closest to the trees as they began to stroll back. She could surely defend Eve if it came down to it, so she wasn’t worried about their safety. But Eve would feel safer if she didn’t have to worry about someone rushing at her from the brush, like last time.

  “When I was a kid my father used to take us for picnics in Golden Gate Park,” Eve said, staying close to Selene’s side. “He loved Stow Lake. After we ate we’d take out a boat, him and me and my mom, and paddle around for hours. Talking and laughing, just being together as a family.”

  Feeling the bittersweet melancholy behind the memory, Selene put her arm around Eve and squeezed. “Do your parents still live in the area?”

  “No, my father passed away when I was in high school. It was very sudden. My mother and I woke up one morning and found him dead on the bathroom floor. Healthy one day and gone the next. The autopsy revealed he’d died of a brain aneurysm.” Eve’s voice remained steady, but Selene could feel her sadness. “My mother was killed shortly after I graduated from college, during a robbery at the gas station she used to frequent. According to witnesses, the guy w
ith the gun panicked and started firing. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too.” Eve cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. “My father’s death is actually what made me decide to become a forensic pathologist. The shock of having someone you love die, and not knowing why, is unimaginable. I like being able to answer those questions for people. And now, with the work I do for the police, I feel like I’m also honoring my mother’s memory by helping catch and convict murderers. Not that answers or convictions make a loss like that hurt any less.”

  There was something so noble about how Eve had used her personal pain to drive her toward a career that helped ease the torment of others. Selene admired Eve’s desire to give back almost as much as she envied the obvious bond she’d had with her parents. “You were very close with them, huh?”

  “I was. They’re probably the complete opposite from what you’d expect, as far as who would raise a pragmatist like me. Open-minded, spiritual, nature-loving—they lived in the Haight during the sixties, if that gives you any idea of the kind of people they were.” Chuckling, Eve said, “When I was little they’d take me to the park and just want to mellow out with nature—and I’d keep tossing question after question at them. Why do leaves change color in the fall? Do birds fly at night? They never knew the answers, and I think they preferred it that way. To them the world was mysterious and magical, which was exactly what they loved about it. Me, I always wanted to know why and how.”

  The thought of a bespectacled, inquisitive child-Eve warmed Selene. “So you harshed their mellow?”

  Eve burst into giggles that made Selene happy all over. “I guess so.” She glanced into the park, and Selene felt her body relax slightly. “Even though I was always the coldly rational type, having parents like that was a gift. They taught me to appreciate nature and the universe on a purely emotional level. To recognize that even if there are things in the world nobody can explain, we should be grateful for those things, and for that mystery. I’ve only realized in the past few years just how much I value having that attitude. Keeps me more balanced than many of my colleagues.”

  “Sounds like you miss them a lot.”

  “Yeah.” Eve waved a hand at the park. “Spending time in there makes me feel closer to them. It always felt safe, like a refuge. So this…is hard.”

  Selene completely understood the importance of refuge away from the noise of daily life. Moving from place to place, she always required being close to nature. Even when she was in human form, the sight and smell of trees and damp earth soothed her in a way nothing else did. Once a month, her beast-self was drawn so powerfully to nature that if she escaped, she would likely run miles to find it, if necessary.

  Feeling a strange kinship with Eve, Selene murmured, “I never knew my birth parents. A couple in Italy adopted me when I was four years old. But I…lost them, too. When I was sixteen.” She hoped Eve wouldn’t ask for details, because she didn’t want to lie. But she couldn’t possibly tell Eve that her parents had disowned her after she murdered the family sheep. “It doesn’t matter how long ago it happened. It still hurts, right?”

  Eve nodded, rising on her tiptoes to kiss Selene’s cheek. “Right.”

  A distinctive call cut through the quiet morning and Selene stopped, searching the branches above them until she spotted the source. “Eve, look.” She pointed at the large bird perched on a tree just ahead of them. “A Cooper’s hawk. Isn’t she gorgeous?”

  Eve squinted for a moment, then lit up. “I see her.”

  “Did you know that ninety percent of bird species are monogamous?” Selene noted the way Eve’s mouth twitched and the obvious pleasure she seemed to derive from that fact. “Some birds mate only for a season, or even sequential seasons, but most Cooper’s hawks mate for life.”

  “I like that,” Eve said. “I wonder where her mate is.”

  Selene touched the small of Eve’s back. “Maybe she hasn’t found him yet. She’s a juvenile.”

  “You know a lot about birds.” Eve stood quietly at her side, watching the hawk as she cried out again. No longer anxious about being so close to the park, Eve seemed genuinely interested in Selene’s dorky cache of wildlife knowledge. “Do you watch them?”

  Shrugging, Selene said, “I just love wildlife, including birds.”

  “I should’ve guessed, from your photos.” The hawk flew away suddenly, leaving them staring up at the empty tree. “We should probably keep moving,” Eve said. “I have to leave for work soon.”

  Selene tried to suppress her disappointment at being separated, but knew she’d failed when Eve’s eyes sparkled with sympathy. “I know what you’re thinking,” Eve said as she started them walking again. “Spending the day in bed would be better.”

  “Spending the day with you would be better.” Selene rubbed her hand over Eve’s side, delighting in her warmth. “When can I see you again?”

  “How about tonight?”

  Selene’s mood soared. It should have scared her, so quickly going from a near hermit to being desperate for Eve’s company, but right now she felt too good to dwell on the inevitable difficulties involved in having a relationship. Not to mention the danger of caring about someone who would surely be horrified by what she was. “That would be excellent.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” The light at the corner turned and Selene led them across the street, back to her doorstep. “I can’t wait.”

  “Me either.” When they reached Selene’s porch, Eve stopped Selene before she could unlock the door, initiating a deep, passionate kiss. After a few moments she broke away, panting heavily. “I had a great time, Selene. Thanks for that walk.”

  Eve wasn’t making it easy to say good-bye. Gritting her teeth against the burning desire that pounded through her veins, Selene said, “You be safe today, okay?”

  “I will.”

  Selene stepped away, eager for some breathing room. “Call me if you need anything. Anything.”

  The look Eve gave her was positively naughty. “What I need wouldn’t be appropriate for a phone call at work.”

  Exhaling in a rush, Selene said, “Go to work before I pull you inside and have my way with you again.”

  Eve grinned, clearly pleased to be causing such a reaction. For a moment she looked as though she was thinking about accepting Selene’s invitation, then she walked to her car with an extra sway in her step. “I get off between five and six. I’ll be here by six thirty at the latest.”

  “I’ll be waiting.” By that, Selene meant counting the seconds. As she watched Eve get into her car and pull away from the curb, she drooped against her front door with a heavy sigh.

  She was in so much trouble.

  Chapter Eleven

  Later at work, Eve was sore, exhausted, and happier than she had been in a long time. Maybe ever. She sat at her desk with the Golden Gate Park victim’s file spread out around her, finalizing her forensic report with a grin on her face. Feeling this good made no sense at all when she had just spent the past hour staring at crime-scene photos of a woman who might have been murdered by the same man who had attacked her, but very little made sense these days. The past twenty-four hours with Selene had defied logic altogether, though that hadn’t stopped Eve from enjoying every second of it.

  “Knock, knock.”

  Eve glanced over her shoulder and waved at Jac, who stood just inside the lab door. “Hey, you.”

  “Hey, back.” Jac raised an eyebrow as she stepped inside. “What’s up?”

  “Just putting the finishing touches on your forensic report,” Eve said. She sounded chipper, didn’t she? Jac would definitely pick up on that. Eve was never this cheerful, even in her best moods. “I’ll have it to you in just a moment.”

  “Thanks,” Jac said carefully. She approached Eve’s desk and gave her a sidelong look. “But I meant what’s up with the sunny disposition? You’re…glowing.”

  Eve’s fa
ce heated. Jac was a detective for a reason, so she couldn’t try to hide her joy. “I had a good night, that’s all.” She glanced up at Jac. “Can’t a girl be happy?”

  “Of course.” Jac studied her face, probably trying to decide if Eve’s good night was actually what it sounded like. “You just haven’t been lately. Not that I blame you, of course. With what happened in the park and everything…” Jac tilted her head. “Did you get laid last night?”

  Clearing her throat, Eve made a big show of jotting a final note in Yasmin Mandujano’s file. She refused to admit that she’d spent all of yesterday afternoon and last night making love to someone she’d just met. “Not that it’s any of your business, but…I did have a date.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Eve frowned. The sheer disbelief in Jac’s voice offended her. Was she really so socially awkward that Jac didn’t think she could find someone who was interested? “Gee, thanks.”

  “No!” Jac shook her head, propping her hip on the desk next to Eve’s hand. She was so close Eve could feel heat radiating from her. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just…after what you’ve just been through. I’m surprised.”

  “Well, don’t be. Life goes on.”

  “Apparently it does.” Jac folded her arms over her chest, clearly waiting for more. She’d have to ask. Eve wouldn’t supply any more information than necessary. What she had shared with Selene was too precious to reduce to tedious gossip. And something about discussing Selene with her ex-girlfriend made Eve uncomfortable. Jac held out for almost thirty seconds before she said, “Who is she?”

  “Just a woman.”

  “I figured,” Jac said, smirking. “What else?”

  “She’s the one who helped me the other morning. In the park, after…you know. After.”

  “Huh.” Craning her neck to meet Eve’s eyes, Jac winked. “She have a name?”

  “Selene,” Eve answered shortly. She was about done playing along with the interrogation. Closing the file, she offered it to Jac. “She’s very nice, we had a good time. End of story.”