Season of the Wolf

by Rachel Jonas

  “Nothing in this world is more important than you breathing your next breath.” There was so much conviction in that one statement, it rendered me speechless. Maybe that had been his point.

  My heart throbbed inside my chest, heavy as it pounded my ribs. A confession was brewing within me, one that both frightened and freed me all at once. I inhaled a mouthful of air, and exhaled words my soul demanded I speak out loud.

  “Without you, I’ll die.”

  I knew how weak and desperate that sounded, but also knew how much lighter I felt now that it was out.

  A bitter tear slipped down my cheek and I was surprised by the anger that followed. I was angry forever was no longer on the table for us. Angry at how I failed to prevent this all from happening.

  The side of my face warmed against Liam’s palm when he pulled me to his shoulder, embracing me at the exact moment I was about to explode—with rage, sadness, everything.

  Hot tears slipped from my cheek and onto his flesh.

  “I’m sorry,” I finally said.

  No, I wasn’t sorry for running off on my own, but I was sorry I made him worry for what I might do in the future. I may have even been sorry I knew I loved him enough to cause him this same hurt again if it came down to it.

  He sighed and his air breezed through my hair, but a response never came. Instead, I was moved from his shoulder and a kiss just beside my eye melted away some of the tension. Then another to the corner of my mouth nearly made me forget.

  My lips moved with his when he captured them, as his hands blazed a heated trail, moving the material of my shirt up my torso, my chest, so slowly. He knew he didn’t need to ask permission. The confidence in his touch made that clear.

  We both knew I belonged to him.

  The rest of my clothing followed, and then those jeans that rode low on his hips were on the floor, too. Stripped bare—physically, emotionally—we felt more like us.

  A set of broad hands lifted me from the floor and taut skin met my calves when they encircled his waist. At the feel of being laid on his bed, when he stared down on me with unmatched adoration, there was no doubt I’d been forgiven.

  Forgiven for the one and only crime I’d ever been guilty of.

  Loving him.

  *

  We stayed close as the high we’d just ridden leveled off. There was no space between us. Where his skin ended, mine began. The world could have been decimated outside his window and we wouldn’t have moved from this place.

  A soft kiss to the back of my shoulder made me draw a deep breath at the feel of it.

  “I’m sorry I missed the meeting,” he sighed. “I should have been there.”

  Shaking my head required strength I no longer had, thanks to him, so the movement was halfhearted, lazy.

  “It’s fine. You needed space. I get it.” When I finished speaking, I pulled his arm tighter around my waist, pushing my hips back toward him a bit more.

  “There’s no excuse. Things are too unstable right now,” he rebutted. “Did they share anything important?”

  I shrugged, again giving the action only half my effort. “They reiterated a few things we already brought you up to speed on. Something about Canada’s sect of the Council not cooperating, but the clan members are aiding our side anyway.”

  My eyes drifted closed when I shared more. “And they’re firm on evacuating the humans in the coming days.”

  Liam’s body went unnaturally still, and I could guess why.

  My parents.

  “And you’re … okay with all this?” he asked.

  “I am, because it’s best for them.”

  Another kiss to my shoulder, lending me comfort right when I needed it. “You’re right. It is.”

  I had come to terms with the way things were. Their safety was now my only concern. So, with the Council deciding to move them far away from the potential danger zone, that concern would no longer exist.

  “You’ve changed so much.” The statement was sort of vague, but the pride that swelled in Liam’s voice when he said those words made it clear what he meant.

  I smiled a bit, thanking him, but he didn’t stop there.

  “From where you started, to where you are … you’re almost a completely new version of yourself. Your strength,” he commented, “your bravery.”

  I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been so flattered, but right after making heat blossom in my cheeks, a loaded pause lingered between us.

  “I know what you attempted to do—searching for the witch—was a direct result of the traits I just admitted to loving about you, but …”

  He fell silent, maybe weighing his words, or feeling the contradiction in them before they left his mouth.

  “Sometimes you scare me.”

  The way he phrased that made me smile. “I scare you?”

  Stubble from his chin tickled my shoulder when he nodded. “In all the best ways,” he shared. “And all the worst.”

  Hearing the genuine concern in his tone was sobering.

  “It’d be nice to think I can just put you in a box and hide you away from everything,” he said, chuckling a bit right after. “But I can’t. And it terrifies me. Especially knowing you have no regard for your own safety when it comes to mine.”

  I had no response, because he was right. It would only cause him more distress to hear me confirm that theory.

  “I’ve accepted the fact that I can’t stop you,” he sighed, sounding just as defeated as I imagined he was. “But I think it’s only fair you have to make the same promise you asked of me.”

  I knew exactly what he was asking—that I promise to never withhold information, that he never have to hear of something reckless I did from anyone other than me.

  I nodded. “That’s fair. You have my word.”

  He seemed to relax once I agreed.

  “So, is there anything else? Anything you haven’t told me?”

  I smiled at how light his tone sounded now. Not quite like the weight of the world had lifted off him, but our understanding seemed to bring with it some semblance of peace.

  I racked my brain for anything I hadn’t shared. “Um … the spell seems to have worked,” I beamed, knowing the potential return of my brothers was news he’d want to hear. “Elise says we should know something soon. A day or two, I’m guessing.”

  He sighed and I didn’t miss the hint of relief that seemed to come with it. “That’s … really good to hear.”

  I imagined it must have been.

  A warrior by nature, he didn’t show much emotion outside the depth of our connection, but I knew he missed them. There were a lifetime of stories and experiences that bonded them, and I was excited for him to have that back.

  To have them back.

  He was quiet again, like he was waiting for me to continue on my own. But when I didn’t, he asked the same question as before.

  “Is there anything else?”

  I shook my head. “No, there’s nothing.”

  The silence returned and I wondered if that meant he didn’t believe me. But then, he asked a more pointed question that accounted for the momentary silence.

  “Nothing new with Nick?”

  There was no malice infused in the question from what I could tell. Only concern.

  Just as I fixed my mouth to, again, tell him there was nothing, I recalled the strange exchange between us tonight after the meeting. Thinking about it now, I shifted a bit, still feeling uneasy.

  “Well … I’m not even sure it’s worth mentioning, but … things got kind of weird when I saw him at the library.”

  Even before speaking, I sensed Liam’s tension.

  “Weird how?”

  That question wasn’t exactly easy to answer, seeing as how I had no idea what happened.

  “We were talking for a bit, and then he just … started being strange, saying something about a noise, but there was no noise. No one else seemed to notice anything, so I think it was just him.”

 
; Liam was like a statue behind me.

  “And this noise, he didn’t hear it until he got close to you?”

  All traces of fatigue had slipped away. I stared at silhouetted branches outside his window when answering.

  “Seemed to. Not right away, but it got worse the longer he stood there. And then he ran off before I, or anyone, could ask if he was okay.”

  Liam’s heart thundered against my back as he held me.

  “Does that mean something’s changed?” I asked, trying not to let my voice quiver like I feared it might.

  “It could, but … what?” He was just as baffled as I was. “Maybe this is something we need to run past Hilda.”

  A rush of cold air swept over my naked flesh when he lifted the cover. “Wait … now?” I protested, his urgent reaction making it hard not to smile. “I’m sure she’s still in the basement with Maisy, and besides … whatever the answer is, it won’t change if we talk to her in the morning.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed for several seconds, leaving me to guess what he’d do next—rush downstairs like a madman, demanding answers; or let it be for now, and continue to lie with me.

  My back warmed when he took his place beside me once again. There was more static in the air than before—a sign he was a bit on edge—but at least he wasn’t being hasty.

  He’d never get to sleep like this, though. On edge. Worried.

  I turned to face him, staring as his beautiful eyes glistened in moonlight.

  “You haven’t finished forgiving me,” I said, touching my lips to his right after.

  He seemed confused, which I expected.

  “When you told me the story about us, about how you finally helped me see you,” I explained. “You said I … forgave you three times that night, right?”

  It only took him a few seconds to catch on when I finally smiled, giving him a hint as to what I had in mind, showing him further when my kisses moved to his chin, his neck.

  “I think it was something like that,” he teased, growing more distracted by the second.

  I smiled, pressing my lips to his throat, tasting his skin again.

  “Then, if my math is right … our count is off by two.”

  At those words, his pulse raced faster where my mouth covered it, and when I pulled him on top of me I knew he was no longer thinking about the drama. It could wait because it would still be there to greet us in the morning.

  It always was.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Liam

  “Stop pacing. It’s bad for your nerves,” Hilda sighed, clearing the remains of a cleansing spell from her work table. The recipe was one of the few I knew off the top of my head.

  I guessed she felt the need to rid the house of whatever dark residue the ghoulish witch might have left behind. She’d gotten her out of here sometime before dawn. I knew because I was lying awake when the guards escorted her out. She certainly left quieter than she came in.

  “Well, if you won’t stop pacing for the sake of your own nerves, please stop pacing to spare mine.”

  My feet halted, but I didn’t like that she had no explanation for what Evangeline shared about Nick, about the sound so impossible to withstand he had to run off.

  When I finally caught up with his grandfather, my thoughts weren’t on extracting answers from him—things like why he’d done it, why he’d taken the one thing that mattered right out of my arms. My thoughts were singular.

  I wanted him to suffer.

  Had I realized there was a chance Evangeline would one day return, had I known another Liberator would show up as well, I might have done things differently. It could have been useful to understand what he experienced leading up to the day he crept through our bedroom window.

  “It has to mean something.”

  “Or, it could mean nothing at all,” Hilda countered.

  “But the sound intensified when he got near her. This morning, when we discussed it again, she said he described it like a buzzing in his ear.”

  She sat back in her seat, dusting the remains of sage ash from her lap. Her eyes landed on mine and I guessed she saw the desperation in them.

  With a sigh, she jumped in to help me brainstorm. “Buzzing,” she said to herself. “Vibration. Spiritual frequency,” she rambled.

  None of that made sense to me, but I listened anyway. She knew more about these things than I did.

  “Perhaps it’s because her dragon has left her,” Hilda suggested, catching me off guard with the statement.

  My brow tensed with confusion. “What do you mean?”

  Her brown hand lifted into the air, a cluster of metal bracelets clanking together when she gave a dismissive wave.

  “You must have known,” she went on. “Her dragon has withdrawn from her, leaving her to solely rely on her wolf. It’s been that way since … well, I’m sure you can guess.” Her eyes flitted toward the window as her fingers laced in her lap.

  I lowered my head, imagining the loss Evangeline must feel. It wasn’t difficult to do because I, too, felt incomplete in the absence of my dragon. I dismissed the thought, focusing on Hilda’s last point.

  “You think that’s it? He senses her dragon is gone?”

  She tipped her head from side to side as she considered my theory. “Not exactly, but it’s possible that with her wolf so strong, she’s vibrating on a different frequency and this was his body’s response to it.”

  I was lost. Hilda noticed as much and rolled her eyes with a laugh before explaining.

  “Life is energy and this energy has a detectable frequency, although most are unable to pick up on it, it may be that Nick can. At least when it comes to Evangeline,” she explained. “I’m of the mind that altering the state of matter changes its frequency. So, in theory, if Evie’s no longer meshing with her dragon as she once was, it’s possible her frequency has changed.”

  “But why would that matter to him? Why would that be something he’s able to detect?”

  I looked at Nick differently than most. From my vantage point, he was far from being an innocent, teenage kid. Even though I now believed he was on a mission to meet those expectations. However, in reality, he was one thing and one thing only … a killing machine. Everything about him made him a more efficient killer as his destiny related to Evangeline’s.

  He hears her heart because it makes it impossible for her to hide.

  He’s a half step quicker than she is so she can never outrun him.

  He would eventually be the strongest wolf to exist since his grandfather, only so he’d be a formidable match for the hybrid queen.

  These traits, these abilities, made sense. They served a purpose, but what Hilda explained … it felt like a stab in the dark. Unless Evangeline being estranged from her dragon made her weaker. In which case, being aware of this would put Nick at an advantage.

  “I’ll look into it,” Hilda concluded, letting her gaze land on me again. “Is there something else you want to know?”

  A thought crossed my mind for a second and she picked up on it right away. Maybe the result of magic, or maybe it was just intuition.

  “I can’t fix you,” she breathed, boring a hole through me with her dark eyes.

  “I didn’t ask you to.”

  “No, maybe not out loud, but it’s crossed your mind.”

  Again, I wasn’t sure if she’d purposely dug around inside my head or if this was just one of those cases where women know what you’re thinking before you even know what you’re thinking.

  I dropped down into the seat across from her, staring at nothing while my mind raced.

  “You know I can’t undo this,” she reiterated.

  “I know,” I said before she could finish.

  “Then … why are you still lending your thoughts to the matter?”

  I glanced up.

  “Because I can’t shake the feeling she’ll die because of me.” The words fell from my mouth without thought, because if I’d been aware of what was coming, I wo
uldn’t have uttered such a thing out loud.

  And that’s when I knew this was Hilda’s doing.

  “A spell,” I sighed.

  She smiled, shaking her head. “I’ve done nothing to you. It’s the furniture. Anyone who sits in these chairs must speak only truth,” she revealed. “But if it makes you feel any better, there’s another side to this. Whatever you say while under the spell’s power, I’m also bound to secrecy.”

  Bracing my hands on my knees, I prepared myself to stand, was free to do so, but stopped. It’d been a long time since I said exactly what I was thinking, feeling. Maybe I’d come here for a reason, and this was it.

  When I settled in again, a curious grin crossed Hilda’s face. Those bracelets sounded into the air again when she shifted to cross her legs, never letting her gaze leave mine.

  “So, I see the loss of your dragon hasn’t made you a coward,” she smiled, knowing I’d chosen to stay, had decided to see just what truths her spell would bring out.

  I took a breath and waited for the questions to begin.

  “You’re afraid of Evangeline’s untimely death, but …” Her eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. “Something scares you even more,” she observed. “What is it?”

  “That being mortal will rob me of an eternity with her. It’s going to rob me of what I’m owed.”

  My eyelids twitched with the emotion the admission brought with it, at the feel of these deeply rooted fears being ripped from my body.

  “What you’re owed,” she repeated, never breaking her gaze. “Explain that to me.”

  The answer came pouring out. “I fought for this,” I seethed. “I fought to survive all this time … to get here! Maybe knowing that someway, somehow, she’d come back, because … I felt her even when she was gone. And now that it’s happened, now that, by some small miracle, she’s whole again … my days are numbered.”

  My throat burned with rage I’d held in for weeks.

  “So, what are you going to do about it?” Hilda asked, her tone far calmer than mine.

  For the first time since I agreed to participate in this parlor trick of hers, I was at a loss for words. Her brow quirked.

  “Perhaps I should rephrase,” she amended. “What are you willing to do about it.”