To Love a Wolf

by Paige Tyler

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Landry doesn’t smell any different than anyone else.”

  Jayna gave her a small smile. “Of course he doesn’t, not to a regular human like you. But it’s very easy for a werewolf to recognize another werewolf. The scent is unmistakable to us.”

  Apparently, she was beyond being surprised. The only thing that shocked her was that it had taken so long to realize what Jayna had been driving at this whole time.

  “You’re one of them too, aren’t you?” she breathed.

  Jayna’s eyes flashed a glowing, emerald green. Then, as fast as it appeared, the glow was gone. Everly gasped.

  “Yes, I’m a werewolf,” Jayna said. “By the way, Megan is too. Are you going to run out on our friendship like you ran out on Landry?”

  Everly felt her face heat. As shocking as it was to hear that sweet, tiny Megan was a werewolf, it didn’t keep her from feeling the sting of Jayna’s words.

  “That’s not fair!” she cried. “I didn’t want to leave Landry, but every time I think of him with claws and fangs, all I can see is my mom screaming in pain as that creature tore her apart. That’s never going to go away.”

  Tears ran down her cheeks—again. Everly wiped them away with an angry swipe of her hand. Dammit!

  Her expression softening, Jayna moved across the couch to put her arms around her. “Hey, it’s okay.”

  No, it wasn’t okay. Nothing about this was okay. But instead of telling Jayna that, Everly wrapped her arms around her friend and sobbed harder. Jayna didn’t complain, but simply held on to her and let her cry it out.

  “I’m sorry for losing it like that,” she said when she could finally talk.

  “It’s not your fault,” Jayna murmured. “I should never have said what I did. It was cruel and vicious, and you didn’t deserve it.”

  “Maybe.” Everly sniffed, wiping the last traces of tears from her cheeks as she pulled away. “But it was true, too. I did run out on Landry, and it’s killing me inside.”

  Jayna’s lips turned up at the corners in a sad smile. “When two people are meant to be together like you and Cooper, being apart is supposed to be hard.”

  Everly snorted. “How can we be together if seeing him brings back memories so bad I feel like crawling under the covers and hiding? I wish I could get them to go away.”

  “Because that’s not the way memories work,” Jayna said. “Bad ones don’t go away, not if you keep running from them. At some point, you have to turn around and face them. If you don’t, you’ll be running the rest of your life. And you’ll end up running away from everything that’s good and right.”

  Everly chewed on her lip. “That sounds like the voice of experience.”

  “It is.” Jayna took a deep breath. “When I was seventeen, my stepfather tried to rape me. I got away, nearly killing him in the process. It wasn’t until later that I realized I really didn’t get away that night. In my head, I was trapped in that bedroom with my stepfather for five years, running away from almost everything and everyone. I couldn’t be with another man without seeing my stepfather’s horrible face, and every time I thought about him, I could smell the cheap booze on his breath and feel his hands ripping at my clothes.”

  Everly shuddered at the thought of Jayna being attacked like that—and by someone who was supposed to be family. “How did you learn to forget?”

  “You don’t forget—ever.” Jayna smiled. “But with the right person to support you and give you the strength to believe in yourself, you figure out that you have it in you to face the memories and move forward.”

  Everly sighed, marveling at how smoothly Jayna had drawn the conversation around to her and Landry. “I’m guessing that for me, the right person would be Landry?”

  “Of course it is, you dope.” Jayna snorted. “Why the hell do you think you’re feeling so crappy? I wasn’t kidding when I said you two are meant to be together—you’re soul mates.”

  Everly lifted a brow. “Soul mates?”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Jayna scolded. “I’m not being melodramatic, and I’m not kidding. You and Cooper are more than in love—you’re bonded to each other. In the werewolf world, you’re The One for him, and vice versa. You two can no more walk away from each other than you can walk away from yourselves. You feel like crap because you’re denying yourself the one and only thing you really need. When you’re with him, you’ll be strong enough to face the memories of what happened to your mother. You’ll be strong enough to face anything.”

  Everly didn’t miss the emphasis Jayna had placed on The One. “You make it sound like Landry and I are somehow magically connected.”

  “You are,” Jayna said.

  Tristan had been right. Landry really was in her blood.

  “But if Landry and I are connected like this, how could he have let me walk away from him?” she asked. “Didn’t he know it would feel like this?”

  Jayna looked at her like she was crazy. “How could he have known? It’s not like he’s ever felt this way about another woman. That’s what being The One means—as in the one person in the world a werewolf is meant to be with because she or he can accept them for what they are. And as for how he could have let you walk away, it’s because he loves you too much to stop you. He wants you to be happy, and if that means letting you go, he’s ready to deal with the pain that comes with it. He’s as miserable as you are right now.”

  Fresh tears started in her eyes again. Knowing Landry was feeling the same kind of anguish she felt, but was staying away because he thought that was what she needed to be happy made her heart hurt so much she could barely breathe.

  “What am I going to do?” she whispered.

  Even if she could face Landry again, he might not take her back. What if he thought helping her get past her psychological issues was more trouble than it was worth?

  Jayna took Everly’s hands in hers and gave them a squeeze. “It’s not that complicated. You get changed and go see Cooper. Then figure out together what you need to do to get the two of you back on track.” She smiled. “After that, everything else is doable.”

  Everly wasn’t too sure of that, but she didn’t resist as Jayna dragged her toward her bedroom. Jayna made it sound so easy. Something told Everly that getting back together with Landry was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. Maybe even harder than walking away from him in the first place.

  Chapter 17

  Everly pulled her car into the first free space in Landry’s apartment complex. It was probably a little early for him to be home from work, but his place was on the way from her apartment to the SWAT compound, so she figured she’d stop there first and check. If not, she’d head to the compound.

  She could have simply called and found out where he was, but the fact was, she was too scared to call. What if he saw her name on the call screen and didn’t answer? Or what if he did answer, and she couldn’t figure out what to say? No, this was something she needed to do face to face.

  She grabbed her purse and got out of her car, groaning when she realized she was so rattled she hadn’t even parked straight. What the hell did it matter? She probably wouldn’t be here very long. Regardless of what Jayna said about Landry being as hopelessly connected to her as she was to him, she wasn’t going to delude herself into thinking their conversation would be all sprinkles and rainbows. It was going to take a long time to repair the damage that had been done to their relationship.

  She looked around as she crossed the parking lot, but didn’t see Landry’s Jeep. That didn’t mean anything. The parking area wrapped around three sides of the complex, so he could be parked anywhere.

  Everly hesitated when she got to the entrance to the building. Maybe she should have taken Mia up on her offer to come with her for moral support.

  “You want me to come with?” Mia had offered when Everly told her she was going to see Landry. “I could sit in the car and wait for you, if you want?”

  E
verly had thanked her, but told her that she could do it alone. Now, she wasn’t so sure. She squared her shoulders anyway and walked inside.

  Her steps slowed as she approached Landry’s apartment again. She had no idea what she was going to say to him. On the way over, she’d tried to rehearse something. Most everything she came up with started with some variation of I’m sorry, but none had sounded good enough to really use.

  She took a deep breath and reached out to ring the bell, but stopped when she saw that the door to his apartment was already partially open. That was so like Landry. He probably hadn’t bothered to push it all the way closed.

  Everly almost rang the bell anyway, but then realized it would probably be a waste of time. If a werewolf’s nose was as good as Jayna had said, Landry probably already knew she was out here, hesitating like some criminal. So why the heck was she still standing here? If she was going to do this, she would have to walk in his place first.

  She pushed open the door and walked in, closing it quietly behind her. She was about to call out his name when she heard a noise coming from Landry’s bedroom. She walked across the living area and into the room. She took in the big bed with the covers hastily tossed up over the pillows before she caught sight of movement to the right. Someone was leaning into the closet. And it wasn’t Landry.

  Whoever he was, he must have sensed her behind him because he stopped whatever he was doing and jerked up, spinning to look at her.

  Her eyes widened when she saw that it was Jim. He gave a start, almost falling back into Landry’s neatly organized SWAT and police uniforms. If he hadn’t thrown one arm out to grab the edge of the closet with one free hand, he would have.

  Everly stared at the green rectangular block in his other hand. She didn’t know what it was, but she saw the word Demolition written on it.

  “Everly,” Jim said in a tone of voice that didn’t do a thing to help her relax. “What are you doing here?”

  What was she doing here? What was he doing here?

  She would have asked, but then she caught sight of the duffel bag in the closet. It was unzipped, and there were more of those green blocks inside. Why would Jim put something that looked like a bag of explosives in Landry’s closet?

  Alarm bells rang so loudly in Everly’s head she could hardly think. She backpedaled as Jim took a step toward her.

  “Everly, this isn’t what it looks like,” he said.

  When someone said, this isn’t what it looks like, it was always exactly what it looked like. Heart pounding, Everly turned and ran for the front door.

  Jim’s footsteps were loud behind her as she ran into the hallway and raced for the stairs. She only had to make it to her car. Then she could call the cops.

  Everly didn’t make it to the top of the stairwell before Jim caught up and gave her a shove in the back. She barely avoided flying headlong down the flight of steps, but didn’t avoid the concrete support column off to the side. She lifted an arm to protect her face, but still hit the column so hard that every ounce of air in her lungs exploded. The pain was immediate, intense, and everywhere.

  The impact stunned her so much, she couldn’t even scream. Then Jim was dragging her down the stairs toward the parking lot, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop him.

  * * *

  Cooper sat on the workout bench in the small weight room the SWAT team had put together in the training building. It could hold only about six or eight of his teammates at a time, but it had a lot of weights, and right now, that was all he cared about.

  “One more set,” he announced, wiping the sweat out of his eyes, then dropping back on the bench and wrapping his hands around the heavily loaded barbell.

  Brooks didn’t say anything—one of the benefits of working out with him—as he took up point at the head of the bench to spot him again.

  Cooper lifted the weights off the rack with a growl. The thick bar flexed and bowed, but he ignored it as he slowly lowered the bar to his chest and let it rest there for a moment before shoving up with an explosive grunt. He held the four-hundred-and-twenty-five pounds at arm’s length for a second and let it come back down before doing it all over again. He didn’t cheat the exercise by letting the weight bounce off his chest each time it came down, either. He was here for the burn, not the number of reps he could do.

  He’d come back to the compound after seeing Jim, relieved that he didn’t have to worry about his friend being involved in all this bomber crap anymore. But without Jim to focus all his attention on, he was left with only one other person to fixate on—Everly. He couldn’t even remember how many times he’d almost headed out to his Jeep so he could drive by her place and make sure she was okay. He’d controlled himself, but only because he knew Everly would freak out if she caught him snooping around. She’d made it pretty fucking clear she didn’t want to have anything else to do with him. Hell, now that she knew a knife to the heart would kill him, she’d probably send those psycho-ass brothers after him to finish what they’d started.

  “Dude,” Brooks said. “You might want to put more weight on the bar because this obviously isn’t enough.”

  Cooper looked up to see Brooks grinning at him. That was when he realized his arms, shoulders, and chest muscles were burning like hell. He racked the weights and sat up. “How many reps did I do?”

  Brooks shrugged as he came around to take his turn. “I don’t know. I got tired of counting—around forty.”

  Cooper stood and moved around the bench into the spotter position. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’m a little preoccupied.”

  Brooks laughed in that deep, rumbling voice of his. “You think?”

  Cooper was going to mention that he liked Brooks better when he wasn’t talking so much, but he didn’t get the chance because Alex walked in.

  “Hey Cooper, you have some visitors at the gate.”

  Unless one of them was Everly, he wasn’t interested. “I’m not really in the mood to talk to anyone. See if you can get rid of them.”

  Alex snorted. “I think you might want to reconsider. They have guns.”

  Cooper frowned. Who the hell would be bold enough to come to the SWAT compound toting weapons? There were only four people he could think of who would be that stupid—Everly’s brothers. Swearing under his breath, he strode out of the weight room. Alex and Brooks followed him to the front gate, clearly intending to give him backup if he needed it.

  Tristan, Armand, Giles, and Claude were waiting on the other side of the chain-link fence, looking pissed off as hell.

  “Where’s our sister?” Armand demanded, his hand resting on the butt of the pistol tucked in the front of his belt.

  A twinge of panic zipped through him. “I haven’t seen her in two days. Is she okay?”

  The four Danu brothers looked at one another questioningly, but it was Tristan who answered him.

  “We went to see Everly, hoping to cheer her up, but Mia said she’d left for your place over two hours ago. When we went over there to make sure she was okay, we couldn’t find her. We found her car though.”

  A part of Cooper’s mind wondered how the brothers had even known where he lived, but he brushed that off as unimportant.

  “What do you mean, she’s not there?” Cooper growled. “Did you search around the apartment complex?”

  Tristan nodded. “She’s not there.”

  Cooper threw Alex a quick look. “Open the fence.”

  Not waiting for a reply, he turned and ran to his Jeep. Brooks fell into step beside him, jumping into the passenger seat without a word. Figuring Alex would want to come too, Cooper paused just long enough for him to lock the gate and hop in the back.

  Alex grabbed onto the roll bar as Cooper sped away from the SWAT compound. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know that anything is wrong.” Cooper glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Armand’s minivan chasing them. “But my gut has been shouting at me all day to go check on Everly, and I’ve been ignoring i
t.”

  Fifteen minutes later, he squealed to a stop in a space only a few down from Everly’s car. Behind him, Armand stomped on the brakes and brought the minivan from hell to a smoking stop a few cars farther down. The Brothers Stupid jumped out and immediately headed for his apartment. Cooper, Alex, and Brooks caught up before they took two strides.

  “You just going to keep it running like that?” he asked as he raced ahead and bounded up the stairs three at a time.

  “It’s a frigging minivan,” Armand shouted back. “Who the hell would steal it?”

  There was that, Cooper agreed.

  He was so desperate to get into his apartment he probably would have kicked in his own door, but someone had already done it. Everly’s brothers no doubt.

  “Sorry about the door,” Tristan said.

  Everly’s brothers piled in after Cooper, looking around his apartment like they expected her to jump out from behind the couch. His nose immediately told him she’d been there—and so had Jim.

  But how had they gotten in his apartment? Neither had a key.

  Suddenly, it all came together in one sickening punch to the gut. Jim promised he’d go see Dennis, but instead, he came here. Cooper wasn’t sure why Jim had broken in, but he could think of only one reason his friend would have had blown off meeting with Dennis—because he really was the bomber. Shit. He didn’t know how Jim had been able to lie to him so convincingly, but his friend had played him for a fool. How the fuck could he have been so wrong? Because he’d been desperate to believe anything his friend had told him, not to mention so messed up about Everly that he hadn’t been thinking straight.

  But why the hell had Jim grabbed Everly? Since her car was here, and she wasn’t, it only made sense that she’d gone with him. And Cooper’s gut told him she hadn’t gone willingly.

  “Shit,” he swore.

  Armand glared at him. “What is it? Where’s Everly?”

  “I don’t have time to explain,” Cooper said.

  Understatement there. Now that Jim knew Cooper was on to him, it was reasonable to assume his friend wouldn’t waste any more time going after Ryan North. If Cooper found the former EOD company commander, he’d find Jim. And if Everly wasn’t with him, Cooper would make Jim tell him where she was. And if Jim hurt her, Cooper was going to kill him, friend or not.