by T. S. Joyce
“You still have your clothes on, so you didn’t Change and run here—”
“Are you going to talk the entire time?”
“Well…probably.”
Kade wanted to kick everything. “If you’re going to talk, talk about Trina.”
The knowing grin that spread across Ethan’s face was the most obnoxious thing Kade had ever witnessed, and he didn’t even try to stop the snarl in his throat. Ethan was a crusty, obnoxious shrimp chode, and Kade was probably going to Change and eat him. He had two stepbrothers, so he could play that game twice. Right about now, he missed being an only child. He hadn’t missed out on anything growing up by himself. Brothers were headaches, and about ninety-four percent of the time, he wanted to bite them.
“I take it back. I don’t want to be in your Clan.”
“Too late. Leah made us matching T-shirts. Glitter glue was involved. Can’t take it back now.”
“I hate you.”
“Trina lost her whole Clan,” Ethan said suddenly.
Inside the bar, she gave her dad a big hug, and they stayed like that for a minute. Something was wrong. She was upset.
Kade sighed. “I know that part.”
“Then you know how tough she is. She suffered the pain of all those broken bonds, of everyone she cared about dying, and she’s still here. She was watching you the other day, Kade. In that cell? She was sitting there watching you breathe. I never seen a woman more worried about someone. She lost a Clan, and not only did she survive it, but she was brave enough to open herself up to another Clan and un-jaded enough to still care about people.”
“Tough girl,” Kade murmured, tracking her movement across the bar with a tray of beers for a table of blue-collar boys.
“Yeah. Maybe even tough enough to handle you.” Ethan Changed and lifted off the ground with the flap of his wings. A single black feather floated down and landed on the grass beside Kade. He leaned over and picked it up just to make sure it was real…just to make sure he hadn’t imagined Ethan.
It wouldn’t have been the first time.
You aren’t crazy at all.
The biggest tragedy in his life was that Trina was wrong.
Chapter Seven
“I know you’re out there,” Trina called. Well, she didn’t know know. More like, she was hopeful.
She did feel watched, though. The acre of woods around her little one-bedroom cabin was still and quiet. There were no little animal sounds, no breeze rattling dry leaves, no birds settling in for the night.
Sure, it was three in the morning, but still. Usually there was something awake with her when she got home from late nights closing down the bar. She was still getting used to the hours of The GutShot. Her and her dad, Cooper, had only just bought it six months ago. And she was the main one who managed it since her dad was a pilot and ran shipments in and out of these parts as much as he could.
She shifted the bag of frozen burger patties and hamburger buns into her other hand and scanned the woods one more time. “Hello?”
No answer, nothing moved.
It had been three days since she and Kade had been released from the Darby Precinct. Three days since he’d led her up the stairs and to the parking lot where her dad waited on one side and Ethan on the other. Three days since Kade stopped right in the middle of that parking lot, turned on her, gripped her arms, and said, “I can’t have fragile things.” He’d leaned in like he wanted to kiss her, but paused then released her and walked away without looking back.
That moment haunted her now.
Damn him.
He’d made her pay attention. She’d had her shoulders hunched against the storm of her life, and he’d made her sit up straight and look right at him. He’d made her interested, and it wasn’t just being in heat. She didn’t only want him in bed. She didn’t only want him to take the edge off by fucking for a few minutes. No. She wanted to know everything about him because what he had exposed of himself was raw, gritty, and beautiful.
He was the most interesting man she’d ever met. And the most dangerous because of it.
She missed him—a man she barely knew. She was losing her mind, and she didn’t know what to do about it or how to feel less about him.
Disappointed to her bones that he wasn’t here, she made her way to the front porch but stood stock-still when she saw what was waiting for her right up against the logs of the house. It was a rocking chair painted in distressed teal. Her cabin was all natural wood, no fancy stains, so the rocking chair was the only pop of color out here.
Teal was her favorite.
Chills consuming her arms, she looked out at the woods. It had to be him, right? Kade did this? Or made this?
She sat down gingerly in it and rocked. It was well-made, didn’t creak, was solid as a redwood, and smooth with every movement. She slid her fingertips over a picture carved onto the left arm. It was the outline of a mountain lion, barely visible because it had been painted over.
But when she felt the other arm, there was nothing there, only smooth, painted wood. No way would an artist who made this leave a beautiful piece unbalanced.
She got off the chair and knelt beside it, searching every smooth surface in the porch light. Finding nothing on top, she pushed the chair back and looked underneath. There. On the undercarriage of the seat, there was carved an outline of a wolf howling at the moon.
Holy shit.
Chills rippled up her entire body.
Kade had done this. He’d carved her animal and his onto this chair. And sure, they were separate, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d snuck his animal with hers onto the same piece of furniture.
Trina huffed a breath and sat down on the porch.
Separate.
A hollowness filled her. Emptiness. Loneliness. She and Kade were the same…separate from the world around them.
She was destined to eat alone, be alone, and pretend to be tough and happy for the couples around her. No holding hands with someone who wanted to protect her, no rolling over in the middle of the night to find sanctuary from a bad dream in a man’s arms.
A tear streaked down her face. This gift was a beautiful heartbreak. She’d been so determined to stay strong, but losing a Clan hurt. It hurt and made her scared, made her think that being alone was the safest way to take care of a heart.
So why did hers still hurt so bad?
She’d watched Ten and Kurt fall in love and become king and queen of the New Darby Clan. She’d watched her dad love her mother deeply when she’d been alive. She’d watched all the shifters in this territory pair up and fix each other, but who was here to fix her? A wolf who wouldn’t let himself be close to her.
She deserved better. She deserved nothing at all. She deserved better. She deserved nothing at all.
A sob escaped her and she just…broke down. But pissed at her weakness, Trina blasted her fists against the porch and let a panther scream rip out of her as long and as loud as she could.
And in the distance, very, very far away…a wolf answered her with the most hauntingly beautiful, heart-wrenchingly lonely howl she’d ever heard.
Chapter Eight
Trina clutched her hot mug of coffee and stared at the rocking chair. It was dawn, and she’d come out here to enjoy the cup on her new chair, just to feel close to Kade, but her seat was already taken by a box wrapped in newspaper.
She inhaled deeply but didn’t smell him near.
Bare-footed, Trina padded across the porch to the chair and set the mug on the railing, then opened the present. It was a set of four butter knives. The gently curved blades all matched, but the handles were made from pieces of deer antler. On the end of each was carved an animal. Mountain lion like Trina, Kurt, and her father. A squirrel like Tenlee. A crow like Ethan. And lastly, a wolf. Like Kade.
They’d all been nestled side by side in the box on a piece of velvet, but the mountain lion and wolf were on opposite sides of each other. Separate. Always separate.
&
nbsp; She brushed her fingertip against the handle of the wolf knife. They were beautiful. He was giving her little treasures.
The next morning, there was a rough, wooden picture frame with a black and white picture of her behind the bar, leaning over a piece of paper. Had he seen what she’d doodled that day? It had been a wolf. She could almost almost make it out in the picture. On the edge of the frame was an outline of a mountain lion’s face, but the wolf was harder to find on this one. She had to open up the back. A wolf head had been sketched on the back of the picture.
She clutched it to her chest and scanned the woods, but as always, Kade was a ghost. She was falling in love with a ghost.
On the fourth day, there was nothing.
One the fifth day, there was nothing.
On the sixth day…still nothing.
On the seventh day, there was a little carving of a mountain lion, but no wolf.
Something had happened.
Trina got dressed in her favorite teal tank top, pulled her hair back in a ponytail, put her sunglasses on, and hit the road because Kade wasn’t the only one who could stalk. Trina was a good hunter, too.
The roar of her motorcycle echoed through the woods of Corvallis as she wove up the dirt lane toward the address she’d found. Leah owned this place, but as Trina pulled into the clearing, she was stunned by what she saw. It was a mansion, complete with three stories and big white columns around the wraparound porch. The lawn was manicured, and off to the side was Leah in a red polka dot bikini and matching red sunglasses, sipping on a margarita.
Trina settled the motorcycle on its kickstand and waved to Leah, who wore the biggest grin.
“It’s ten in the morning, and you already have a margarita,” Trina called as she wound through the stone flower boxes of colorful roses.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” Leah sang back.
Trina giggled and took a seat in the bright blue plastic lawn chair beside the tanning werewolf.
“I’ve been a little stressed,” Leah admitted. “And it’s my day off from the Hamburger Shack so I figured, while Ethan is working, I would have a party for one out here and watch the humming birds. Look.” She pointed to a trio of feeders on the edge of the woods.
There were two tiny birds flittering this way and that as they drank from the different ones.
“Aww,” Trina said. “They’re so cute, I don’t even want to eat them.”
Leah frowned at her and shook her head. “Cats,” she muttered. “There’s canned margs in the cooler.”
Why the heck not? Trina didn’t have to be into work until six tonight and had no plans.
“Are you here to ask about Kade?” Leah murmured, eyes on the feeders.
“How did you know?” Trina asked.
“He’s part of why I’m stressed,” Leah said softly.
“What do you mean?”
“He has trouble with Changes. This time he was out in the woods for three days, and he came back sick.”
Trina sat up straight in the chair. “Sick how?”
“Head sick. Or maybe heart sick? He looked awful and couldn’t stop snarling, and he didn’t even make it five minutes into a meal last night before he said he had to Change again. When I went into his room this morning, his bed hadn’t been slept in.”
“He lives here?”
“Him and me and Ethan. I was going to sell this place because I couldn’t afford the property taxes, but now the boys help, and it’s a good home for all of us. Or clubhouse, or whatever you call it.”
“It’s beautiful,” Trina said, staring at the house over her shoulder. “Kade isn’t here right now?”
“No. Sometimes I make him hang out with me on my days off. He pretends he hates it, but he smiles when he thinks I’m not looking so I’m pretty sure he doesn’t really mind. But today he’s just disappeared and won’t answer his phone or anything. Ethan is really worried. You asked how I knew you were here to ask about Kade.”
“Yeah?”
“I want to show you something.” Leah stood, toting her margarita. Clad in her little bikini, she sauntered off toward the back of the house.
Trina grabbed her canned margarita, popped the top, and followed directly. In the sprawling back yard, there was a shop. It looked like an old barn but had been kept up well. It was all clean lines and wood stained the same color. It even had flowers in the landscaping out front. But when Trina followed Leah inside, it was anything but tidy. Sawdust covered the floor in piles, tables with different projects littered the space, tools were everywhere. A set of four matching chairs were in different stages. Cans of paint were scattered along the back wall, and there was a bench that covered the length of the left side of the massive shop.
“That’s why,” Leah murmured, gesturing to the bench.
Trina approached it slowly in awe. There were carvings of mountain lions. And pictures. Photographs. Sketches nailed to the wall in a collage. In the trashcan right beside his work area, Kade had thrown away piles of pictures and carvings and set them on fire. They were charred, but she bent slightly and pulled out one carving from the ashes that was only burned around the edges. It was of a wolf.
Behind her, Leah said, “He doesn’t like his animal. He doesn’t like what he is.”
Trina swallowed hard.
Enough was enough.
She picked up a carving of a mountain lion and yanked the bottle of wood glue from the counter. And then she glued that wolf and lion together. And while they dried, she wrote on the top page of his sketch book the words we are not separate, and placed the carvings on top of it.
“When he comes home, tell him I have a present for him, but he has to come see me to get it.”
The smile on Leah’s face was slow and steady, and she nodded once. “Are you going to help me fix him?”
Trina shook her head and looked down at the trashcan full of burned wolves. “No. He doesn’t need to be fixed. I like him just fine the way he is.”
And when she looked back at Leah, the girl’s eyes were rimmed with tears and her bottom lip was trembling. But then there was that slow smile again. “You’re a good mate.”
Chapter Nine
Oh, he’d heard Leah going on and on about how he needed to talk to Trina. Her and Ethan both, but they didn’t understand. He would kill Trina. Or at the very least, hurt her, and he couldn’t do that to her. Admittedly, he was an asshole and selfish by nature, but with her…she felt different to him. Bigger. More important than everyone else. He would rather stick his masturbating hand in a bear trap than see Trina hurt.
The psychopath in him couldn’t stop making her presents. It was like a glitch. He’d become addicted to watching her face from the woods when she found his gifts on the rocking chair he’d built for her. Rocking chair. Ha. Did she even realize what he’d really built her? A Christmas tree. A present box. A catch-all for the trinkets he would probably always bring her until his crazy wolf got him killed or locked away.
Trina was sleeping.
He’d been waiting out here for her bedroom light to go off while he fiddled with the carvings she’d glued together. He’d been carrying it in his pocket all day. We are not separate. He would keep that note forever just to be reminded of the girl he could’ve had—if he’d been a normal werewolf.
Why wasn’t she scared of him?
That’s the part he couldn’t figure out. Look at him. He was posted up outside her house every night, waiting for her to drift off to sleep so he could sneak her a present. And when he was Changed, he was running around her woods taking a piss on every tree like he was marking his damned territory. He was clearly hunting her, and she should be scared, so why had she come all the way out to his home, into his shop, and written that letter?
He ran his thumb over the burned wolf. Because we are not separate.
He didn’t understand her. He didn’t understand himself. He didn’t understand anyone.
Tonight’s gift, she wouldn’t like. He already accepted
that. It was just a rock he’d found that had a pretty purple sheen to it, and he’d picked it up for her.
Maybe he would leave it right here so that someday when she was walking through the woods, long after he was locked up or killed, she would find it and have a happy moment.
A twig snapped behind him, and the hairs electrified instantly on the back of his neck. Kade spun with a snarl in his throat, only to find Trina standing there with a big, bright smile on her face. She wore cutoff shorts and a red tank top that made her fair skin look even paler in the moonlight. Over one shoulder, she held one of those cheap bag chairs they sold in every grocery store.
“I got tired of waiting for my present,” she chirped as she pulled the chair out of its nylon case. She yanked on the handles until it was chair-shaped and settled it on the dry leaves. And then she squatted by a little blue cooler and pulled out a couple of Bud Lights.
He crouched there wondering how the hell he’d been snuck up on while she popped the top of the first and held it out for him. “Beer?”
“Uuuuuh…yes?”
“I would’ve brought you a chair too, but I figured you’d rather stick to your special squatting spot and would decline it anyway.”
“My what?”
Trina sat in her chair and pointed to where he was kneeling. “I found that spot yesterday. Seems to be your favorite. It smells like you.”
Kade narrowed his eyes and approached, took the beer from her, and took a long swig. Huh. Good little stalker.
She was still holding out her hand, and she wiggled her fingers at him. “Gimme.”
“How do you know I have anything for you?” he asked.
“Because that’s why you’re out here, right? Waiting for me to go to sleep. Well, I don’t want to go to sleep. I want to hang out. I’ve been having bad dreams.”
“About what?” he asked.
“I dream that I’m in this car and I’m drowning, but then I wake up.”
“Geez, woman. That’s horrible.”
Trina shrugged. “I’ve had it since I was a kid. Sometimes I get a break for a few months, but it always comes back and I always wake up gasping for air.”