by Cristy Rey
For a moment, Cyrus found himself thinking back on his home. It was surely covered under a foot of snow, at least. He shared a house with Marcus, another pack member, on what the wolves called “the reservation.” They’d made a home just outside of Healy where all their pack members lived, some with one another, or alone, and others with their families. Though some of the pack had chosen to live in the bigger city, Cyrus and a few others preferred to take up residence on the reservation securely located within miles of forestland.
The Alaska pack had been good to him. Before Stephen had invited him to stay, Cyrus had lived as a lone wolf, sticking mostly to the Southwestern United States. He was from there, after all. Had been born and grown up as a human there until he’d been sixteen when a werewolf attacked him and left him for dead. His body had been strong, though, resilient, and it had fought off death and accepted its curse. Cyrus could pass as a man of thirty to thirty-five years old, but he was older than that by decades. Lycanthropy altered genes and generated cell mutations that doctors found slowed the aging process considerably. Theoretically, a werewolf might be able to die of old age in a couple hundred years, but their lifestyles didn’t lend themselves to longevity. Most died violent deaths at the hands of bounty hunters, other creatures of preternatural origins, or, as in a majority of cases, other werewolves.
Sunday must have noticed his mind wandering into sore memories, because she reached a hand across the table and put his hand in hers. She squeezed lightly, her expression soft.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She spoke just above a whisper, and her tone was gentle and caring. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
Cyrus brought his eyes to her, large, brown eyes looking up from under his brow. He laid his other hand over hers and rubbed his thumb over the back of it. He shook his head and smiled at her. They shared a long moment of silence between them.
“You’re incredible,” he finally said. “I don’t know what I expected, but…” His words faded as their eyes continued to linger on one another. “Nothing, Sunday, nothing at all. You’re just incredible.”
They stayed, talking and having drinks until after midnight when she initiated their departure. He’d wanted to stay with her. Talking, not talking, he didn’t care. The pictures and the data he’d collected of the years she’d been his quest paled in comparison to the real deal. Even as she carefully tiptoed around the headline grabbing details of her history, she opened herself up to him, a veritable stranger. Sunday spoke longingly about missing out on high school in favor for homeschooling, which she attributed to a “very religious aunt” who raised her. She talked about her experiences traveling the country and described the values and drawbacks of living in big cities and small towns alike. She expressed real joy at the prospect of finally having a place to call home, and admitted how she simultaneously feared setting roots so deep in Columbia that she wouldn’t be able to leave one day.
It was easy to see how Sunday could seamlessly fall into the lives of the people she encountered over the years, how they could love her and know her, while never really knowing who or what she was. It was almost too easy for Sunday to fall into such sincerity while weaving her web of deceit. Cyrus had to believe that all her years on the road, lying about who she was, had made her a pro. All those interviews with people she’d left along the way could never have established the richness of the person Sunday was when Cyrus got to experience her himself, or the person Sunday wanted him to believe she was.
The more she offered about herself, the more Cyrus had to fight the urge to tell her everything. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t dare. Not because it would endanger his mission, but because it would mean it would end. Whatever “it” was that was happening to Cyrus would be over. He could deal with the conflict later: How much of Sunday was real? How much of what he was feeling was real? Could it be that his investment in her was by her design? Was he under the Incarnate’s spell? As much as he didn’t want to believe it, he had to consider it. But he didn’t want to play that mental game now. Now, all Cyrus wanted to do was live in the moment, and believe that the woman who he was with was the person she was making herself out to be.
“Can I see you again?” she asked.
They were walking to Sunday’s car in the parking lot. Cyrus had offered to walk her to ensure that she’d make it safe. Sunday didn’t miss a beat, however. She chuckled, shrugged, and responded, “Sure. You tell yourself you just want me to get to my car safely. I’ll go on believing you just want to spend a few more seconds with me. Either way, it’s not really a lie. It’s just another version of the truth.”
With her hands in her coat pockets and her teeth chattering from the cold that Cyrus could hardly detect, Sunday turned on her heel as she reached her car.
“So, can we see each other again?” she repeated.
Cyrus hadn’t considered what he would do at the end of the night. That she wanted to exchange numbers and see him again was far beyond his expectation. He was following her, after all, pursuing, and stalking her, contracted to capture and retrieve her. Tag her and bag her, as Angel called it. It had been his plan all along to deliver her into the eager hands of the cult.
Anything that could have possibly come of this momentary deviation had no hope of changing that objective. It would happen, whether he liked it or not. If it wasn’t his pack, then someone else would eventually find her. The Pastophori of Iset wanted her, and they wanted her bad.
“Yes.” Just like that single word he had worked so hard to muster in response to her at the club, this yes burned as it came up. It wreaked havoc on every bone in his body as it climbed to his lips. “Yes.”
They exchanged numbers before she got in the car. He stayed, standing there as she drove away, staring out into the horizon well after her car had passed out of view, kicking himself for having ever led his pack to her and put her fate in the hands of the Pastophori of Iset.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Waiting even the twelve-or-so hours between watching her drive off and calling her the next day was the most agonizing, trying time of Cyrus’ life. Within a minute on the phone, Sunday easily put him out of his misery and asked what he was planning for dinner. Cyrus knocked on the door just as she emerged from a shower.
Scavenging for the closest thing she could get into quickly, Sunday pulled a short sun dress over her head and ran to the door. Fresh from the shower, Sunday’s face was still dewy and glistening as she greeted Cyrus. She rubbed the excess water out of her hair as he leaned in for a kiss on the cheek. At the touch of his lips, the warmth from his lips spread from where they connected with her cheek to the soles of her feet. It was more than his werewolf heat that consumed her. He eyed her hungrily, and her skin seared on every part of her body that his eyes brushed over in his assessment.
Cyrus’ gaze fell to her long legs and lingered there. He imagined brushing up her skirt and discovering just how high the tattoos that burst from under the hem of her dangerously short dress went. As he caught himself falling down that rabbit hole of possibility, Cyrus shook his head and returned his hazel eyes to Sunday’s face. Her blush-stained cheeks dimpled with a sly smile.
“I stopped to get us dinner on the way since you didn’t want to go out,” he said, showcasing the box he’d held under his arm. “Who doesn’t like Chinese?”
Sunday was still lavishing in the warmth that his chaste kiss and his none-too-prude evaluation had imbued her with. She showed him in, offered him a seat at the kitchen table, then walked away to replace the towel and slip into some underwear. When she emerged from the room, her damp hair lit into uneven spikes around her head. Cyrus chuckled, and instantly aware of how she must have looked, she blushed and ran back into her room to find a mirror.
“I thought it was cute,” Cyrus called after her, the tenor of his husky voice lifted by the humor behind it.
“Adorable, probably,” she teased as she sauntered back into the living room.
Sunday took her time to get
to the kitchen, entertaining the perusal that licked her figure as she moved. He watched intently as she moved around looking for utensils and plates. Unable to restrain himself any longer, the werewolf came up behind her suddenly. He nuzzled into the crook of her neck and fixed his hands onto her hips. She rose on the balls of her feet and drew into him softly, pushing her round bottom into the crotch of his pants. His grip tightened on her hips, and she felt his erection throbbing against her body. A breath caught in her throat. With their bodies so close, she knew that he could feel it. Smiling, he bent his mouth to her ear and purred his satisfaction.
Sunday tilted her face up to Cyrus. Gold flecks shimmered among the receding brown of his irises. Cyrus’ wolf simmered beneath the surface, as he’d grown aroused. Recognizing the wolf made her belly flip and she shifted her weight unconsciously between her legs.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” she cautioned with a sultry bedroom voice. Hers was a heavy, lusty gaze. “Your true colors are showing there, wolf.”
Sunday brushed her thumb over the length of his eyebrow, and she swept an errant strand of dark blond hair over his ear. “Calm down before you decide against eating the Chinese food you brought and decide to eat me instead.”
An instinctual rumbling growl was Cyrus’ only response. With a light shove, she urged him to sit back at the table.
“Go on then,” she said, slapping his backside as he turned and started walking. She couldn’t see his face, but she was sure he was smiling when he shook his head as he reclaimed the seat at the table.
Dinner carried on much in the same fashion, with the two maintaining a flirtatious banter that toed the line between overt come-ons and subtle innuendo. After dinner, the pair took the conversation into the living room.
The elation of attraction subsided, and they eased their way from flirting to just talking—really talking. It was frightening how seamlessly they fell into the comfort of one another’s company. Cyrus nearly forgot whom he was talking to and what had brought them together as he delved into the story of his life. Unlike the previous night, Cyrus wasn’t thinking about what was too much or too honest to tell Sunday.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter that he was pent up on all sides with the strain of his cursed life. With Sunday, he opened up. The mask of his stone façade waned. Simply by listening, Sunday had carved a path into his soul. He told her things he told no one. He talked about his life before and since the attack that made him the monster he now was.
Pausing, she let herself drink in Cyrus’ sincerity. He was being real. She knew it. She felt it. This was a man unaccustomed to emotional intimacy, but at this moment, Cyrus’ resolve was cracking. Through those cracks, Sunday felt him beaming. She couldn’t help but reciprocate. And god, she needed it. Together, Cyrus and Sunday were making the decision to drop the pretenses. It was an organic exchange, and when one removed a stitch, the other shed in kind. Soon, she was holding his hand in hers as she waxed on about her life, truths, and more truths until all she had to say was the word “Incarnate” for her to be completely exposed. Had Cyrus not felt just as naked, he would have hated himself for perpetrating a con.
“I’ve just always kept moving,” Sunday told him. Her voice was distant even though she was looking directly at him as she spoke. “One day, I woke up, and everything I thought I had, everything I thought was real and important and true… I just didn’t have any of it anymore.”
As she talked, her fingers tightened lacing his tighter between them. She fidgeted, pulling her hands apart and then bringing them back together. The facts were, at this stage, irrelevant. What she was spilling were truths, and only truths. It was more honest than she’d been with anyone for a decade, maybe even longer.
“Thing is,” she confessed, “I wanted it that way. It made sense. Just keep going, I kept telling myself. There’s so much more to see, so many more places to travel and people to meet..., but that’s just what I’m telling myself. I’m trying to sell this to myself. The truth is that everywhere I go, shit follows me. I don’t know that I actually want to keep from setting roots into the ground. I just know that I have to keep going. I want to make connections. I want to have a home. I just….”
Just when Cyrus was going to say he knew exactly what she feeling, Sunday dropped her head and stared into her lap. One of her legs draped over the side of the couch and the other one bent under her. Their bodies faced one another on the sofa. Cyrus leaned closer to her, pushing up from his arm that rested across the top of the cushions. He drew his hand to her chin and tilted it so that she could meet his gaze. Sunday grabbed his forearm, gently pulling him closer as he rubbed the tips of his fingers over her pouting lips.
Cyrus’ body edged over to Sunday’s as she pulled him closer. She looked at him through tear-filled honey eyes, her eyelashes blinking away tears that she had silently begun crying as she’d hung her head.
“What’s wrong?” Cyrus asked.
When she dismissed the question by shaking her head, Cyrus pressed his lips softly to hers. He pulled away slightly so that he could ask her again. With his face so close to hers, Sunday could feel the concern oozing from his pores. It battled her self-control and begged for her to talk to him.
“It’s nothing,” she answered, wiping the tears from her face and rubbing her eyes.
“Tell me, please,” Cyrus pleaded.
Sunday breathed a heavy sigh and tried to regain some semblance of composure. She’d invited Cyrus over for a distraction, some flirtation, and maybe even something more physical. Yet there they sat, threatening to tell each other more than they should about themselves and their lives.
“I feel like I’m always trying to outrun Destiny or something, and Destiny’s made up its mind that I should be miserable and alone.”
“So why are you here?” Cyrus asked. “This seems like a comfy little place for someone who’s always two seconds from taking off. What’s kept you around? Why are you still here?”
“Honestly? I shouldn’t be. I shouldn’t be sitting here. Not alone, not with you, and not with anybody. But I have to be here. Right now, I have to stick around as much as the shitstorm is almost certainly taking shape.”
Sunday gnawed into her bottom lip, staring at her fingers laced between Cyrus’ on her lap. This wasn’t turning out to be the distraction that Sunday had envisioned it would be when she had invited him over. The more Sunday tried to ignore the idea of Kayla and Sammy in danger, the more she wanted to confide in Cyrus about of it.
“I have these friends that are into some shit that could be really dangerous. They’re my only friends in the world. They’re the only friends I’ve ever had. I was so tired of running that, when I met them, it was like they were my sign. They were the sign. With them I could be, you know, close to normal.”
Sunday quickly snapped her mouth shut and gritted her teeth. That was too much, way too much. He already knew that she had some extrasensory ability, but now she was telling him about living on the road. Soon, she would end up telling him about why she didn’t ever stay in one place for too long, or why she didn’t have any other friends. By the end of the night, he could know everything, and everything was anything but what Cyrus or anyone else could ever know about her. One werewolf meant other werewolves. A pack of werewolves could put two and two together, and soon, the word would be out: The Incarnate lives, and she has something to lose.
“And now there’s this thing with you…” Her voice trailed off and she closed her eyes tightly, shaking her head. Her entire body slumped in defeat. Perhaps Cyrus was just another thing to tack onto that list of things to lose. Things that Sunday could never really have, just like everything else she really wanted.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
She knows. Holy fuck, she knows.
Cyrus jumped from his seat and his hands flew in front of his face. Palms out, he waved like he was showing her that wasn’t hiding anything. Lie. He was defensive, flushing with the need to explain himself, to tell her the truth. He had been sent
to capture her, but he wasn’t planning on handing her over to the Pastophori of Iset, or even to his pack. Not anymore.
“Sunday, listen, for years, I’ve been looking for something. I can’t tell you… I want to tell you but…” Exasperated and confused, Cyrus forced himself to look anywhere but at Sunday. She’s the Incarnate, he reminded himself.
She knows. Or maybe she doesn’t know just yet, but the minute I look at her, she’ll see it in me. She’ll see the betrayal and she’ll know.
For lack of anything better to say, all the thoughts swirling in Cyrus’ brain bubbled on his lips and poured from him.
“I’ve been all over the place looking for it. Just when I think I’ve found it, it’s gone, and I have to hunt it down again. It’s been my purpose. It’s been the only thing I’ve wanted because… I’m just starting to understand this now, but the chasing of this thing, it’s the only thing that gives me a reason to keep on living. I’ve been fueled by hate and passion and it’s blinded me, but it’s brought me here. I owe it to you. I’m so sorry, Sunday–”
Cyrus stopped and started again, brushing down his beard anxiously and trying to get the words to come out. She was the thing he’d been obsessively seeking, but finding her changed everything he’d known even about himself. He could hardly stomach to reason that he would never be able to hold onto her once she learned the real reason that he was sitting in her living room at that moment.
If she didn’t know before, she certainly deserved to know now. No amount of holding her hand and listening while she worked her shit out could ever make up for what Hell he’d perpetrated on her. In the end, no equivocation absolved him. Her very real, dangerous problems were entirely his fault. Now was his chance to confess.
“No, stop it, Cyrus,” she snapped, her tone suddenly sharp and her expression stern. “Listen to me. It’s stupid, really, that all this shit is happening, and I finally meet a guy who I’m actually interested in.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him to sit beside her again. Inching closer, she continued.