by Kamryn Hart
Because something was wrong.
He sniffed the air again once he was inside. The house was as big of a mess as it was when he had left. James’s blood stained the threadbare carpet. It was thick like no one had tried to wash it away.
“Mom!” Derek called.
No one answered.
With nothing else to go on, he followed the bad smell. It was coming from his mother’s bedroom. He faltered at the slightly ajar door. All of a sudden, he didn’t want to go in there.
“Mom?” he tried again and he pressed his fingers against the door, opening it wider.
He choked when he saw his mother somehow hanging from a rope tied to the light fixture above the bed. The thing was only hanging on by a few cables. It looked like it had been slowly sinking lower to the ground. His mother was sallow. Her neck was leaning too far back and at an odd angle. It was snapped.
“Mom,” Derek whimpered.
He was overcome with blinding anguish. He growled, grabbed the pocket knife he had picked up while on his own, and used his newfound strength to leap up and cut his mother loose. He caught her in his arms and landed on her bed. He sunk to his knees, cradling his mother’s body.
She smelled terrible. It wasn’t that cheap perfume smell he was used to. She had been dead for a while. Probably the same night or the day after she had told Derek to leave. After she accused him of being a demon. She had no faith in him. She didn’t love Derek. She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t have left him like this. She wouldn’t have chased him away. She loved James. It explained everything. It was the reason why she never spoke up when Derek tried time and time again to save her. As soon as James was gone, his mother couldn’t go on living. What kind of a fucked up world was this? And why didn’t he understand any of it? How had he been deluding himself this whole fucking time?
He howled in his sorrow, the wolf part of him showing through, reminding him of what he was. He didn’t know how it was possible for him to be a wolf when his mother wasn’t. Likely, he got it from the father he never knew. Likely, she had no idea about Derek or that man until the night Derek shifted and killed James.
It turned out his mother would have been better off without him. At least, she would have been alive. Was that better? He didn’t know. His actions resulted in her death, but if he hadn’t acted, James would have still been abusing her. There was no right answer because it was all wrong.
Derek couldn’t fix anything. He couldn’t save her.
Now he was alone. He was always alone. He just never knew it.
Love wasn’t real. It was a fantasy concept. Nobody treated anybody else with this unconditional love fairytales preached. Everybody would fall out of the facade of love at some point. The moment you didn’t live up to somebody’s expectations or when they discovered your true nature, they’d condemn you.
He vowed never to love or be loved by anyone again. From that day on, he would live a life of solitude and do as he pleased. He would think only of himself because that was the way to survive in this fucked up world.
Sweat coated his body in a thin sheen. He was clammy and uncomfortable, thrashing in his sleep. Tears stung his eyes. This was the way Derek spent a typical night’s sleep. But he never had someone sleeping next to him before.
Someone sleeping next to him.
A warm hand touched his face, and Derek was finally able to open his eyes. Escaping the torment of his dreams was never a simple matter, but this hand was like a beacon of light in the never-ending darkness.
His eyes quivered back and forth as he blinked through the barrier made of tears threatening to fall. He wasn’t going to cry. He blinked it all away until his vision focused, and he could clearly see Willow hovering over him. Her brown, almost amber, eyes were looking back at him. He could feel the warmth of her body over him as if she were a shield, protecting him from himself.
“Derek,” she said soothingly as she held his cheek in one hand, “are you okay?”
Was he okay? No. He wasn’t okay.
He wiped at his eyes, making sure no tears would be seen by the beautiful woman in front of him. Fuck that. Tears were useless. They were nothing but weakness. But the kind of pain tears followed always came back to haunt him in the night. Try as he might, he could never escape it. And he was never “okay.”
He wanted to brush it off, tell Willow it was nothing, but he choked on the words. He had hidden from the pain for so long. He always escaped it when he awoke, but right now it was consuming him. His chest ached the same as the night he held his dead mother in his arms. But, at the same time, he was tremendously relieved. Willow was right there beside him. Right there hovering over him, worrying over him as if she cared.
It filled something in him, but it also made him afraid. He realized how far Willow had managed to bury herself inside of his heart in such a short time. He didn’t want to lose her. In that moment he realized he would do anything to wake up to her warmth every morning. She was too comforting, too caring, too earnest, and too easily ready to even love him perhaps. He had been fighting it adamantly for the one and a half days he had spent with her, but he felt that same way. It went against everything he had done and told himself for years. It went against his code, but he wanted her. More than anything he wanted to be with her. Fated Mate or not, he was really starting to like her. That was the scariest thing of all. Attachment brought pain, but maybe with Willow, it wouldn’t.
She gently pressed her lips to his forehead. “Derek, talk to me. I’ll listen. I want to listen.”
“Is love real?” he rasped.
“Yes. It’s real.”
“I don’t believe that.”
She stroked his cheek. “Why?”
“Because people are too ready to throw each other away. People are selfish. No one really tries to understand anyone else. No one really wants to love someone when it isn’t convenient. Shifters too. We’re no different.”
“I’m trying to understand you,” Willow whispered.
“That’s why you’re breaking me apart,” he choked.
He reached up and touched her beautiful face, feeling the smooth surface of her porcelain skin. She moved her hand on top of his, holding him there. She closed her eyes, relishing his touch.
“I don’t deserve it,” Derek said when Willow opened her eyes again. “But I want it. I want you so badly I can’t really describe it.”
Willow hummed and smiled at him sweetly. “No, I think you’ve shown me how much you want me.”
He shook his head and placed his other hand on her other cheek, framing her face, making sure she was looking right at him. “More than that. You live in a completely different world than the one I’m from. You’ve told me over and over that I can have that world too. You’ve told me I can be with you even when you’ve been angry or upset with something I’ve done. I keep trying to run away. I keep trying to make you hate me, but I can’t do it anymore. I can’t take anymore.”
Derek’s eyes stung. Those pesky tears were fighting to fall. He hadn’t let them fall in years. He didn’t want to let them fall now, but he didn’t have the power to stop them. It hurt too much. Willow was opening and simultaneously healing the deepest wounds inside of him.
Willow placed her hands to either side of his face, leaned down, and kissed away his tears. Her own eyes were shimmering as she did it. Her lips on his skin were cool and refreshing like they somehow possessed the power to heal. Somehow, he didn’t feel weak right now or even broken. Willow didn’t make him feel that way. She offered comfort.
“I want to talk if you still want to listen,” Derek said quietly.
“I definitely want to listen,” she said, kissing his last tear away.
Derek caught Willow in his arms, bracing her against his chest. Then he turned on his side so they were facing each other. It was very early morning, still dark outside, but the way the moon lit up the curves of Willow’s naked body was entrancing. Her hair seemed silver in this light. She was simply beautiful in
every way. How he was lucky enough to be here right now with her like this, he didn’t know.
They held on to each other, hugging and sharing each other’s warmth. Derek opened up. He told Willow things he had never told anyone.
“My mom was the kind of person who never liked to be alone,” he said. “When I was a kid, she always said we couldn’t make it without a man to provide for us. Now I know that she just never wanted to be alone. For whatever reason, me and her wasn’t good enough. She always wanted some asshole man in her life—every single one of them was an asshole. As a kid, I couldn’t really do anything about it. I mean, my mom was the one protecting me. I trusted and relied on her. Whenever things got bad, I’d hide in a corner or under a table, plug my ears, and wait for the screaming to stop. But I always knew it was wrong. I wanted to do something to save my mom, but I didn’t have any idea how to until I got older.”
Willow grasped the back of Derek’s neck, activating the strange well of energy that seemed to be stored in his Moon Mark. It told him she was listening, and that she was supporting him. It was better than words.
“One day she found a guy who stuck. James. I put up with him for years. When I was twelve, I started trying to get someone outside to see what James was doing. The shit face was sly though. He always found a way to turn everything on me, and suddenly I was this dangerous teen that everyone hid away from. Mom never stuck up for me, but I figured that was because she was afraid. When my fights against James didn’t work, he resorted to hurting my mother. That got me to stop for a while. But I knew how to get rid of him. Mom just had to speak up. I was old enough to help her out. We could make it on our own. We didn’t need to put up with that anymore. We had to stand next to each other and tell the cops what was going on. We could show them her bruises. I really believed that, but Mom would never do it.”
Derek shuddered. He could stop, but he didn’t want to now. He wanted Willow to know everything. He needed to say it. All of it. It was too painful to keep to himself any longer. Nothing he ever did could fill the emptiness in him, but maybe Willow could. It was a risk, but it was a risk he was taking.
“I got frustrated. When I was fourteen, James was going at my mom again. He locked them in their room as usual. I managed to break in to see that piece of shit fucking my mother while she screamed and cried for him to stop. I lost it. I tried to knock him out, but he was stronger than I was. I called the cops, and James managed to turn the story on me just like he always did. They sent me to juvie. All I could think about was getting out and getting back to Mom. I wasn’t going to stop until I saved her. The day I was allowed to go home, James was going at it again, and this time all of the anger I had been feeling actually exploded, and I shifted for the first time. I killed him. I thought for sure I had set my mom free from a demon, but she was crying for him. She told me I was the demon and sent me away. She wanted nothing to do with me, and I couldn’t figure out how to shift back. So I ran.
“A week later, when I got all my shit under control, I went back home. Mom hanged herself. Turned out, she never wanted me to save her. She loved that abusive prick. Not me. I don’t know if she ever did love me. It’s better if she didn’t, if that was love to her.”
Tears were in Willow’s eyes as she held the back of Derek’s neck tighter. She kissed his lips carefully as if she might break him if she kissed him too hard. Surprisingly, not even that made him feel weak. This was what it felt like to be supported, to have someone on his side.
“Thank you for telling me,” she whispered against his lips.
“Willow, I… I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For being an ass. For hurting you.”
“Know how you can make it up to me?”
“No.”
“By giving us a chance. Fated Mate, mate, whatever. I won’t talk about any of those things again unless you’re ready to. Unless you want to. It’s just me and you getting to know each other. If… if you want that.”
Derek closed his eyes. “I—”
A gunshot exploded in the air. It was close for it to be that loud. There was an odd scent in the air, a presence moving in quickly. The door to Willow’s bedroom was kicked in, sending the detached wood spiraling across the floor. Derek leaped into action, shielding Willow as his senses sharpened. There was a shifter—not wolf—bulldozing into her room.
A feral growl erupted from deep within Derek’s chest as he tackled the intruder to the floor and disarmed him. He was carrying a pistol. The tailored suit and a glimpse of the guy’s distant eyes told him this was one of Erin’s slaves.
Shit.
He took the pistol and whacked it hard against the shifter’s head. It was harder to knock a shifter out than a human, but it was just a matter of force and hitting the right place. It worked. The shifter underneath him was out cold.
“What’s going on?” Willow asked, panic in her eyes.
Flashes of light and more gunshots came from outside. Willow took one look out the window, seeing the ensuing chaos, and then she was out of bed.
“I have to protect my pack,” she said under her breath.
She moved fast. Derek didn’t get a chance to protest or say anything at all as she ran out of the room naked and in the process of shifting.
“Willow!” Derek shouted as he leaped off the ground to chase after her.
He shed his boxers and gave himself a moment to shift. Maybe Willow could shift on the run, but he couldn’t. It was quicker and safer to shift while standing still. He concentrated on each snap of his bones and each little change in his body as he changed into a large black wolf.
He bolted, his claws catching on the rug below and giving him enough traction to slide across the wood floors and out of the house. He emerged into the cool, and still dark, morning a few seconds after Willow. Her ears were high, alert. There was so much going on that she hadn’t noticed the shifter pointing his Glock at her. Derek dashed forward and slammed into Willow’s side. He couldn’t afford to be nice about it because the guy had already fired. Derek caught the bullet in his right flank. They were using real bullets this time.
The fiery metal seared his flesh as it lodged itself inside. Willow whimpered as she pushed herself off the ground. She licked Derek’s wound, but he growled at her. There was no time to fuss over him. She tucked her tail between her legs and laid her ears flat against her skull in submission. Derek barked at her and nudged her with his nose. She needed to focus. She got the message and stood alert at his side.
A big tiger was growling and circling in front of them. Sixteen animals and shifters still in human form followed. Derek glanced around the area and noticed that these intruders were concentrated around him and Willow. He saw some other wolves fighting their way over here, but this area was definitely the target. Derek cursed himself. He shouldn’t have been so selfish. Erin wanted him. It was possible she’d be trouble for Blue Pack as well, but she seemed to have a one-track mind.
He couldn’t do anything about it now. All he could do was protect Willow, and he would. Even if it cost him his life.
The tiger launched the first attack. Derek met the beast head-on. The tiger swiped his paws at him, but Derek moved fast. He jumped, twisted in the air, and landed on the tiger’s back. He buried his teeth into the back of his neck. The tiger yowled and thrashed, clawing at Derek’s sides and forcing him off. Derek landed on his feet and skidded across the dead grass. Blood was dripping from his sides. The cuts the tiger gave him weren’t deep, but they were many.
One of the shifters in human form was pointing a gun at Willow again. Derek was already on his way to her, but she moved fast and clamped her teeth around the guy’s hand, snapping his wrist and forcing him to drop his gun.
That’s my girl.
His preoccupation with Willow was his downfall. Several guns fired at once, and all of them hit their mark. Derek growled as he tried to fight through the pain, but it was too much at once. He collapsed onto the ground. None o
f them had hit anything vital, but they took him down by concentrating on his legs.
Willow’s growl ripped through the air as she stood over him, shielding him with her body. Her hair was standing on end, and she looked fierce. Derek barked at her. He wanted her to leave him. He didn’t want her to get hurt.
He struggled back to his feet, moving Willow aside when the shifters in human form aimed their guns again. He stepped in front of her and noticed them lower their weapons. So they weren’t going to hurt him anymore. Erin probably didn’t want him brought to her beyond repair. Something was wrong though. There was a particular bullet lodged into his chest that was bleeding profusely. Maybe one of the blitzed shifters had hit something vital after all. His vision was fading in and out.
He wobbled on his feet and fell back down. He suddenly couldn’t breathe. His lungs were filling with blood, and it was spilling from his mouth as he coughed. Willow whimpered as she stood over him again, trying to help him.
He smelled white lilies.
“Enough!” a familiar voice shrieked.
The shifters in human form dropped their weapons and those in animal form sat obediently as Erin Smith emerged from their midst wearing a black heist suite with heels so not suited to a place like Moonwatch. Derek was surprised she wasn’t sinking into the ground.
He grunted. He was trying so hard to keep his eyes open, but some outside power was forcing them closed, and it was winning.
“I haven’t killed anyone. Yet,” Erin announced. “I didn’t expect this wolf pack to be such a pain, but I still have the advantage. My soldiers don’t feel pain. I came here for one wolf and one wolf alone.”
She glanced at Willow and Derek, settling her gaze on Derek. She had never seen him as a wolf before, but her shifters had pointed him out. It wasn’t too hard to figure out he was the male wolf she was hunting.
“I came here for one wolf. One. I only need one male shifter of each animal,” she explained. “Derek. I’ll start killing these wolves if they don’t stop attacking my shifters. Come with me, and I’ll leave this place alone.”