by Lizzy Prince
“There was a wolf, but he’s gone now.” I catch up with Bridget in two strides and place a hand on the small of her back, guiding her to the front porch. She looks slightly confused, but she proceeds to get her keys out and open her door. I don’t bother waiting for an invitation but just follow her in. When a howl echoes in the woods as Bridget is about to shut the door, she stills. As if her door is made of glass, she slowly clicks it shut and turns, leaning her back against it. She stares at me with her mouth wide open.
“Fucking Remi,” she finally says, her face contorted in annoyance and totally confusing me. “I thought she was messing with me.”
Bridget cocks her head as if looking at me from a different angle is going to reveal something. Her eyebrows raise high on her forehead as she snorts out a humorless laugh. “You’re a werewolf, aren’t you?”
Sometimes I forget Bridget isn’t part of our world. The feeling of her seamlessly integrating into my life, even when I’ve essentially been stalking her, often escapes me. Other than Bridget, everyone else I spend any amount of time with is either a wolf, vamp, demon, or reaper. It’s not often that I spend time around an actual human.
Human. That hits me like a ton of bricks. Bridget is human and so, so vulnerable. If she is my mate, she’d be tied to my immortality once we bond. But she isn’t. Is she? It strikes me that I have no memory of the first time we met, the first time we touched. She could be my mate. Excitement, fear, and anticipation all chase each other down my spine. She could be mine. Forever. Then a pit sinks in my stomach because I don’t know for sure. I’ve only ever heard about the connection that forms the first time a wolf meets their mate. What if she’s not my mate and I try to bond her to me? I don’t know what that will do to me or my wolf, not to mention what it could do to Bridget. Fuck. I have to figure that out. But not right now.
I’m still surprised that Bridget came to that conclusion on her own, although it sounds as if Remi planted the seed. Bridget narrows her eyes at me and points to the couch as she stalks toward me.
“Sit,” she commands, and I do, hiding my smile in the process, because bossy Bridget is delectable. I’m sitting on the couch with Bridget standing over me, possibly for the first time ever.
“I am a werewolf, yes. Does that frighten you?” I keep my voice calm.
Bridget looks down at me. There’s no real surprise or even fear. “No. I’m not really surprised either. Just feeling a little clueless about everything that’s going on in this town. I mean, we were just at a vampire’s house. And earlier, we saved my friend from shadow demon things. So why not add werewolves to the mix? I’m just the last idiot in town to figure out all of this was happening right beneath my nose.”
She honestly seems more pissed off that she didn’t know about all the supernatural shit going on in town than anything. Although, I think she might be deflecting. This past year must have been a real mindfuck for her. If she feels even a fraction for me what I feel for her, then I can only image how much it fucking sucked for me to have forgotten about her. Guilt spreads over my chest as I wonder again why someone would do this to us.
“I need to wash my face and check my arm.” Bridget rubs her eyes as she back away toward the stairs.
I nod, wanting to give her some space. Watching her trudge up the stairs, I barely manage to leave her alone long enough to accomplish those two tasks before I follow her up the steps. Her bedroom door is open, and I find Bridget sitting on the edge of her bed, staring off into space.
“Bridget,” I call out quietly, not wanting to startle her. She blinks a few times, as if waking from a trance, and looks over at me. Her brow is furrowed, and her hands are fisted in her lap. She’s been taking all of this in stride. So much so, that I’ve taken for granted that werewolves, curses, reapers, hell, everything that’s happened lately, aren’t part of her normal world. I doubt she even knew about any of this supernatural business before she moved to Shadow Falls.
Her hair is down and flowing in soft auburn waves down her back. The effect is stunning. She looks both ethereal and the embodiment of enticing. Everything about her feels made to draw me in, and it does. Crossing the room, I crouch down in front of her, placing my hand on her knee. Bridget’s eyes land on it as if she doesn’t know what to do about the touch. She looks dazed and overwhelmed by too much information in a short period of time. I need her to get some of her fire back. I don’t like seeing her so lost.
“Will you tell me about our first kiss?”
Her head snaps up, and she stares at me with her warm, amber colored eyes. The barest hint of color blooms in her cheeks, and she’s so fetching I have a hard time not reaching out to brush my fingers against the smooth skin of her face.
“I’m not going to tell you all the dirty details.” There’s a bit more bite to her words, and it has me smiling and my wolf settling back down.
“I won’t ask for them. Unless you want to give them. But tell me something, anything, please.”
The light in her eyes dims slightly as she seems to lose focus again, getting lost in a memory. “You came into my store one time to get something to eat, and I guess you’d been waiting around for a while. Millie finally told you to go back to the kitchen to find me. I was working on a huge order of cupcakes for a wedding the next day. You put on an apron and helped me make two hundred and fifty of those suckers. Granted, I think you ate at least ten in the process.” She’s biting on the inside of her cheek again, and her eyes shimmer with unshed tears.
I shift to my knees in front of her and close my eyes, leaning my head down to her knee, resting it on my hand. My wolf prowls inside of me, so furious that it doesn’t know these things. He’s so agitated that I’m having a hard time keeping him under control. The urge to shift and tear through this town until I can find out anything about who cursed me and who caused Bridget this pain, is a burning, aching need. But I can’t leave Bridget right now, and my wolf understands that too. He wants to soothe and comfort her as much as I do.
“I hate that I can’t remember that. I hate that I’ve lost those moments. That I’ve caused you pain,” I hiss out, agony stabbing through my heart as I acknowledge out loud what I’m feeling.
Bridget’s hand tentatively rests on the back of my head. It’s still for a moment, but then she starts to run her fingers through the too long strands of my hair, scraping her nails against my skull. It feels so good I want to curl myself around her and never let go.
“I ran into you after the festival, when we…” she clears her throat, “after we had sex. I was walking out of the grocery store, and we ran into each other. All of my stuff went flying, and you helped me pick it up. Then you smiled at me, the same smile you gave me the day we met. With your dimple looking all sweet and tempting. But then, you just winked at me and went into the store. You didn’t say anything. You acted like you didn’t know me.”
I wrap my free hand around her ankle, squeezing gently to let her know I’m listening, but I don’t want to interrupt her. She needs to get this off her chest and deserves to be able to tell someone how she feels. Still, hearing how my actions hurt her, even when I didn’t realize I was treating her badly, is killing me. I hate that I hurt her.
Her voice cracks when she speaks again. “I thought you were the kind of guy who liked the chase, and once you got what you were after, it lost all its appeal.”
“Never,” I murmur against her leg. “I could never be tired of you.”
“How do you know, Silas? You don’t even know me. Half of our conversations are gone from your memory. And they are the good half. I’ve been a total bitch to you since that night. Why would you even want me after all of this?”
I lift my head and look up at her. Her eyes are wide and swimming with unshed tears. One breaks loose and slides down her cheek. I cup her jaw and use my thumb to wipe the drop away, wishing I could take away her pain as easily.
“I may not remember those conversations or all the time we spent together, but I have this
feeling. Here.” I tap my fist against my chest, because it’s the truth. I feel her inside my heart, and it aches with the need to be close to her and be part of her life. It’s practically suffocating it’s so intense, but I know that feeling—the weight pressing down on my chest—is because of the uncertainty of her feelings. What if she wants me to walk away after this past year? After learning I’m a werewolf suffering from a fucking curse.
“And just so you know, you really suck at being mean.”
Bridget snorts in a half laugh, half cry. “No, I don’t. You’re just too stubborn to take a hint.”
Getting her to smile at me feels like I’ve won a prize. It’s more gratifying than I could have imagined. My smile fades as I think about everything I can’t remember. “Will you tell me about our first kiss?”
The blush is back, covering Bridget’s cheeks, and it makes her that much more beautiful. “We ran into each other at Oktoberfest. You basically knocked me over.” She chuckles. “We talked forever first, and then it just sort of happened.” Her smile is shy as she looks at me, but she’s not avoiding my eyes. Instead, she’s searching my face as though it can answer some questions for her.
Shifting so that I’m not sitting back on my heels and I’m level with her face, I lean forward and stop with my lips a fraction above the skin of her neck. “Did I kiss you here?”
She shakes her head, and I drop a gentle kiss to the soft skin just above her shoulder. I swallow when I hear her heartbeat picking up speed.
“What about here?” I drag my lips up her neck to the edge of her jaw by her ear.
“No,” she exhales, her voice breathy.
My hands are both on her thighs, gripping lightly, so I feel when she shifts as though she can’t sit still any longer. I move my head so that my mouth is a mere breath away from hers. “And here?” My lips brush against hers with my words.
Her tongue darts out to wet her lips and touches my bottom lip in the process, drawing a groan out of me. “Yes. You kissed me there.” Her words are breathless, low with need.
Bridget slowly closes that small space and presses her lips to mine. I let her take the lead as her hands slide up my arms, over my shoulders, and around my neck. The fingers of one of her hands buries itself in my hair. It’s like she’s kissing me in slow motion, but nothing has ever tasted so sweet or felt so incredible. Her mouth brushing against mine like a promise, a whisper of all of the things that could be ours if we’re lucky enough to grab hold of it.
It’s the most chaste kiss I can ever remember experiencing, and yet, somehow, it is also the most extraordinary. As if Bridget has agreed to something with the light press of her soft lips.
When I pull back, her eyes are sparkling as though she’s been lit up from the inside. She licks her lips as though she’s finding the taste of me on them yet, and I want to groan at the sheer sensuality of the move. What makes it even more so is that she doesn’t realize how sexy I find her.
“We should probably talk about the fact that you are a wolf. Don’t you think?”
“What do you want to know?” I get up off the floor and sit next to her on the bed, both of our bodies angled toward each other. She shifts until she’s sitting cross legged, facing me.
Her eyes search around the room like she’s looking for help with her questions. Or maybe she’s just taking a moment to collect her thoughts.
“I guess, the basics. Like, what exactly does it mean to be a werewolf? Are you allergic to silver, and does the moon make you turn into a wolf? Can you change whenever you want? Are you sentient when you shift? Or does the wolf part of you take over? Is there even a wolf part of you? Do you have, like, soulmates or whatever?” She blushes once she spits out all her questions, and I raise my brows. Especially after that last one. “Um. Feel free not to answer if you’re not comfortable.”
I chuckle and lean back until I’m propped against the pillows fluffed up against the headboard. Her bedroom is not at all what I would have imagined. With her girly dresses and crowns made out of braids, I think I expected it would have more of a princess vibe to it, but it’s surprisingly dark in here, as if she likes sleeping in a den. My wolf growls in approval. The walls are a smoky gray, her bed is covered in white and gray blankets, and the art on the walls are all black and white photographs. I’m too distracted to study their subjects now, but I’ll be inspecting them later.
“I will answer any questions you like, Toots,” I say and don’t miss the way she frowns at the use of the nickname, and I feel like I’ve just had a misstep.
“What is it?” I tilt my head as I ask, trying to decipher where I went wrong.
Bridget avoids my eyes and plucks out a feather from her comforter, pulling it out and twirling it between her fingers. “It’s nothing.” She shrugs.
“Obviously, it’s not nothing. Please tell me. I don't want to keep hurting you, and I can’t do that if I don’t even know how I'm hurting you.”
“Toots. You called me that before you knew my name. Then, once you learned my name, you only called me Bridget. After we…” She waggles her eyebrows and gives me a shy but cheeky smile that I return with my own. “Anyway, after that, you went back to calling me Toots. It made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for you to even remember my name. That maybe that was what you called every girl. Kind of like sweetie, or honey, or something.”
She’s blushing again, and I swear everything makes this girl blush. Except, I have a very clear memory of worshiping her from my knees, her skirt hiked up above her hips as she was grinding against my face—and she had definitely not been blushing then. She’s an interesting mix of shy and brazen when it counts. That memory is quickly chased away by anger when it hits me that I have no recollection of our first time together. I’m missing all of the sounds she made and the way her face looked in ecstasy, the way she felt wrapped around me. My wolf makes an angry sound deep in my chest, surprising Bridget so much that she stiffens and frowns.
“I… I hate that I can't remember being with you. My wolf hates it too. I feel robbed. Violated that those memories have been taken from me without my knowledge.” Rage is trembling through my body, and I force a few deep breaths to try to calm myself, but it’s Bridget’s hand wrapping around mine that soothes me in a way nothing else ever has.
“I’m sorry. All this time I’ve been so mad at you. At the kind of man I perceived you to be, and it was completely unjustified. I didn’t even stop to think about how this must feel from your side. I wish I could give the memories back to you.” She’s biting the inside of her mouth, looking far too sorry about something that wasn’t her fault.
“It’s not your fault,” I say. “We’ll figure it out. About those questions you had.” I try to lighten the mood with another smile, but I can tell she’s feeling deflated. Still, I power on, trying to remember everything she asked. “Toots. I don’t know why I call you that. I’ve never called anyone that before in my life. It just seemed like it fit.”
Bridget makes a humming noise. “I guess it makes sense. You’re still you no matter what memories you forget. So, calling me Toots the first time you saw me, and again the first time after your memories were gone, well, I guess that’s the name you really wanted to give me.” She’s trying to play it off like it’s no big deal, but I can tell she’s secretly pleased.
“Alright, next question.” I wink at her, and she tries to pull her hand back, which she conveniently forgot I was still holding. Instead, I thread my fingers through hers and don’t let her pull away. “All the wolf stuff, yes?”
She nods, her fingers tightening around mine.
“I can shift whenever I want. The urge is always stronger when the moon is full, or near the full moon, but I don’t have to shift. If I didn't want to, I could decide to never shift.” My wolf is prowling at the mere thought of that horrible statement. “But it would suck. My wolf would be restless and angry, and eventually, that would bleed into how I felt on a daily basis. He doesn’t control my actions, b
ut he certainly makes his opinion known.”
“You speak about the wolf side of you like it’s a completely different being?”
It’s not really a question, but I understand what she’s asking. “I was born this way. My parents were shifters, and the wolf and I share the same soul. It’s almost like there is a separate part of me that I can communicate with.”
“Like split personalities?” she jokes.
“I’m not crazy, just tricksy.” I smile slyly, my wolf approving of the heat that’s starting to grow the room. “When I shift, I don’t disappear. I am very much aware of what’s going on around me. My body just takes on a different form.”
Bridget sucks her plump bottom lip between her teeth. “I would very much like to see your wolf.”
My wolf is practically purring. He’s completely gone over her, as if I wasn’t already there.
“Anytime, Bridget.” My voice is deeper than usual, with a hint of the wolf growl coming out. “As for your last question. Wolves mate for life. When we meet our true mate, there is a connection that happens, a flash. The first time you touch your fated mate, whether it’s an accidental brush of the hand or a kiss, a wolf will get a flash of their lives together. Nothing is definitive, and it’s not enough of a glimpse that it’s like seeing the future or anything like that. It’s a flash of your happiest times, of your possible future together, or so I’ve heard.”
Bridget has been listening intently, and I see her face fall at my last words and want to slap myself. I’ve essentially just told her that she’s not my mate. Her eyes lower as she pulls her hand away from me, and this time, I let her.
“Wait, that’s not what I meant.” I curse under my breath. I’m such an idiot. “Bridget, I don’t know if that happened because I don’t remember our first touch,” I grind out, furious again that my memories have been taken from me. That something so precious could possibly be lost to me.
“Is there any other way to know?” Bridget asks quietly. Her eyes looking out across the room, unfocused.