by Kayla Wolf
She was nowhere to be found on the walk over, and he frowned to himself, reasoning that she must still be back at her own cabin. Glad that he’d been the one who walked her over to it, he headed that way, scanning the streets as he went. A few human guests, wandering back to their rooms after dinner—they waved cheerful greetings to him, and he nodded back pleasantly, full of joy at the secret he was carrying in his heart. They had no idea how much his life had changed in the last few hours. How could they?
”You’re looking happy, Harvey,” an elderly guest called, his blue eyes sparkling. “Good news?”
”Something like that, Earl,” he replied, giving the older man a wink. Earl had been their first regular—he booked regular weekends at the resort, claiming that the sun and sea were keeping him youthful. At ninety-four years of age, he was doing pretty well for a human.
”I know exactly what that look means on the face of a young man,” Earl cackled, raising his walking stick and shaking it at Harvey in comical warning. “Lucky in love, is it?”
He hesitated, a surprising blush rising to his cheeks. Was it really that obvious? But Earl’s eyes lit up—his silence had clearly spoken volumes.
”Knew it! I wore that very look when I met my dear wife … oh, seventy years ago, now.” Earl tipped him a wink. “Savor it, young man. There’s nothing like it in all the world.”
He bade the old man goodnight, grinning to himself as he watched him go. He knew better than to offer to walk the old man home—he’d get a bonk on the head from that walking stick for his trouble. Even well into his nineties, the old man was fiercely independent. Earl’s well-wishes glowed in his chest like a talisman, and he couldn’t help but grin to himself as he continued along the path to Lori’s door. Was this what being in love was like all the time? No wonder his friends had changed so much since they’d met their soulmates. Not changed, exactly … they were still the same people they’d been before. But there was something in them … a kind of clarity, a kind of absolute confidence in who they were and what they were doing with their lives. He’d never understood where that came from. But now, he did.
Earl had faded from his mind by the time he reached Lori’s door. He kept fighting off bizarre ideas—he’d wanted to pick her a bouquet of flowers, to make her a necklace from shells on the beach where they’d first made love, to bring her some token of how much she meant to him, how much his heart was exploding with love for her. He contented himself with turning up to walk her over to his cottage like a gentleman might.
He padded up the path to the cottage’s front door, his heart already picking up in pace with the anticipation of seeing her again. It had only been half an hour, but he was desperate to see her, to talk to her … not just to hold her in his arms again (though his body was aching to feel her touch, that was true) but to be with her. He loved her so much, it was strange to think that there was so much he didn’t know about her. About her past, about her family, about her pack … and he couldn’t wait to get started learning everything he could about her.
But first, he needed to find her. He hesitated at her doorstep in the pool of light that was thrown through the door onto the step—would it be rude to step in? He could hear the shower running, and grinned to himself as he stepped through the door, glancing around curiously. Sure enough, the room was scrupulously neat. He’d had a suspicion she was a neat person. He was very glad he’d taken the time to tidy up his cottage as thoroughly as he could. That did it. From now on, he was a neat freak too. He’d spend an hour every day putting things right if it brought her a bit of extra happiness. That was assuming she’d want to move in with him, of course. He was getting ahead of himself, he knew, his mind racing ahead to the endless possibilities of their shared future. He took a few deep breaths, trying to settle himself. They could take this slow.
After all, they had the rest of their lives to figure this stuff out.
He heard the shower switch off, and he did his best not to imagine what was going on behind that half-ajar bathroom door … imagine her long, dark hair clinging wetly to the smooth, sinuous muscles of her back, the tips of her shoulders revealed as she tucked the towel around her body, those gorgeous long legs still beaded with moisture from the shower … he shut his eyes for a moment, trying to get control of himself. It was almost frightening, how much he adored her, how hard he’d fallen for her. He hadn’t noticed how hard he’d been fighting to keep all these feelings at bay … not until he’d given in and let them take him over.
Then he heard her voice. Surprised, he moved towards the door—did she know he was here? Was she calling out to him? Half intending to open the door and join her in there if she gave him the slightest indication she wanted him to, he froze at the door when he realized that she wasn’t talking to him. She was on the phone. And though he was a generally polite guy who wouldn’t eavesdrop on a phone conversation if he could help it, the first few words froze him to the spot.
”No,” he heard her say, her voice low and flat like he’d never heard it before. “I get that everyone’s impatient about the attack, but that’s a terrible idea. Seriously. I don’t think we could win the fight.” A long pause—was she listening to whoever was on the other end of the phone? He knew this was wrong, knew deep in his bones that he shouldn’t be listening to this, shouldn’t be eavesdropping on the conversation, but he felt like he was frozen to the spot. Attack? Fight? What was she saying? Why did it sound like it was coming straight out of his worst nightmare?
”There are half a dozen of them,” she continued, and an icy hand grasped his heart when he realized she must have been talking about the dragons on the peninsula. Him and his friends—his family—the people he was closest to in the world. And here she was, the love of his life, talking about them like they were the enemy. “They’re water dragons. Small and agile—and these ones are close with each other. I’m sure they know how to fight.” A long pause. “Seriously—if you’re smart, listen to me. Didn’t you send me down here for intel? This is the intel. Delay the attack. Give me a few days, at least. Maybe I can convince some of them to leave, so you can pick them off individually. I’ve gotten close with one—I’ll talk to him about maybe going on a trip—just give me a bit more time, okay?”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Didn’t want to believe it—wanted it all to be a sick joke, or a dream, or someone messing with his head, putting on a voice that sounded like Lori’s. He heard her sigh with frustration. “Dad! I’m meant to be here for a week—they’re going to get suspicious if I just up and leave without saying anything. Get someone else to look after the kids.” A long pause. “Look—can I call you back? Someone’s waiting for me. Yeah. Okay. Fine.”
He heard the clunk of her phone being put down. Everything in him was screaming at him to run, to get out of there, to pretend he’d never heard any of what she’d said on the phone. But it was too late. The door swung open—and there stood Lori, a towel wrapped around her body, her silver eyes fixed on him. The look on her face told him everything he needed to know.
”Harvey,” she said weakly. “How much … how much of that did you hear?”
But he was already gone—staggering backward, away from her, turning to the door, half-stumbling into the night as he felt his heart shatter in his chest.
Chapter 9 - Lori
This couldn’t be happening. Lori’s heart was pounding in her chest like a hammer against a wall as she scrambled to find clothes to put on—she could hardly chase Harvey into the night with a towel clutched around her body, could she? Panic was surging through her, making her breathe hard, sheer gut-wrenching terror at what he’d heard, at the horrific conclusion she’d seen reflected in those beautiful blue eyes. She was racing back over what she’d said on the phone, wondering how much he’d heard. From the look on his face, he’d heard more than enough. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why had she answered the phone? Why was she so stupidly obedient to her father, even though he’d never done anything but make her miserabl
e?
It was good, she told herself as the panic rose in her chest, it was good that she’d at least warned him off attacking. From what he was saying, the pack was restless, wanting to attack the peninsula as soon as possible—she’d headed that off a little, at least. She’d been particularly proud of the idea of telling him that she’d help try to split the dragons off to make them an easier foe to defeat. That had been inspired. She had no intention of doing any such thing, of course. Her plan had been to hang up with her father then go straight to Harvey to tell him everything about her—who she was, who her family was, what they were planning. To clear the air—throw herself on his mercy. She’d had faith in him—she’d trusted that he’d believe her, that he’d forgive her for what she’d come here for. All she’d have to do was tell him how much she loved him, how much everything had changed since she’d met him, that for the first time in her life she was thinking clearly about what she wanted, about what was best for her.
But that was all destroyed now, she realized faintly as she yanked her jeans on over her still-wet legs, heart pounding as she scrambled for a shirt. He’d heard her on the phone, talking to her father. He knew she was a double agent. He thought … her heart felt like it was breaking … he thought she was manipulating him. That what they’d shared on the beach had all been an act. How could she tell him that it was the furthest thing from an act that she’d ever done? That being with him made her feel more like a real person than she ever had in her life? All she could do was pray that he’d listen—that she could catch up with him and explain herself, explain everything.
All she could do was trust him to know that she was telling the truth.
It was terrifying. But she had to try. So she braced herself before she tore out of the house, running down the little path and calling Harvey’s name in a low but urgent voice. It wouldn’t do to make a scene, to wake up the other guests. And to her relief, Harvey hadn’t gotten far. He was walking down the path, looking for all the world like a man who’d been hit with a hammer.
“Harvey—please, please listen to me. I can explain,” she stammered, thinking as she spoke that she sounded like every lying, cheating villain on every TV show she’d ever seen. “I can explain everything, I promise, I—my family—they’re—I was here to—but that’s changed, it’s different now, I—”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, realizing to her dismay that she was starting to panic … that her heart was pounding, her breathing catching in her throat, stopping her from talking even as the panic crowded her mind and stopped her from thinking straight, from planning what she was saying to him. And he was walking faster, too, those long legs carrying him away from her at a rapid pace. She ran after him, trying to get him to stop—followed him all the way down the path, in fact, until they were almost at his cottage.
”Harvey! Please. My pack wants to hurt your family,” she gasped, finally catching her breath. “But I don’t. Please, believe me. I’m on your side now.”
”Now?” he snapped, whipping around with such a look of cold anger that she almost froze to the spot. For a moment, there, she didn’t see the warm, friendly man she’d gotten to know. She saw the dragon. Ancient. Terrifying. Dangerous. And furious … with her. The wolf in her recoiled and cowered, and she stumbled back a few steps despite herself. Was that a flash of regret in his eyes as he watched her recoil from him in fear? It was gone as quickly as it came. “I should have known better than to trust a wolf,” he said in a low voice that cut right to her core. “I should have trusted my instincts. I knew from the minute we met that you were hiding something.”
”Harvey, no. Let me—I’m not—I’m not like my pack, they sent me here, they—“
”I can’t believe I thought … well, never mind.” His eyes were cold and hard as ice as he stepped into his cottage, and despite her fear, she followed him up onto the porch. “You’d better be gone by morning, Lori.”
And with that, he slammed the door hard in her face.
Lori had had a lot of practice with holding back tears in her short life. As a child, her parents had had no time for it—if she ever got upset, all she could look forward too from her parents was dismissal and resentment—comments about being weak, about feeling sorry for herself instead of doing something about it. And Dennis had hated it when she cried—she’d further honed her self-control skills around him, not wanting to invoke his ire any more than necessary when he got angry with her. By the end of their relationship, she’d even got to the point where she could smile at him even as he was threatening to strike her in the face.
But right now, those skills were being tested like they’d never been tested before.
She walked back through the settlement in a daze, barely taking in anything she was seeing. It was fully dark now, and lights were already being switched off in the little houses she was passing, guests readying themselves for a bright and early morning the next day. Her mind was completely empty, her whole chest frozen over as if protecting her from the enormity of what had just happened. Part of her, very far away, was screaming at her to go back. To bang on Harvey’s door for hours until he came out and talked to her properly. To somehow make him understand that she wasn’t with her pack anymore—that in a way, she never really had been.
When she reached her front porch, the tears had already begun to flow. She could barely feel them—she blinked in confusion as she looked down and saw a tear splash onto the collar of the shirt she’d pulled on, so unfamiliar was the sight of tears. She continued inside in a daze, the tears falling faster and faster now, and by the time she’d reached her bedroom, her whole body was shuddering, wracked by sobs. Once the floodgates were open, they were impossible to close—even if she’d wanted to, she was powerless to resist the storm of weeping that came over her. She at least tried to keep herself quiet, burying her face in her pillow as she sobbed and sobbed.
Harvey wasn’t the only reason she was crying. He might have been the catalyst, but tears had a way of bringing home everything else that was troubling a person. Lori hadn’t cried in years, and it seemed that her subconscious had been waiting for this one for a long time. As she wept, she found image after image swimming to the surface of her mind, stabbing her in the heart again and again and intensifying her weeping until she felt like she might not ever be able to catch her breath. The pillow was already soaked through with hot tears. She saw Harvey, the way he looked at her, felt his hand against the side of her face, his body against hers in the moonlight out there … but then, her thoughts shifted. She was back in Los Angeles, trapped in Dennis’s apartment, terrified of the man who was supposed to be her best friend, pulling the wedding ring from her finger in the dead of night and fleeing … she wept for the years she’d wasted there, the time she’d given to the monster of a man who’d married her. Wept with gratitude for her parents, who’d finally found her and brought her home … wept, then, with frustration for what that meant.
She cried for her childhood, too, as her mind began to work backward through her life. She cried for the teenage girl who watched TV shows about bright, cheerful girls spending their time at the mall, at the movies, laughing with each other and going on dates and experiencing the world … girls her age living their lives, while she sat on the couch surrounded by crying babies who were relying on her, barely more than a baby herself, to care for them. She wept for herself as a younger child still, just learning about who she was, what she was, how she fit into the structure of the pack itself … she wept for the discipline her parents forced onto her, the way they’d stopped her from playing or having fun in favor of making sure her chores were done, her duties to the pack were fulfilled. She wept for a child who had been brainwashed her whole life into serving others, into being an obedient little housekeeper and babysitter, into basically being a full-time carer while she was still in desperate need of that care herself.
And she wept for her wolf. She wept for her paws on the soil, the wind through her fur, the freedom she fel
t when she ran. She wept a little for her pack, for the feeling of being together with a dozen other wolves who were connected to her more closely than any human could ever be … for the feeling of their minds brushing against hers, the feeling of unity and closeness. She wept for the clarity it gave her, the shift … she wept for its loss, for the sure and certain knowledge that she’d never feel it again. She wept for the shame, the frustration, the deep fear that there was just something wrong with her, something deep down that everyone could sense, but nobody would say anything about.
How dare she think she’d deserve something as wonderful as Harvey? How stupid could she be to believe that she’d met her soulmate here on the peninsula that had been stolen from her family all those decades ago? Harvey was a dragon. Wolves and dragons didn’t fall in love—she should have known that from her upbringing, from the angry tales her father and mother had told about the betrayal from the dragons. He wasn’t her soulmate … he couldn’t be. Or maybe he was, she thought, her body shaking and trembling as the waves of sobs just continued to crash over her. It would make sense for her to be doomed to have a soulmate who could never love her back, given what she was, what she’d done.
Slowly, the sobs faded, not because she was feeling any better about the misery wracking her body, but because it was beginning to feel like she was running out of tears to cry. Feeling like her whole midsection had been hollowed out, she rose a little unsteadily to her feet and walked toward the kitchen in a daze, wiping absently at her tear-soaked face. She’d have to sleep on the other side of the bed … her pillow was absolutely soaked with tears. She stood in the kitchen, drinking a glass of water, and there was a curious peace in her. She didn’t feel any better, but she did feel calm.
And that calm was telling her what she had to do next.