by J. L. Wilder
“But if not that, then what happened?” Lauren asked.
Matt leaned forward. “I’ll tell you my theory,” he said quietly.
“Please.”
“I don’t think it was Cody at all,” Matt said. “I think it was Tina.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tina’s always been the more controlling of the two of them,” Matt said. “Cody’s the muscle, of course, and as alpha, he has power that nobody else in the den has. But Tina’s the smart one, and she’s a master manipulator. I think she found some way to stop Emmett from coming home so that he wouldn’t be a threat to Cody.”
“Because she thought Emmett could defeat Cody if they fought?”
“Not exactly,” Matt said. “I think it’s because she didn’t want to risk Cody’s position as den alpha. She wants to be the alpha’s mate more than she wants anything else, and she’s not willing to tolerate anyone who might put that at risk.”
“That’s insane,” Lauren said. “You think she would actively hurt the den just to keep her status?”
“That’s exactly what I think,” Matt said. “Can you honestly tell me that doesn’t sound like the person she is?”
And there was nothing Lauren could say to that. Her cousin was right.
That was exactly who Tina was.
Chapter Twenty-Two
WES
Today’s lunch was rabbit. Wes gripped his quarry between his teeth, carrying it over to the shade of a tall oak to eat.
Eating raw became more and more natural as time went on, and after two months living wild, he found it very easy. It was a simple thing to let go of his human self entirely, to forget the mild revulsion he would have felt, as a man, at the blood dripping down his chin and soaking his fur. Things like that didn’t matter to the bear. The bear only cared about taking nourishment from this meal.
He tore into the meat. Eating was very different when it was done in this form. As a human, he would have savored each bite. He would have stopped to appreciate things like flavor and consistency. As a bear, it was all about tearing and swallowing. He wanted the meat in his stomach much more than he wanted it in his mouth.
The rabbit disappeared quickly.
Only afterward, when his meal was gone, did he stop to think of his smaller human concerns.
He scraped away some dirt with his paw and buried the remnants of his meal carefully. It wouldn’t completely remove the evidence of his kill, of course, but he wanted to make it as difficult as possible for other large predators in these woods to zero in on the fact that he was here. He could probably defend his claimed territory if he needed to, but he didn’t want a fight.
That was his human side talking. The bear didn’t really have that kind of complexity to his thoughts.
When the rabbit was buried, he made his way to the nearby stream and submerged his head, shaking it slowly back and forth. He allowed the current to clean the mess from his fur.
Again, that was a human concern. A true wild bear didn’t think about things like bathing. A wild bear would allow his fur to become matted with blood and dirt. But Wes couldn’t give himself over that completely to his animal side. He didn’t want to be smelling the dried blood of today’s kill three days later.
The only problem with making these little concessions to his humanity was that it reminded him of the thing he had come here to forget.
Lauren.
As soon as he thought her name, an image of her swam to the forefront of his mind. He saw her the way she had looked when he had come upon her swimming in the woods near his home. Vulnerable, but happy. At least, until she had seen him.
He moved forward a bit in his memory. Now he was seeing her the way she had looked spread beneath him on his bed, her body writhing in pleasure, begging for his touch.
He dunked his head into the cold water of the stream again, trying to forget, trying to allow those thoughts to be carried away with the blood of the rabbit.
He didn’t want to think about her. That was the whole point of being here.
He didn’t want to think about the fact that her pregnancy must have progressed significantly since he had seen her last. The memories he had of her were wrong now, out of date. Her stomach would be swollen and curved.
What did it look like when a shifter woman was four months pregnant? He didn’t know. He had seen the women of the den walking around with their pregnancies all his life, of course, but he had never paid attention to details like how far along they were. That hadn’t seemed important.
Suddenly, though, he was obsessed.
When he started thinking about this, it actually became difficult to hold onto his animal form. It shouldn’t have been. He had been in bear form for weeks now without shifting back. Even when he fell asleep, he woke up bear. The animal was his natural state.
But the bear didn’t give a damn about what was going on with Lauren back in the city. And every time Wes thought about that, it allowed the human within him to rise to the surface.
He gritted his teeth and pushed the human away. He’d come here to escape all of that, for God’s sake. He didn’t want to spend his time thinking about Lauren. If he’d wanted to do that, he could have stayed near the city, stayed in his nice, comfortable trailer. He wouldn’t be out here eating raw!
But she rose again to the surface of his mind, refusing to stay down. It was like trying to push a stick to the bottom of the stream. No matter how many times you pushed, no matter how much force you used, it kept bobbing to the surface.
He wasn’t going to be able to forget her.
Maybe what I need is to get a look at her, he thought. Maybe I just need to see her again. It was a little counterintuitive, but maybe it would work, the way listening to a song sometimes helped to get that song out of your head. If he could see her, all the questions he had would be resolved. He would know how her body looked. He would know that she was healthy. Maybe he would even be able to see that she was happy.
And then he would be able to leave again. He would be able to leave for real.
He didn’t want her to see him. That would create all kinds of unneeded drama.
But she didn’t have to see him for him to see her. He knew the woods around the city like the back of his hand. He knew how to approach and how to find his way in without being noticed.
He would get a look at her. He would see what he had come to see. And then, finally, he would be able to move on from this obsession.
Satisfied that he knew the way forward, he set off at a run back toward the outskirts of Chicago.
Chapter Twenty-Three
WES
Wes resumed his human form at his trailer. He grabbed a set of clothes and pulled them on.
He was still a few miles away from the city, of course—the forest didn’t come right up to the Chicago city limits. But he would have to make his approach in human form rather than animal form.
It felt strange to be on two feet again. Even though he was uncommonly large as a bear, it felt weird to have his head so far from the ground for such a prolonged stretch of time. He felt ungainly, off balance.
The clothes were bizarre too. They caught in unfamiliar ways as he moved, and even though he knew it would be ridiculous to make his approach in the nude, a part of him wished he could do exactly that.
He left his feet bare. It was the only concession to his animal instincts that he dared to make.
If presenting himself as human had been awkward and uncomfortable, his first few minutes back in the city were that much worse.
There was so much noise! So many bright lights! He had always felt slightly overwhelmed in the city, given that he spent most of his life on the outskirts, but now that he had been living wild for two months, it was that much worse. It was almost painful to be back.
He made his way down the street, hugging the storefronts, trying not to get too close to the cars as they whizzed by. He was accustomed to feeling strong and powerful in his animal form, but a ca
r could take him out so fast that he wouldn’t even know what was coming.
He ached to shift back.
Of course, it was a terrible idea. He couldn’t walk down the city streets as a bear. The humans would call animal control, and more to the point, Cody would take some kind of retaliatory action against him for exposing them all.
But he would feel so much safer in his animal form. How did everyone just walk around human all the time?
How did Lauren choose to go and live a human life when she had other options available to her?
He shook his head. He had not come back here to start obsessing over Lauren again. He was going to get a look at her, and then he was going to leave the city. That was all.
He turned onto the side street that would take him to Lauren’s house. From here, he had to admit that he didn’t really have a plan. It wasn’t as if he could just walk up to her front door and knock.
He could look in her windows, maybe. But there was something really creepy about that. He wasn’t sure why. He was already planning to spy on her, after all—was doing it through a window really so much worse?
He didn’t know. But it felt worse.
Maybe he could catch her outside. If he lingered around, he might see her coming back to her house. Or maybe there would be a party tonight. He didn’t want to have to go near one of those—if Cody saw him, there would probably be a whole scene, and then he wouldn’t be able to keep his presence quiet. But on the other hand, maybe the hectic nature of the neighborhood parties was the best way to keep his presence quiet.
“Holy shit. Wes?”
Wes’s stomach dropped. Had he really been seen already? He turned around to confront the person who had spoken his name.
It was Jessica.
His sister was standing with her hands on her hips, staring at him as though he had grown an extra head. Suddenly, he felt as if he had shrunk a foot.
“Hey, Jess,” he said, offering a smile.
“What the fuck?” she asked. “I’ve been trying to find you.”
“I was out living wild—”
“Yeah,” she said acidly. “I fucking figured that out, thank you. We had an agreement, Wes. You promised you would always tell me before you disappeared like that. You promised you wouldn’t just go off the grid and leave me wondering what had happened to you. How could you do that?”
“Jessica, I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean what?” She shook her head. “Do you know what it’s been like? You’re my family, Wes. You’re the only family I have. And you were just gone. You could have been dead for all I knew!”
“Of course I wasn’t dead.”
“You wouldn’t have been the first strong guy to disappear from this den,” she said quietly. “Remember what happened to Emmett?”
“Nobody knows what happened to Emmett.”
“Well, exactly.”
“But I’m not challenging Cody for the alpha position,” Wes pointed out. “I don’t want to be alpha. He has no reason to do anything to me.”
Jessica ran a hand through her hair.
“You don’t know what it was like,” she said quietly. “Being here for the past two months, with no idea what had happened to you. No idea if I was ever going to see you again.”
“Can we get off the street?” Wes asked. “I don’t want anyone to see me now.”
Jessica glared at him. “You were really going to sneak back into the city and then leave again without saying hello to me, weren’t you? Have you done that before now?”
“This is the first time I’ve been back,” Wes said.
She gritted her teeth. “Come on. Back to my place.”
“Not if it’s just going to piss you off.”
“It’s not a fucking request, Wesley. I need to talk to you.”
He raised his eyebrows.
But he didn’t want an argument with his sister, so when she turned and stalked back up the street toward her own home, he followed behind her.
Maybe this would turn out to be the best way to get a look at Lauren. Maybe Jessica would be able to help him see the mother of his babies without her seeing him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
WES
Jessica stormed through her front door and into the kitchen. Wesley followed behind her. There was no sense in trying to argue or negotiate with his sister when her temper was hot like this. His best bet was to simply wait until she had decided to speak to him.
She reached into a cupboard, pulled out a pan, and banged it down hard on the stove. Drizzling a little olive oil in, she turned on the heat.
His curiosity got the better of him. “What are you doing, Jess?”
“I’m making you a stir fry,” she snapped, sounding almost as if he should have been able to figure that out for himself.
“A stir fry?”
“I know you don’t eat any goddamn vegetables when you’re out there in the wild.” She went to her refrigerator, took out a bell pepper, slapped it down on a cutting board, and began to dice with a vengeance.
“Bears don’t need to eat vegetables,” Wes protested.
“Okay, and are you a bear right now?” Jessica demanded. “When was the last time you ate anything green?”
He didn’t answer. She was exactly right. It had been months. And now that he had returned to his human form, he was feeling the lack of nutrition. She was doing the right thing by feeding him.
They both remained quiet while she finished chopping and cooking. Wes thought about offering to help, but he knew her too well. She would tell him to shut up and sit down.
Finally, the food was prepared, and Jessica dumped the contents of the pan onto a couple of plates. She dropped one heavily in front of Wes and then sat down with her own.
“Thanks,” he murmured.
“Just eat it,” she said.
He sighed. “You don’t have to be like this, Jess.”
She slammed her fork down. “I don’t have to be like what, exactly?”
“Pissed off. I get why you’re mad, but—”
“You promised that you would always tell me before you disappeared like that, Wes. I mean, you promised.”
“I know that,” he said. “I get it.”
“So what happened? How could you just take off without telling me? Do you know what that was like for me? I didn’t know if I was ever going to see you again.”
“Of course you were,” he said. “I always come back, don’t I?”
“For all I knew, this time was different. You always tell me before you leave, too, you know.”
Wes sighed. “You don’t understand.”
“Make me understand, then. What were you thinking?”
“Do you really want to hear this?”
“I need some kind of explanation.”
He sighed. “Fine. I ran into Lauren in the woods.”
Jessica groaned. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew it would have something to do with Lauren. What happened?”
Wes looked down at his feet.
“Oh, God,” Jessica said. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.”
“I don’t actually have to account for myself to you, Jess,” Wes said, feeling a spark of anger. “It’s not actually your business who I do or don’t sleep with.”
“You’re making it my business,” Jessica said. “There are hundreds of women for you to choose from, Wes. You didn’t have to pick my best friend. And then, after you knocked her up, you decided to sleep with her again? And then you decided to run away from the problem.”
“Jessica—”
“Those kids aren’t just yours, you know,” Jessica said. “They’re also my nieces or nephews. This isn’t just your family. It’s my family too. So don’t act like you’re the only one who has a stake in this, all right? You can’t tell me that this isn’t my business. Not now, when it so clearly is.”
“Talk to your friend, then,” Wes said bitterly. “She’s the one who doesn’t want me involved in t
his. And by the way, she’s been sleeping with me too. It takes two people to do that.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” Jessica demanded. “I’ve hardly spoken to her since you left. I’m furious with her.”
“Christ,” Wes said. “We really are in a jam.”
“You’re not,” Jessica said. “You don’t have to do anything. Just go back to your trailer and go on with your life. Stay away from Lauren.”
“Do you really think that’s fair?” Wes asked. “Her asking me to stay away from her?”
Jessica cocked her head at him. “I thought that was what you wanted.”
“It was,” he said.
“And now?”
“I don’t know,” he groaned. “I had to see her. You know? That’s why I came back. I just had to see how she was doing. How her pregnancy was going. Is she healthy?”
“She’s fine,” Jessica said. “I mean, like I said, I haven’t spoken to her. But I see her around.”
“How big is she?”
Jessica stood up and held an arm a little bit away from her own stomach to indicate.
Wes closed his eyes and tried to imagine what Lauren must look like right now. More than anything, he wanted to see her for himself.
“You have feelings for her,” Jessica said.
Her tone had changed. Whereas before, she had clearly been angry with him, now she seemed empathetic. Gentle.
“You really care about her,” she said. “I thought it was just physical.”
“I don’t know what it is,” Wes admitted.
“But she’s the reason you came back.
“Well, yeah.”
“I’ve never seen you like this before. I’ve never seen you have actual feelings for a woman.”
He nodded. “It’s new.”
“You need to tell her.”
“Jessica, you’ve heard her. She wants nothing to do with me. She didn’t even want me to know she was pregnant by me.”
“Because she thought she didn’t matter to you,” Jessica said. “This is going to change everything. You have to let her know.”
His sister seemed certain.
