by Juniper Hart
A knock on the door told her that Wes was coming to check on her.
“Come in,” she called weakly.
Oh, I’m not feeling good… She tucked herself back into the bed, and Wes appeared, his eyes inquisitive as he stared at her.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” Danica lied. “I was just about to have a nap.”
“Are you sure you’re feeling well? You really don’t look too healthy.”
“Are you a doctor now?” she asked defensively, wondering why she was snapping at him. His eyes narrowed, but he kept his tone even.
“I’m someone who’s worried about you,” he said. “And since you’re in my house, under my care—”
“About that,” Danica interjected shortly. “I think I should go home.”
His brow furrowed. “I thought you’d agreed to stay until the heat was off.”
“I know, but there’s really no point in dragging you into this unnecessarily. If Landon Burke does happen to find out about me, there’s no reason you should have to suffer the consequences.”
A wry smile touched Wes’ lips, and he ambled closer to the bed to perch at her side. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re trying to protect me.”
There was a truth to his words.
“Why would I do that?” she replied, even though she realized that he wasn’t wrong. “I barely know you.”
Wes sighed deeply. “You know me better than you think,” he responded enigmatically, but he didn’t offer more than that on the topic. “Like I said, you’re free to come and go, but I don’t recommend you leave until we have a handle on Gabriel.”
“How did this become a ‘we’ scenario?” Danica demanded, the question one more of curiosity than rudeness. Wes seemed to have inserted herself into her life easily, as if he’d always been there.
“We’ve always been a ‘we,’” Wes said. “You just don’t know it yet.” Although the response didn’t make a lot of sense to Danica, she didn’t push the issue. The exhaustion was overwhelming her, and she just wanted to sleep. Confusion was pulling her in two directions. A part of her wanted to leave, while a bigger, more controlling aspect of her told her to stay and relax.
“You seem tired,” Wes commented, as if reading her mind. “Why don’t you rest for a while before making any decisions? If you still want to leave when you wake, I won’t stand in your way.” Did he know that was what she was thinking?
“Okay,” Danica agreed, permitting her shoulders to relax and fall against the pillows. Her eyes closed as Wes rose from his spot, and he gently placed a throw blanket around her, removing her shoes in the process.
This is weird, right? she thought. I shouldn’t be so comfortable with a perfect stranger, but here I am, letting him undress me as I nap in his house. She remembered how freely she’d gone with Gabriel that night, too, and as Danica drifted off, she found herself wondering if maybe the Lycans had some sort of hypnotic power of which she was unaware.
But even as she succumbed to the sleep she had been fighting off with futility, Danica knew that the power Wes held over her was much greater than anything she’d ever experienced with Gabriel.
Even when I thought I was in love with him.
She didn’t remember what she dreamed, but when Danica woke up, she was feeling refreshed. There was no light streaming in through the windows of the guest room, and even though the surroundings were unfamiliar, she wasn’t as discombobulated as she should have been, given the circumstances.
Sometime during her nap, Wes had brought in a tray with a sandwich and a glass of water. Danica was endeared by the thought, but before she could fully embrace the kindness of the action, the apprehension that had plagued her earlier came flooding back.
What is going on? She blinked several times in the shadowy room, trying to get her bearings. Suddenly, she felt like a fog was lifting off her, and she couldn’t understand when it had fallen.
She moved her long legs over the side of the bed and sat up, inhaling deeply to steel her nerves. I can’t stay here. I shouldn’t have even come here to begin with.
Slowly, she made her way toward the door, pausing to snatch up her sneakers, which Wes had left beside her bed. She pried open the door and listened for signs of life inside the house, but all was still. Had Wes left? Even though the notion filled her with more worry, something instinctive told her that he was still nearby.
Why are you sneaking around? He’s not going to keep you here—he already told you that. But it wasn’t Wes she was worried about. It was herself. She felt as though seeing him would only lead her to making excuses into staying longer, and logically, Danica knew she had no business being there. It wasn’t safe for either of them, for more reasons than even Wes thought.
Tiptoeing out into the hall, Danica paused to slip her shoes on her feet before stealing through the dimly lit corridor toward the direction she remembered the stairs to be.
Sooner or later, I’m going to have to deal with Gabriel, she realized. Hiding here won’t make matters any better. A whisper in her ear caused a wistfulness to shoot through her, a longing that Wes might chance upon her before she snuck out the front door. She silenced it immediately. Whatever job Wes thought he had protecting her was not her problem.
Gabriel and the pack were her problem. She needed to touch base with them before Landon figured out where they had gone.
It was eerily silent when Danica stepped onto the stone patio. Once again, she was consumed with the idea that Wes had left her alone, but that didn’t stop her from hurrying toward the gate which encircled the yard of the property.
Shit. I should have gone out the garage. She had no key to let herself out, and scaling it was going to be a feat.
“Going somewhere, or just taking in the view?”
Danica whirled around to face Wes, who stood at the front door, his arms crossed against his broad chest and grinning lazily at her.
“How are you so damned stealthy?” she muttered.
“I have a lot of superpowers,” he joked. “Are you trying to leave?”
Guiltily, she nodded. “Yes,” she mumbled. “Please don’t try and stop me.”
“I’m not,” Wes replied, a note of exasperation in his voice. “But you’re a ways from home. I’ll drive you back.”
She eyed him warily. “Just like that?”
“I am not Gabriel,” Wes told her through near-clenched teeth. “I’m not holding you hostage.”
Defensiveness flared through her.
“I already told you that he isn’t—he wasn’t!” But as she spoke the words, she wondered how true they were.
For six months, I’ve lived each day knowing that he’s been watching me. I just wish he had never found me after I escaped the first time. Have I ever really been free? It was hardly the time for such questions.
“Why do you look so afraid, then?” Wes demanded. “What do you think Gabriel would do if he found you here with me?”
Goosebumps exploded over her arms.
“Nothing,” Danica lied. “He wouldn’t care.” She was sure she didn’t imagine the look of relief which crossed over his face.
“So he doesn’t think of you as ‘together’?” Wes pressed. “I find that hard to believe.”
“You can believe what you want, but Gabriel doesn’t think of me like that…” She trailed off and looked away, humiliation coloring her face. “It’s complicated,” she added unnecessarily. Through her peripheral vision, she caught Wes’ look of confused disapproval, and she felt herself tense. “Will you please just take me home?” she insisted. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Yes.” Wes turned to head back into the house, leaving Danica to follow after him, her heart thudding dangerously in her chest. She caught up with him in the kitchen, where he grabbed his keys off the island and pulled open the door to the garage.
“Wes, wait,” she pleaded, sensing his mood shift. She didn’t want to part on bad terms, especially when she kne
w he was trying to help her.
“Yes?”
“I went with Gabriel willingly. He didn’t force me to turn.” Disappointment clouded Wes’ eyes, but he didn’t speak. “I was in a bad place when he found me, and he made me feel… I don’t know, special somehow. In hindsight, the warning signs were all there, but I went with him anyway. I escaped once, and he found me. It was about six months ago. That was when I came back to school to pursue my master’s degree”
“You don’t have to explain it to me,” Wes said gruffly.
“Why do I feel like I do?” His face softened, and he pivoted fully to meet her eyes.
“Do you know who he is? How he functions?” Wes asked softly. “He was banished from his own pack for being too radical, and he didn’t go quietly. He turned the worst mortals he could find to create this pack of criminals.”
“I know that now,” Danica sighed. “But then…” It seemed like an entire lifetime ago. “When I found out that I was just some random woman he’d found on campus, I was hurt, but the damage was already done.”
“Did you try to get away?” Wes asked, slowly sauntering back toward her. “Or did you just resign to what he wanted from you?”
Danica’s mouth became a fine line.
“You make it sound like it was so black and white,” she murmured. “But it wasn’t.”
“Explain it to me,” Wes said. “I’m not judging you. I want to know how he did what he did. I want to know how you’re the only one who remembers what happened after being turned and why you stayed while the others were let go.”
Danica sank onto a bar stool and stared at her hands, twisting her fingers nervously as she carefully thought about her next words.
You can trust him. He’s already protected you without you even knowing. But it wasn’t even about trust. It was about telling the story aloud for the first time ever, the words strange to her own ears.
“The ceremony was short, intense. He bit me, and then scratched me in the same place. After that, I slept for an entire day,” Danica explained. “When I woke up, I felt like I was in a new body. My senses were heightened. I could see more clearly, smell things from a mile away. Gabriel had moved me into this house in the middle of nowhere. Whenever he left me there, the pack would circle around me like a bunch of vultures, leering like they were going to feast on me.”
“What did they do to you?” The question was strangled, furious and afraid simultaneously.
“Nothing,” Danica replied quickly. “Gabriel kept them at bay, and because of it, I found myself drawn to him. He was my protector in this place in which I had put myself, and I felt like I owed him.”
Wes couldn’t hide the expression of fury from covering his face.
“I thought I loved him,” Danica sighed miserably. “I really… I didn’t have anyone else. After a few months, I left. None of it felt right. I assumed a new identity and just did odd jobs to make ends meet. I had no money and my life was miserable. I couldn’t get a better-paying job without a real identity. I couldn’t use my real name for fear that he’d find me. He found me anyway, and he promised me a better life if I came back. I felt as desperate as I did when I first met him.”
“I get it,” Wes said, and the bitterness in his voice was almost palpable. “He put you in a place where he thought you couldn’t be without him.”
“Maybe,” she agreed. “But I also felt like I owed him for keeping the pack away, you know?”
“I don’t know!” Wes snapped. “You wouldn’t have been in this position if he hadn’t turned you in the first place!”
“That’s kind of a moot point now,” Danica told him. Wes sighed in agreement.
“Yeah, I guess it is.” They were quiet for a moment. “So, what changed? When did you realize that maybe Gabriel wasn’t the prince you thought he was? Why did you leave so soon after he changed you?”
Danica lifted her head and looked at him mournfully. “When he started going after the others.”
The memory of what Gabriel had done to Emily, Audrey, and Hazel still made Danica shudder—what he had almost done to them.
“But they escaped with no memory of what happened,” Wes reminded her. “He didn’t capture them. Only you.”
Danica nodded slowly. “I know,” she replied softly. “I was there.”
“What? What do you mean you were there?”
With her lower lip quivering slightly, she met his eyes squarely and told him the truth. “Gabriel brought me with him to turn the others. He wanted my approval.”
“Your approval?”
How can I explain this to him so that he’ll stop looking at me like that? The contempt on his face was nothing less than Danica had expected, but it didn’t change the fact that she wanted him to stop staring at her like that.
“This was before I realized how bad things were getting. I thought he was going to approach them the same way he had me, but he didn’t. The pack attacked them and dragged them back to the house as I watched. Gabriel told me that I had agreed to have them taken, but I didn’t want them to join us like that.”
“But you didn’t stop them! You let it happen! Three times!”
Danica was on her feet, her face twisted in anger.
“I did what I could!” she spat back. “You have no right to judge me. No one asked you to come and take me away from there. Take me home, right now.”
Wes eyed her in disbelief. “You’re angry at me because I’m upset you facilitated the kidnapping and turning of unsuspecting mortal women?”
“Just take me home!” Danica yelled, her face growing red with indignation. “I was stupid to have come here in the first place.” She shoved past him toward the garage, her stomach sick that he wasn’t giving her a chance to explain.
Screw him, she thought angrily. He only got me to save his own ass. He should have just turned me in to Landon Burke when he had the chance.
“I want to know how you can live with yourself,” Wes insisted, his face ashen. “Thank gods they got away.”
She whipped back around and scowled at him with disgust.
“Are you going to take me home, or should I find another way?” she growled. He shrugged and snatched his keys back up again.
“I guess I’m taking you,” he retorted. “You are my responsibility, after all.” The words sat like lead weights in her gut, but she didn’t let Wes see the desolation in her face.
Let him believe what he wants about me, she thought firmly. It’s better if he’s not involved, anyway. But as they silently piled into his silver Lexus, Danica couldn’t help sneaking a sidelong look at his handsome face, shame flooding her heart. Tell him what really happened! a voice pleaded inside her head. Tell him what you did!
She kept her lips clamped together, as if she feared that the words might come spilling out in a torrent she couldn’t stop.
You don’t owe him anything, she told herself grimly. No matter what Wes says, no one can save you now. It’s better that he leaves you alone to the fate that you already decided for yourself.
5
Wes sat outside Danica’s apartment building for a long time after she left his vehicle, cursing himself for the way he’d handled the situation.
None of this is Danica’s fault, he thought. All of it is because of Gabriel. I had no right to speak to her like that. Just because she went willingly with him didn’t make her any less of a prisoner, whether she realized it or not. She’s conflicted, confused. It was my job to help her through, not give her hell.
He stared up at the structure, wondering if he should leave her alone for the night or go up and try to make things right. There had still been no word on Gabriel’s whereabouts, and Wes was reluctant to leave her alone, knowing that he might show up.
Or will he? he asked himself. He didn’t go back for the others once they had been claimed by their mates. Maybe he knows better. He wondered who had helped Gabriel escape if not Danica. Could there be a fifth female in their pack of whom Landon was unawa
re?
You really need to focus on Danica and her alone, Wes thought. He took the keys out of the console and opened the car door before he could change his mind. If Gabriel found her that night, Wes might never have a chance to make things right. I already waited too long with this. I can’t afford any more time apart from her.
He made his way to the lobby and waited between the glass doors for someone coming or going, but no one came immediately. It was already after eight o’clock, and he didn’t expect traffic to be that heavy throughout the small structure. He knew, from experience, that the building housed mostly older people.
Wes debated buzzing. He didn’t know if Danica would let him back in.
No, I’m going to have to surprise her again. If I see her face-to-face, she has a lesser chance of slamming the door in my face, he reasoned. Even if she didn’t understand their connection yet, the attraction between them still held water, and that was what Wes was depending on to bring her back to safety—assuming that she was in trouble to begin with.
There was still so much he didn’t claim to understand about how or why Gabriel had handled her so much differently than the others. If Wes wanted to learn the truth, he needed to put his personal feelings aside and let Danica tell him her side of what had happened.
After another five minutes of waiting for someone to come, he forsook the notion of standing around and ducked out of the entranceway to slink into the shrubs surrounding the apartment complex. It was risky, shifting when he might be witnessed by any number of tenants, but he was starting to find himself less concerned with appearances than he should have been.
I’m in deep enough now. I can just chalk up being seen by a mortal up with the rest of my sins. His body morphed into a mass of dark, gleaming fur, his eyes glowing amber against the night as his tongue lashed out to lick the wetness of his nose.
Danica was four stories up, easy enough to scale in his transformed state. With a single bound forward, Wes was airborne, bouncing up the side wall to land on her balcony with a graceful thud.
