by Moira Rogers
“Good. I’ll talk to Fletcher—”
“I’m going for a walk,” Colin broke in abruptly. “I need some fresh air. You’ll be okay here with Eden?”
He wouldn’t quite look at her. The realization solidified the cold knot in the pit of Lorelei’s stomach, but she nodded anyway. “Sure.”
“Jay?”
“Absolutely.” He rose and paused only long enough to brush a kiss over Eden’s cheek.
Colin started to reach for Lorelei, but he stopped short and let his hand fall by his side. “I’ll be back.”
It didn’t sound like a promise. It sounded like a resigned responsibility.
When the men were gone, Eden shoved a hand through her hair and sighed. “Stella said it could take him a while to recover,” she offered in a voice that held too much sympathy. “That was some vicious magic.”
No, Lorelei had expected him to be angry with her. Wanted it, even. She’d never be able to believe he truly understood her without the hard weight of that anger. “You don’t need to pretend,” she murmured. “He’s entitled to be upset with me.”
“Maybe,” Eden conceded, though reluctantly. “Though honestly…”
Lorelei squared her shoulders and waited.
“I don’t know if he knows how to be upset with you. If he can let himself do it at all.”
“Of course not.” The question was why—because he honestly didn’t know how, or because if he let himself feel any negative emotion, he’d realize that he felt more than angry. That maybe he felt betrayed, and there was no coming back from it.
Eden rolled to her feet and settled in Colin’s abandoned spot on the couch. “So make him get mad. He may not remember much of what happened out there in the woods, but I think we have all the proof we need that he could never hurt you, no matter how pissed off he is. And that means something too.”
Between acceptance and walking away, there was a world of doubt and blame. “He’ll work it out however he needs to, Eden.”
“I know, I know. No meddling, I promise.” Eden looked at Lorelei’s bruised temple and winced. “Are you all right?”
“I’m not worse.” It was all she could offer, but under the circumstances… “I think that means I’m okay.”
“Yeah?”
The hope in Eden’s voice made Lorelei squirm. “Yeah.”
“Good.” Eden dropped her head against the back of the couch with a gusty sigh. “Because I need your help. I thought I could do this—be the alpha, make everyone safe, fix everything that was broken. But I need a beta, one who can bite me when I start stepping on toes.”
Lorelei almost smiled. “You want to take care of everyone. It’s admirable, though instinct makes it hard to do that in the best ways, sometimes.”
“Instinct, and everything else.” The other woman’s voice dropped until it was barely more than a murmur. “Secrets, Lorelei. That little cabin you were in? I used to sneak out there at night with leftovers because Zack’s dad didn’t feed him. Those were the good nights. On the bad ones, I watched my uncle beat Zack within an inch of his life. I was helpless and weak. And now that I’m neither, I think I’m overcompensating. A lot.”
None of them were weak, because they were still there—just like Colin had told her. Lorelei reached for Eden’s hand, and this time she didn’t hold back a small smile. “What happened to us can’t be changed, but maybe everything else is fair game. Us, how we see it, and where we go from here.”
“All we can do is fight for the people we love, and ask for help when we need it.” Eden squeezed her hand. “And trust the people we care about to ask for our help. I trust you.”
Trust. To ask for help instead of stumbling or bowing under the weight of her own pain and insecurities. Sharing hadn’t felt so important in Memphis—they all had problems, some arguably on par with hers. But here…
That trust wasn’t just important, it was necessary. Colin needed it as much as Jay and Eden did, and more, because he hadn’t simply offered her friendship or camaraderie.
He’d offered her everything.
Even with Shane and Fletcher close at hand, even knowing Lorelei was tucked away and that Eden would rip apart anyone who got near her, even with anger and betrayal and fury pounding in his veins—
Colin couldn’t go farther than the edge of the trees.
The thought of going far enough to lose sight of the house spiked panic through him with a force that seized his lungs and froze his blood. It would take time to truly believe Lorelei was safe, time to soothe an inner beast that had never felt closer to the surface. Sometimes stray thoughts drifted through his own, familiar in emotion but alien in phrasing. His wolf’s idea of human speech. Maybe they’d never be entirely untangled again, but he could live with that.
He could live with a lot of things.
Jay shoved his hands in his pockets. “Eden told me. The little she knows, anyway.”
Colin snorted. “Doubt it was much. Lorelei isn’t very trusting with the details of things, is she? Or maybe she just doesn’t trust me.”
“Come on, man. Is that fair?”
“I’m not feeling very fair.” He couldn’t be angry with Lorelei—literally couldn’t, especially while she was injured—but Jay was a safe target. And Jay bore some of the blame. “She wasn’t ready for this. She wasn’t ready, but she made me feel like an asshole for not believing her when she said she was. And you encouraged me.”
Jay nodded. “I didn’t stop you. I pointed out that she was interested in you, and I gave you my blessing.”
“Why?”
“Because you seemed like you could make each other happy.” Jay sighed and faced him. “What do you want me to say, Colin? That I’m sorry? That she shouldn’t have lied to you about something that huge?”
That path led to Lorelei, to the emotion fluttering beneath all that safe rage. To bone-deep weakness and hurt. Clenching his fists, Colin drove the fight back to his alpha. “You should have told me to keep my fucking hands to myself.”
“I would, if I’d known she had secrets like that.”
His breath came too quickly now. His skin tingled. Panic, building into a full-blown attack. Every time he twisted, Jay was there, cutting off his excuses, driving him into a corner. “It’s my fault,” he muttered. “I knew it was wrong. I knew, and I didn’t care.”
“It’s shitty, but it’s no one’s fault.” Jay’s voice gentled. “You didn’t know because no one did—not Zack, not Mae and Kaley. Lorelei’s kept it all inside for years, Colin, but now she doesn’t have to anymore. Because of you.”
“That sounds a hell of a lot like what I want to hear. Not the truth. I didn’t help her open up. I shoved her over a cliff I didn’t fucking know was there.”
“So take the best part of the situation and run with it. It’s better than dwelling on how we all should have been psychic, or maybe how Lorelei shouldn’t have the damned audacity to be traumatized by something so bad she can’t even talk about it.”
That struck home hard enough to knock Colin back a step. “That’s not what I said.”
Jay snorted. “Isn’t it? Be mad if you want, but own it. Don’t lie to yourself when you’re pissed at her for doing the same thing.”
“I’m not—” Colin bit off the words. The lie. What was the point, when Jay would hear it, and Colin would know he had? They both knew the truth, which should have made verbalizing it easier. Just a few words, harmless when spoken to an alpha who would never betray them.
I’m mad at her.
She hurt me.
His lips wouldn’t move. Not to give voice to the truth, not to lay bare his selfish, wounded heart. “I don’t get to be mad at her. Not over something like this. The secret of her broken fucking life can’t be all about my hurt feelings.”
Jay looked toward the house. “But they’re two different things, aren’t they? Being mad and being hurt.”
“Maybe. If you can untangle them.”
“True enough.”
“I can’t, not when I’m looking at her. I—” Closing his eyes, Colin dragged in a ragged breath. The evening air should have soothed him, but everything felt too sharp. Too powerful. Pine and rotting leaves and the harsh lye from the barn. The wolf, still too much a part of him. “I need to protect her. Being upset—angry, hurt, anything—that hurts her.”
“This is the real world, Colin. That’s bound to happen.” He paused. “I think the part that matters is how you deal with it. If you want to get past it.”
“Can you?” No, not quite the right question. “Have you?”
“Being a nomad enforcer doesn’t leave a lot of room for relationships, does it?”
“Not when you were raised by one, too.” Colin’s laugh broke in his throat. “I had those few years after my dad dropped me off so I could acclimate to the pack and the change. I chased a couple of girls, stole some kisses. Got slapped down by the enforcers. Met you bastards.”
Jay’s chuckle rang low with nostalgia—and sympathy. “Talk to Lorelei. Work it out. You want to.”
“Yeah, I do.” Colin rubbed at the back of his neck, trying to soothe the nagging ache. Pain from the spell lingered in abused joints and twitching muscles, but Stella had promised him it would fade. Eventually.
Pain was like that, even the kind that carved scars into hearts instead of bodies. A few days on his own might give pain a chance to settle into something he could unwind and manage, and there was something good he could do in the meantime. A choice that felt like the right one, whether he was with Lorelei or not.
God, it had been a long time since his choices had felt right. But this one… “I have something I need to do first. I don’t know if you’re going to like it, though…”
“Try me.”
One right choice. Maybe the first of a lifetime’s worth.
Chapter Sixteen
Three days. Lorelei had ordered herself not to count, but the number hung in her head like wood smoke in a closed room.
Colin had been gone for three days.
Making stock to fill the slow but never-ending flow of soap and lotion orders helped pass the time, but it did little to distract her. Kaley and Mae were the artists when it came to the products—all Lorelei did was follow their instructions. Rote, easy.
Mindless.
But maybe that was a good thing. For the second time, she had to reach out and still Kaley’s arm as the girl tried to pour the lye solution into her assembled oils. Her hands were shaking so badly that a little of the lye water had splashed out already, dampening the drop cloth on the worktable.
“You’d heal,” Lorelei whispered, “but it would burn like hell.”
“I’m sorry.” Kaley set down the pitcher with a shaky sigh. “I’m just spinning today.”
“Knock off for the afternoon,” Mae ordered without looking up from the display on her infrared thermometer. “I’ve got this. Hell, Lorelei’s been working so hard, I’m going to run out of room on the curing racks as it is.”
“No, I can do this.” Kaley squared her shoulders, though the flicker of her gaze from one side of the barn to the other betrayed her nervousness.
“Kaley.” Mae’s voice was firmer this time. “I’m serious. I can finish that batch.”
“Fine.” She yanked off her protective goggles and tossed them on the table. “I’ll be inside if anyone needs me.”
Heart heavy, Lorelei watched her go before turning to Mae. “I tried to talk to her about the consignment agreement with that antique mall over in Humboldt. She said to talk to you.”
Mae straightened and tucked the pink ends of her hair behind her ears. “Something happened,” she admitted quietly. “The night she almost died. I don’t know what it was. She won’t tell me, and I’m not going to push her. But…”
Maybe she saw Quinn too. “Time,” Lorelei said firmly. “She needs time.”
But Mae shook her head. “Do you believe places hold memories?”
What was it Sasha had said? “Energy, good or bad. I believe in that.”
“I’ve always believed in ghosts, before I knew magic was real. You know me—I believed in it all. Ghosts, reincarnation, a universal consciousness. I believe pain can burn an afterimage into a place, and terrible things happened here.” Mae wrapped both arms around herself as if chilled, though the men had brought a heater into the newly cleaned workspace. “Kaley was gone. For hours. Maybe she took a walk around this farm’s memories. Whatever she saw, it hurt her bad.”
If pain could linger, then whatever Kaley saw was guaranteed to hurt her more than anything else. “Not just bad memories.” Lorelei dropped her pen and rubbed a hand over her face. “They’d be Zack’s.”
“Even worse.” Mae gave herself a shake, as if trying to banish the very thought, then bent over her acid mixture again. The infrared thermometer beeped as she took another reading with a frown. “Good things are happening here now, a lot of them. We can change this place.”
The hope kindled an ache in Lorelei’s chest. “Yes, we can.”
“Zack will come back. And so will Colin.”
Lorelei tensed. “I’m sure he’ll let Jay know.”
“He’ll be back,” Mae said again, warm and confident. “I wasn’t certain what to think of him, you know. He looked like trouble, but not the kind who’ll roll around with you for a few hours and walk away. You know…” She grinned. “Not our kind of trouble.”
Lorelei was spared from trying to think of a response by a rough knock on the open doorway, and Fletcher stuck in his head. “I need to borrow Lorelei for a few minutes, if you can spare her.”
Mae waved her hand. “You’ve been cooped up in here too long anyway. I know you don’t love this like I do.”
“I like to stay busy.” But she rose anyway, grateful for the interruption.
Though, judging from Fletcher’s expression, it had been every bit a rescue. Once he got her out of the barn, he offered her a rueful smile. “How has it been? The sage relationship advice, I mean.”
“Plentiful.” She laid her hand on his arm. “Thanks for understanding.”
“Pack is family. Pack is love. Pack is unconditional belonging, as long as you hold to your place.” He rolled his eyes skyward. “Pack is, at times, an unrelenting pain in the ass.”
She had to laugh. “And you’re a rolling stone, right?”
“With a lady in every sanctuary.” He joined her in laughter for a moment before his expression sobered. “No sage advice from me. I already told you the only thing I have to say on the subject.”
The morning of Colin’s departure, Fletcher had caught her brooding over a meager breakfast and admonished her with simple, damning words. Colin doesn’t know how to belong to anyplace or anyone. Wait until he comes back before you decide this is over.
It certainly fit with what she knew of Colin’s life, and she’d taken it to heart. “I haven’t written him off. Just been reevaluating some things, that’s all.”
“Yeah?”
Curious, but not pushy. Lorelei shook her head. “I’ll have to see what Colin thinks about it, won’t I?”
“Sooner rather than later. I wasn’t saving you.” He turned her toward the little house and nodded to a rental car sitting in front of it. “He’s here. And waiting for you.”
And just like that, with a handful of words, he shattered her hard-won equilibrium. She swayed a little as she blinked at the nondescript blue sedan. “When?”
“Not long. Twenty minutes?” Fletcher looped an arm over her shoulders, companionable enough to seem casual but sturdy enough to steady her. “I can go with you, if you want. But it seems like maybe I could put myself to better use keeping your overly solicitous packmates occupied.”
“No, it’s—I mean, I…” She trailed off with a groan as the tap-dancing in her stomach intensified. “He wanted to see me?”
“Oh yeah, honey. Pretty definitely.”
“Taking that as a good sign is optimism, not desperation, right?”<
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Instead of an answer, she got a fond kiss on the top of her head. “I changed my mind. I am giving you a piece of sage advice. Be gentle with my friend’s heart, Lorelei. He’s not as tough as he looks.”
Who was? Even carefree Fletcher carried a certain vulnerability deep in his eyes. No, the more Lorelei learned about the people around her—about her pack—the more she realized that telling everyone the truth about her past never would have damned her. They all hurt, and the best way to diminish that pain was to share it.
The screen door on the small house stuck, and Lorelei jerked it open with a rattle. “Colin?”
“In here!” Colin’s voice came from the kitchen. He continued speaking, words clearly not meant for Lorelei. “There we go. I told you she’d be along. The farm’s a big place.”
“Too big,” a woman grumped.
Disbelief carried Lorelei through the front room and hallway, all the way to the open doorway leading into the old-fashioned kitchen. Boz sat at the table, her face and clothes dirty but her hands clean and wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee.
“There’s Boz’s girl,” Colin murmured. “I told you I wasn’t lying.”
Boz almost knocked the chair over as she rose to shuffle across the room. She grasped Lorelei’s cheeks and stared up into her eyes. “That’s barely you at all. So much more than you. Oh, my girl. My girl.”
“Boz.” She reached up and touched the old woman’s hands. “What are you doing here?”
“The dark one brought me.” Boz tugged Lorelei closer, as if her whisper wouldn’t carry to Colin’s ears either way. “Not so dark, eh? Just stubborn, like old Boz. Couldn’t have a nice boy like that living under my bridge.”
Lorelei had asked her, so many times, but she’d clung resolutely to the streets, to the only home she seemed to remember. But somehow, Colin had managed to lure Boz away. “Why now?”
“Sat like a lump, he did.” Boz released her, only to give Colin a dark look that he met with an innocent smile.
For some reason, it made the old woman laugh, and Colin found Lorelei’s gaze again. “We had a staring contest. How many days did that last, Boz?”
