by P. Jameson
“Nothing for thee to worry thyself over.” Barb brushed past her. “I need to get to work.”
“Barb, wait. Where have you been?” Seraphina rushed after her and Barb walked even faster, making it necessary for her to do that waddling thing women do when they’re pregnant.
Barb gave a laugh and it sounded fake as fuck even to her own ears. “You’re not supposed to ask a lady coming home in the morning where she’s been, silly. Where do you think I’ve been?”
“Not with Adam,” Seraphina snapped, and the amount of sass in her tone was a surprise.
Barb stopped and turned to her.
“Adam said you didn’t show up at his house like normal. He was worried sick. He’s been out searching for you all night, just got back.”
Barb’s face must have turned the color of a sheet. “He’s here?”
“Yes. He’s… well, he’s not good.”
Shit. She didn’t think he would worry much if she didn’t come over. She should have known better. His anxiety would have had him worried all to hell.
“Rod is with him, but you should probably get in there.”
“Okay.” Barb nodded, straightening her shirt. Patting down her hair. “Okay. Shit, okay.”
She wasn’t expecting to face him until tonight. She’d planned on taking the entire day to come up with what she was going to say.
Pushing through the front entrance, she found him and Rod in the hallway by the elevators. Adam was pacing like a mad man, hands in his hair, looking a hot disheveled mess.
At least she wasn’t the only one.
He dropped his hands when he spotted her and stalked forward, forgetting Rod altogether. Several emotions flitted across his face. Anger, relief, concern.
When he reached her, he said nothing, just hooked his palm around her neck and pulled her close for a hug.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
He smelled so damn good. His arms felt strong and familiar. Like home. But everything was different now. There would be no more long, sweet nights in his embrace. No more stolen kisses when Megan wasn’t looking. He would be able to walk away today and never look back if he wanted. The pull of the bond wouldn’t hold him any longer, and for half a minute she thought—she hoped—maybe he wouldn’t notice.
But when he pulled back, there was awareness in his eyes. The way he searched her face like it would give him answers to what was wrong… it damn near broke her.
“Where were you?” he rasped. “I was so fucking worried.” He lowered his voice to almost nothing, so only she could hear him. “I’ve been working on not jumping to the worst case scenario, you know, but I couldn’t find you and no one knew where you were. Babe… what is going on?”
Babe. He’d never called her that before. It was so familiar and so casual, like they were really lovers. And they were in a way. In the normal way. A non-permanent way.
Not forever, her vixen reminded her.
No, not forever.
She gave him the best smile she could muster under the circumstances. “It’s okay,” she said. “Everything is going to be okay. See, I went to the Ouachitas…” She blew out a nervous breath.
“The Ouachitas? Why would you go there?” He scowled, those eyes still roving her features as if she looked different and he still couldn’t place why.
She kept that smile plastered on her lips. “Listen, things will feel a little different from now on.”
His frown deepened. “Something’s wrong.” She barely heard his words for how her ears were ringing. “Something is very wrong.”
“No, it’s okay. This is for the best—”
“What did you do?” he demanded angrily.
Her smile faded. What was the goddamned point of it anyway. “I fixed it.”
“I… I can’t feel you anymore.” His eyes were wild and scared. “What did you do, Barb. Why can’t I feel you?” He gripped her upper arms, shaking her gently.
“I severed the mating bond.” She looked away so she couldn’t see his eyes as she explained. And for the first time since deciding to see the witches, she was questioning whether she’d made the right choice. ”It’s gone. We aren’t connected like that anymore. You don’t have to feel it now.”
“What?” His voice was the creak of a door just before slamming shut.
“It won’t hurt anymore. No more pain.” She tried to smile again, to find the reason this was all so important. “You’re free,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes.
He shook his head looking confused. Her explanation didn’t ease his panic either. “You said it was forever. Nothing could break it. You said it would always be there no matter what. Forever. That should fucking mean something.”
Barb struggled to find her voice. “It is forever. I mean… it’s supposed to be. But I found a way.” She let her gaze fall away again. “I couldn’t let you hurt, Adam. I had to fix it. You didn’t ask for any of this. You didn’t ask for me to come stomping into your life, changing things. You didn’t choose this. Didn’t choose…” she shook her head forcing the word out, “… me. And well… I know what it’s like to not have a choice. I couldn’t do that to you.”
He choked out an agonized laugh. “But you did, princess. You did do that to me. You didn’t ask me if this was what I wanted. Didn’t give me a choice in breaking the bond. You just took it away without considering what it would do to us.”
Barb couldn’t breathe. Her mouth opened trying to speak but there was nothing behind her lips. Was he right? Had she done something just as awful as what had been done to the vixens? She was trying to give him a choice, not take it away.
Shit. Her vixen wanted out. Needed to run off the ache behind her chest.
“I… I was only trying to help.”
“You took away the only thing I loved besides my daughter,” he ground out. “How in the hell did you think that would help?”
Loved?
Barb shook her head. No, he didn’t love her. If he did, it would have fixed their bond. “You don’t love me, Adam.” Tears flowed down her cheeks. She couldn’t stop them. “It’s why it hurt so bad to be together.”
“I told you I was fucked up. You made me believe I could be better. Made me want to be.” Pain flickered in his gaze and she couldn’t feel it in her own chest. The spell was holding. “How could you give up on us?”
Rod cleared his throat and that was the first time either of them realized they weren’t alone. Barb looked around.
They were very much not alone.
Along with Rod, most of the vixens and their mates were within earshot.
“Shit,” she said, wiping at her eyes.
Adam let her go, stepping back until they were no longer touching.
“So that’s it?” he asked quietly. “It’s over?”
Over. The word felt like a knife to her center. Sharp and hard and final.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat, but didn’t have a chance to answer. And what would she say anyway?
“What about… everything. What about Megan?”
Barb hurt so bad at the thought of the little girl. Mine, her fox whined. My cub. Damn, she loved that girl. “Best of friends, always,” she choked out. “I’ll always be here for her, whenever she needs me. Bet on it.”
And that was all she could take without shifting. She ran for the back entrance, praying she made it outside before her vixen burst from her.
Chapter Twelve
Adam sat in his driveway, unable to make himself go inside. Tana was taking Megan to school and he’d called off work. In five years, he hadn’t taken a personal day. He was due. And this day was damn fucking personal.
He dropped his head in his hands.
He’d lost his shit last night when Barb went missing. He must have tried her cell phone a hundred times, but if she was in the Ouachitas, there’d be no service. His anxiety had soared to new fucking levels, and by the time Rod found him, he was searching ditches all over the county for her car.
“Shit.
” He pounded the heel of his hand against the steering wheel, letting his frustration roar through the cab. He’d been so fucking scared. “She’s okay, she’s fine,” he chanted, trying to believe it.
But even though Barb wasn’t in a ditch somewhere, or worse, she was definitely not okay. They were not okay.
Was it really over?
He dug deep, searching for that amazing connection he’d had with her. The one he’d come to rely on to get him through the hardest times. But it was gone. Even the pain that somehow helped him remember he was alive. There was nothing.
He couldn’t feel her bubbling through him like he always did. He couldn’t feel her unconditional love propping him up like it did so often. He couldn’t feel her desire anymore, her needs, her secrets. They were all gone, gone, gone.
Everything they’d shared, sliced clean through.
Severed, she’d said.
It felt the same as death.
He’d been through this before. He’d survived this before. And fuck, he didn’t want to do it again.
Everything he’d come to treasure in the past few weeks was gone. Why didn’t he ever tell her how much those things meant?
You don’t love me. Those words tore at him most. He loved Barb the best he was able. He wasn’t a whole man. Half of him was buried in the county cemetery. What was left… what was left loved the hell out of her.
Why didn’t he tell her so?
But he already knew the answer.
Karly.
His eyes filled with tears and he gasped to catch his breath. Tears that he never cried at her funeral. Tears that he’d kept in for so many years because he refused to tell her goodbye.
Reaching in his back pocket, he withdrew his wallet. The old thing was ratted and the leather was fading and thin, but he refused to get a new one. He flipped it open, and his eyes settled on a picture of Karly holding Megan. It was taken shortly before she died and she’d put it in his wallet for him. So he’d always have his girls close, she’d said.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
The pain was back. That deep ache that he’d felt with Barb. Except this time there was no good to it. No pieces of her filtering through to ease things.
The picture of Karly blurred before him and he blinked to clear his tears. He wanted to be whole again but he didn’t know how. He couldn’t leave her behind. Not her. He promised he would always love her. He promised to never abandon her. How could he move on when… when she never would?
He pressed his head back against the seat, staring at the photo while the tears refused to stop.
“Tell me what to do.” The pain in his center grew brighter. “Tell me what to fucking do!” he screamed. “How do I fix all this?”
He let the tears fall until there were none left. Hours passed and the sun crossed the sky so it was directly overhead. And still, he didn’t know how to be whole again so he could love Barb the way she deserved.
The way she loved him.
Because no matter what he’d said at the hotel about her giving up on them, he knew she wasn’t a quitter. She didn’t sever their bond because of a lack of faith. She did it to make sure he was never forced to mate like her people had been.
Adam sighed, folding his wallet. He had to pull himself together. Megan would be coming home soon—
As he tucked the picture and its clear holder back into place, one corner popped free and he noticed some familiar handwriting on the back of the photo. Curious, he eased the fragile paper from the plastic to examine it. In Karly’s neat scrawl, a quote was written…
If you fear the future because of what has happened in your past, you’ll end up losing what you have in the present.
Adam swallowed the knot in his throat and read the quote again. When he was finished, he read it once more.
Chills rolled up the back of his neck. It was like she was speaking to him from the beyond, yet she’d written this years ago before her death. Even before their time was up, she’d known he needed to be reminded that it was precious.
He remembered what Barb told him about living for now, not for the past. It wasn’t an accident that he’d had this picture in his wallet for years and only just saw the inscription on the back.
This was his answer.
He cried new tears as he read his wife’s writing again. But these weren’t tears of despair. These were tears of healing.
The way to be whole again was to let Karly go. He needed to honor her life by finally living his.
And he knew in his heart that was the way she would want it.
He drew in a shaky breath.
There was a lot of work to do before he could be happy again with Barb, but now, thanks to Karly, he knew where to start.
***
Barb ran through the forest that lined Cedar Valley, her fox claws digging into the damp earth as she pushed herself to go faster. She ran the forest every night now. It was just what she did. Part of her new routine. Didn’t even need to put it in her planner because if it was dark, she was running.
End of story.
Keeping her fox worn out was the only way to prevent her animal from wanting to hunt Adam. The vixen longed for her mate. Countless times over the past few weeks, she’d found herself driving to his house to check on him only to catch herself before she made things worse. There were so many things she wanted to say, to explain herself. But none of it would help him, so she kept away.
She’d thought a lot about her choices to sever the bond. It was wrong not to talk to Adam first. She regretted hurting him. Regretted it to her bones. But she realized now there’d never been a right answer. She meant to give him a choice, but in doing so, she’d also taken it away. It was damn near unforgiveable, but maybe one day, with lots and lots of time, Adam would understand she’d done a stupid fucking thing in the name of love.
As Barb ran the forest, she was joined by another vixen. This one darker with black markings mixed into russet fur. Ragan.
Lately, she’d come to run with Barb in the night. Nothing was ever said about it in the daytime, but Barb appreciated the solidarity. And maybe Ragan had her own reasons for running her fox ragged.
When the air was colder and the sky lent its first hints of brightening, Ragan cut off toward the hotel while Barb kept running. Eventually, she approached the edge of the woods where she’d parked her car. It would be morning soon and the guests at the hotel expected breakfast.
Slowing to make sure there were no humans nearby, she got ready to shift. But a familiar scent caught her attention and she hesitated.
Mine.
No. He wouldn’t come here. Not when he knew it could make things worse. And he did know. She’d explained all the gory details of the spell to Rod and asked him to make sure Adam understood.
If he wanted to keep his freedom, he had to stay away.
She poked her nose through the thick brush and entered the clearing of the parking lot. Adam leaned against her car, arms crossed like he’d been waiting for a while. Her eyes soaked him in. He looked so damn good. Like, really good. His eyes were brighter. The creases of his brow softer. His shoulders lighter.
Mate is well.
Knowing he was okay went a long way to soothing her animal.
She stood before him, the breeze ruffling her fur. She couldn’t shift. If she did, she would be naked. And being naked would be awkward after everything they’d shared.
Adam pushed off of the car and strolled over, crouching next to her. He smelled like home and she wanted to burrow against him.
Why was he here? Why now? And how did he know where to find her?
“Hey, princess.” He still said princess with that soft lilt that she’d come to love. Her heart pounded at his nearness.
Careful, careful.
“Didn’t see you last night at the race,” he murmured.
She’d skipped it. Again. Third one in a row. She just wasn’t up for public consumption these days.
Reaching out, he ran his fingers
under her chin and down her neck, making her purr.
“You know,” he mused, a smirk playing at his lips. “You’re really fucking cute like this.”
Barb growled and nipped at his hand. Not enough to hurt, but it was a warning. He shouldn’t be here.
“Rod tells me we’re not supposed to see each other,” he said. “But I think that’s bullshit. We have a lot of unfinished business.”
She lowered her gaze, hoping he would just leave. Nothing good would happen if he stayed.
“Shift so we can talk.”
No. Too much at stake. At least if she remained as an animal, there was a barrier between them.
Adam sighed as he lowered to sit on the ground. “I’ve been working on my shit, you know? Learning a lot about myself these days. Things have been more… peaceful lately.”
Peaceful. That made her both happy and sad. If he was at peace without her, then she’d made the right decision after all.
Sorrow bled through her, but it was hidden safely inside. He’d never be aware of it.
“Thought you should know that.”
She was so fucking proud of him for working on himself.
“You’re really not gonna talk to me?”
She paced, to give her animal something to do. Shocker that the vixen wasn’t bone tired by now.
“Can I at least hold you?”
This stopped her in her tracks.
Hold her? Adam wanted to hold her.
What part of keeping his distance did he not understand?
A whimper escaped her. Longing threatened to choke her. What harm could a little contact do?
She eased forward, sniffing the air and letting her instincts guide her. Adam held out his hand, coaxing her over. With a yip, her fox bounded forward, barely in control of her own actions, until she was safe in his arms again.
Adam held her close and buried his face in her fur. “I missed you so damn much,” he breathed, making her heart throb with new hope.
She licked his cheek, pressing her nose to his jaw to scent him.
“You missed me too.”
Desperately, she did.
The sun was peeking over the hills of Cedar Valley, and she knew whatever this was, was coming to an end. They would go their separate ways in a few minutes, and she would try to console her lost animal with whatever distractions she could find.
