Untamed Darkness

by Kate Wendley

  **

  Helena was mortified. By everything. The party, seeing Marc having sex with another woman on his giant TV, his animalistic fury as he fought with his friend, and his friend’s bloodthirsty look in his eyes. All of it reminded her too much of how violent Will had been when she confronted him about turning her into this beast.

  She’d thought Marc had been helping her get a handle on her wolf, but maybe that was all a lie. In reality, werewolves were nothing but wild animals. Including Marc.

  And including her. She didn’t want to know this. She wanted to believe she could control this creature inside her. Was that just a lie? Would the perfect storm of emotions turn her into the crazed animal Marc had been tonight? Even after keeping it so well tamed all these years?

  She dashed away from his place while he fought with his friend, then stopped after a few blocks and sat on an old tree stump as she got her bearings. She fumbled with her purse and finally found her phone, but tears distorted her vision while she tried to find the Uber app. She finally figured it out and scheduled for someone to come pick her up.

  Everything whirled uncontrollably through her mind while she waited. The fury of Marc’s and his friend’s wolves, the wild, crazy partying of all their friends, but most of all, if she had to admit it, was the video.

  Stupid Marc. Stupid her for giving in and believing there could be anything between them. She should’ve known better. She’d seen all the signs. She’d seen the way women turned their heads and looked at Marc whenever they were together. And she’d seen the way Marc was with women before they’d even actually met.

  But it still hurt. He’d made her feel like she was his world. He’d even convinced her that he was a good, faithful guy.

  Someone who’d never leave her…

  She pushed away thoughts of her mother leaving her as a young child, and all the confusion that ensued for years afterwards. The feelings of abandonment and about not being enough something to keep the important people in her life interested enough to stick around were always there. Some days worse than others. This was why her granddad wanted her to be responsible, and to find someone responsible to be with. He didn’t want her to have that kind of heartache in her life ever again.

  Neither did she, and that’s why this hurt so damn bad. She’d thought she was falling in love with tall, gorgeous, fun loving Marc.

  The guy everyone loved to love, apparently. She growled in frustration. The image of him having sex with that woman was now burned into her brain. And the woman looked an awful lot like someone there tonight… and like the woman who’d been getting a piggy back ride from him the night of the concert…

  Oh God. She was probably surrounded by his ex-lovers and didn’t even know it. Her stomach lurched and she had to fight the urge to vomit. She was just another conquest to him.

  But the feeling between her and Marc was undeniable, something she’d honestly never felt with anyone before. She felt like she was home when she was in his arms, and not just the normal feel good stuff from being in a new relationship. This was like… well, it was like magic. Like when she first realized she wasn’t totally human anymore. It was the feeling of powers working in the world that she had no idea even existed. It was like their souls belonged together.

  A tear streaked down her cheek because he wasn’t the kind of man she wanted to be bound to for the rest of her life. She didn’t want to have to deal with heartache time and time again as he strayed and found other women, only to come back to her because of the incredible energy between them. And that’s the kind of man she now saw that he was.

  While she waited for her ride to come pick her up, she put a really long, complicated password lock on her phone. That way, if her wolf was feeling sorry for herself in the middle of the night, she’d have no way to call Marc.

  “Hey, you. Wolf. I know you can hear me. Aren’t you supposed to try to protect me? Aren’t we the same person? Why did you let me fall for someone that was only going to break my heart? You knew he was a party boy because I knew he was. So what’s your problem? Why did you let us get so close to him? I was learning to trust you dammit!”

  There was no answer from her wolf, of course. No rebuttal, no ‘I’m sorry’. There was just a deep sadness all the way to her soul.

  Chapter 12

  Marc hadn’t heard from Helena for a couple days, even after he texted her that he was sorry about the party. He wasn’t sure what else to say, so he didn’t say anything.

  And neither did she.

  Three days passed without a peep so he figured it was over with her. It was his own fault. He should’ve been up front with her in the first place, but… that wouldn’t have gone over well either. At least this way he got to see what the good life was like for a little while.

  His phone pinged and he nearly hit the car in front of him trying to see who his text message was from.

  Rio. ‘You still mad?’

  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  His heart pounded angrily in his chest the rest of the way to work. Rio could go screw himself. All his friends could. They were dead to him.

  **

  Marc dragged himself into work and was surprised to see Brett already there. Usually he didn’t show up until a few minutes after eight. He was amped up about something, too, which made Marc nervous. It was the kind of energy he felt from Brett on the days when him, Kev and Alek were going to be ‘talked to’ about something.

  Hell. What now? He hadn’t done anything wrong lately, had he? Or was it Kev or Alek screwing around again? He’d been completely ignoring them this week so he had no idea what they were up to.

  Marc slowly looked towards Brett’s office, startling when he locked eyes with him through the glass wall separating the room. He frantically tried to remember anything stupid that’d happened lately that Brett might be ticked off about, but couldn’t for the life of him think of anything. He tried to seem casual as he inclined his head at his boss before turning back to his computer.

  **

  Marc came back from lunch by himself and wasn’t at all surprised to see that Kev and Alek weren’t back yet. He finished a long call from someone who was getting weird error messages when they tried to print to absolutely any printer on the network, and Kev and Alek still weren’t back. Brett wouldn’t be happy about that, not that Marc cared anymore what those two did. It was time to change his life, whether or not Helena was in it, and that started with changing his friends.

  Still, he couldn’t help looking back at their desks, shaking his head at their stupidity. He wouldn’t be at all surprised if they got fired someday for all the idiotic crap they always pulled. He was just about to turn back to his own computer when he stopped. Something seemed different about their desks. He couldn’t put his finger on it though. A call came in, and he got busy with another guy on the team to go look into an issue one of the managers was having with the accounting software.

  Two hours later, Kev and Alek still weren’t at their desks and there was a note from Brett on Marc’s computer screen. He wanted to talk to him. Oh shit. He turned and Brett was watching him, so there was no putting this off. Even from the other side of the glass wall Marc could feel Brett’s tension.

  **

  Kev and Alek had been fired and Marc was on notice that he’d better keep up his recent good performance if he wanted to keep his job as well. That pissed Marc off, not because he was on notice, he knew full well he wasn’t always a model employee, but because he’d let himself be led so far astray by his supposed friends.

  “I need you to step up your game, Marc. I don’t want to find any more things like this on the shared drives, and certainly not printed out in mass quantities on our expensive color copiers.”

  He swiveled his screen around to show Marc a full color flyer for the party Rio and the crew had set up at Marc’s place last week.

  His wolf went wild inside him. His so called friends were the reason he’d lost Helena, and they’d almost co
st him his job, too.

  “Whoa.” Brett jerked back in his chair. “Tell me you’re a shifter. You have to be.”

  Marc clenched his teeth and looked down at his feet. He needed to calm his temper. The last thing he needed was to also be talked to by the family for letting a regular human see his glowing eyes.

  He mumbled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He ran his hand over his face as if that would slow his racing heart. It bought him a little more time before he had to look at Brett again, though.

  “Sure you do! It’s your eyes. Holy Jesus. Wait’ll I tell my wife. She probably already knows and just never told me.” Brett laughed and now had a broad smile on his face as he looked Marc over. It made him squirm, and he had no idea how to get out of this.

  There was some awkward silence as Brett intensely studied him. “I’m really not sure what you’re talking about.”

  Brett relaxed back into his chair with a knowing look on his face and waved his hand in a vague gesture. “I know the drill. You’re not real. You don’t exist. There’s no such thing as werewolves and other wereanimals.” He cocked his head and smiled. “So what are you? My wife’s a wolf.”

  This time Marc studied Brett, confused about what to do now. He flicked a glance at the picture of Brett’s happy family on his desk. He didn’t think he’d ever actually met his wife before. “Suppose I play along. If she’s wolf, who’s her alpha?”

  Brett smiled like they were playing a game. “Easy. Sebastian Walsh. The Jaguar Alpha is Zach Johansen and the Master of the City is Anthony Foster, though there’s always a rivalry between him and another Master Vampire, Ethan something or other. Not quite sure of his last name. Anything else or are you going to fess up?” He smirked at Marc but it didn’t seem mean spirited.

  Brett knew too much to not be in their world. And really, there were a lot of shifters in Atlanta. He thought he’d heard it was close to two thousand at one point in time. Some had regular human wives and husbands, so the secret was bound to get around. But… they still knew not to talk about it to just anyone.

  In the end though, Brett knew, so Marc didn’t figure it hurt anything to be honest. “Not that it matters, but I’m wolf, too.”

  Brett looked both surprised and interested. “Really? Huh.” He straightened up and his tone turned brisk and professional again. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter. The reason we’re talking is about your performance and the impact of being short two people now.”

  They talked about that for a while, Brett praising him on his recent accomplishments, but still warning him that the stuff that had been happening before had to stop.

  “And to help you stay focused, if you want to get certified in some additional software packages, there are some classes you could take that I’d be happy to send you to. I think you have the aptitude for them. Let me pull the information and then let’s meet again to see which ones seem like a good fit.”

  “Really? Yeah, I’d like that.” Hope bloomed in his gut. Maybe something could go right in his life for once.

  Brett smiled as he wrote himself a note. “Let me do some digging and get the info together.”

  Marc put his hand out for Brett to shake. “Thank you sir. I appreciate it. I really do.” He suddenly realized how formal he was being. He was acting like he was talking to his alpha, Sebastian.

  Brett shook his offered hand. “I’m glad to be of assistance Marc, as long as this is a two way street. I need your head in the game, and as long as it is, I’ll help support your growth here.”

  “Thank you sir. I appreciate that.”

  He turned to leave as Brett said, “And Marc, you’re right. The wolf stuff is none of my business. It’s just so… unbelievable. After all these years being married to my wife, it still amazes me every time she shifts. Makes you wonder what else is possible in this life, right? I mean, well, sorry. Again, it’s none of my business.”

  Marc stared at him for a time, then at his pictures of his wife and kids. “The boys? Are they shifter too?”

  Now he seemed cautious to talk about this so openly. His posture stiffened, and his eyes were wary, but he still said, “Yep. And they’re a handful.”

  Marc relaxed for the first time in the last several days. “You’re right. It is amazing, though I know I’ve probably wasted whatever potential it gives me in life.” He sadly smirked and inclined his head.

  “Today’s a new day, Marc. Things can be different if you want them to be.”

  He walked back to his desk in a weird mood. With Kev and Alek gone, he felt less weighed down. Maybe things really could be different for him, at least here at work. He had no idea how to fix things for himself personally, though. So far it seemed like a long and lonely road was ahead of him because he’d spent way too long doing nothing with his life.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket and he had a gut reaction hope that it might be Helena finally reaching out to him.

  No such luck. It was Rio. ‘You coming to the gym on Saturday?’

  He shook his head in frustration before burying himself back in work.

  Chapter 13

  Marc went to lunch by himself again today, kind of missing Kev and Alek’s company, even though they were jerks. Changing was hard work, and it would be too easy to slide back into his old ways. He couldn’t do it, though, if he ever wanted to be proud of who he was as a person.

  To stop thinking of his old friends, he went somewhere they’d never gone with him. The vegan restaurant, A Slice of Life, had a terrace overlooking the park behind the buildings. Maybe some sunshine was what he needed to perk up his funky mood.

  It was a humid, sunny day as usual. He closed his eyes for a moment to try and calm himself. A hot breeze whipped the scents of peach trees, flowers, and everything green all around him. When he opened his eyes, an attractive waitress was standing by his table with a suggestive smile on her face.

  “Anything I can do for you today sweetheart?”

  “Two black bean cheeseburgers with everything please.”

  She looked like she was smiling as hard as she possibly could. “Sure thing. Anything else?”

  “No thank you.”

  She lingered, asking how his day was, about the weather, anything to keep him talking. Finally he just stopped answering and looked away.

  “Well, if you need anything at all, you just give me a call. Here’s my number sweetie. I get off at four.”

  “I hope you have a good afternoon then.”

  He sighed as she walked away, looking back over her shoulder at him more than once as she checked on other tables.

  **

  The last few days had been awful for Helena. The first night without Marc, she woke up the next morning on the floor in front of her locked front door, wrapped up in the sheets she’d previously stripped off the bed. The sheets that smelled like Marc. Her phone was laying on the living room floor, and luckily no calls had been made because her wolf couldn’t figure out the password to open it. Small miracle.

  The next night without him she woke again in front of her locked front door, her phone curled up in her hand, but still no calls to Marc.

  The next night, she was at least still in her own bed, but the sick feeling in her stomach had only grown more and more nauseating as the days wore on. It showed in her face, too. She looked haggard and worn out. Damn him for making her care. And damn her for falling for it.

  Today, she woodenly settled on having a quiet lunch by herself away from her busy, chaotic office. There was a vegan restaurant next door called ‘A Slice of Life’. She liked the catchy name, but as soon as she walked inside, she realized she’d made a terrible mistake. Across the terrace she could clearly see Marc, and could clearly see a pretty waitress hitting on him with all her might. She couldn’t tell if Marc was into it or not, but eventually the woman slipped him a napkin with her number on it. Marc let it lay where she’d left it.

  As the waitress crossed the small courtyard, checking behind hersel
f to see if he was looking her way, she caught Helena’s eye. When she got close enough, she said with a smirk and a wink, “Honey, I saw him first.”

  Helena quickly stifled the growl that erupted from within her, but the waitress heard it loud and clear. Her face blanched and she raced off to the kitchen while Helena calmed herself.

  She looked Marc’s way again only to see him watching her. Great. She’d been spotted. They locked eyes and she wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t look happy, but soon he gave her a worried smile.

  Her heart squeezed tight in her chest as she made her way over. She wanted to tell him she missed him, and that she thought about him non-stop, day and night. Without him she’d been sick to her stomach, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep… But things weren’t so simple. Just because her heart felt like it’d been twisted in knots and she couldn’t close her eyes at night knowing he was out there somewhere, and not with her, didn’t mean he’d suddenly become a new person. She still had her values that he didn’t seem to share.

  His eyes were guarded as she sat down across from him, and the offending napkin with the waitress’s phone number lay on the table between them. She gestured towards it and said a little more cynically than she meant to, “That happen a lot?”

  Marc’s eyes went dead just before he took the napkin, mopped up some water from his sweating glass of icy drink, then wadded the paper into a tight ball. Looking anywhere except at her, he lifelessly said, “Yeah. Sometimes. More than I’d like.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. A snappy comeback about how hard it must be to be so gorgeous felt wrong, even if she still felt stung by witnessing the woman hitting on him.

  Awkward silence stretched between them and he still wouldn’t look at her, so she decided it was time to leave.

  Before she got very far, he grabbed her wrist and held tight. “I didn’t want you to see any of that. I didn’t want you to know that I’d ever been like that.”

  The party. He had to be talking about the party. His gaze was piercing, waiting for her to respond, and his hand twitched around her wrist as she furiously wondered what she was supposed to say to his admission.