by Diana Seere
“You’re just trying to stop Derry from being with—with anyone—”
“On the contrary. I’ll rejoice if he finds his mate among his own kind, though bears don’t mate for life. Surely you can feel this. If you care for him, and I think you do, please accept the truth of this.” Asher rose and walked past her to the door. He raised his voice. “Edward, we’re in the library.”
His own kind…
You can feel this…
If you care for him…
Tears streaming down her cheek, she opened the book again and strained to understand the cryptic lettering. She was a great student. There was nothing she couldn’t master if she studied hard enough. But these words were gibberish. Scribbles.
“Edward will escort you home,” Asher said behind her.
“Lilah could read this?” Her voice wasn’t steady anymore.
“Yes.” His had grown softer, gentler.
“What does it say?” she asked.
He put a hand on her shoulder. “If you need me to tell you, you’re not the One.”
The hard truth struck her so hard, her knees buckled. Strong hands came up and supported her. Edward. He wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.
“You looked cold,” Edward said.
Asher was pushing them toward the front door. “Get her to the helicopter. Her things are already packed and ready. I’ll talk to the mother.”
Before answering, Edward dipped his head to Jess. “Is that all right? Would you like to go home?”
The thought of home, safe and normal, was a siren’s song. “Boston?” she asked weakly.
“The jet’s waiting for us,” Edward said.
“Us?”
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “So you’re not alone.”
Jess turned and looked into Edward’s kind face. Lilah was right. This was the type of guy she should’ve fallen in love with. Too late now.
“Yes,” she said. “I’d like to go home.”
The cool autumn air whistled through his thick, coarse fur, moonlight glittering on soft, thin snow like the crackle of fire, the ebb and flow of embers made by humans. Scent magnified by thousands of standard deviations, he felt the blood pound through his enormous form, eyes taking in his pack.
His pack.
Wolves, bears, and the lonely lion made for a motley crew, but one that was his no matter what. As his brain spiraled from bear to human, he felt the shift take place, the true mating ritual now complete, one forged by a new approach. Asher had explained to them all that there was, in more than a thousand years of shifter documentation, no written instructions for how to bring a human shifter into a pack—unless she’d borne her shifter mate an heir.
What they had just done with Gavin and Lilah was wholly original, without precedent, and yet it felt oddly perfect. Complete and true.
Ears perking, he heard the skitter of creatures in the woods, caught the remnants of partygoers via scent, and swore he could smell Jess closer than she should be.
Her. His true pack would never be complete without her.
The ache in his bones was not only from the change in his physical stature, but a yearning need for her that came undefined. The shock of her mother’s attack had barely registered before Gavin had come to him, insisting he join the secret gathering to witness the true joining of Gavin and Lilah. He’d gone, of course, but with a spinning mind and a pained heart, his body tingling with fury, his soul a whirling dervish.
In the dark, under a blanket of crisp stars, he’d joined his siblings and watched the impossible—a human turning into a wolf through the simple force of love. The metaphysics of it were, of course, far more complex, but at its most basic foundation, that was the answer.
Love.
As he inhaled, he smelled Jess, her strong feminine scent light on his nose, his brow furrowed and his frown deepening as the scent elongated, the color of it turning from a pale gray to a darker, demonic brown tinged with a burning, sickly odor. She was distraught. He needed to find her. Help her. The mess with Marilyn would fix itself, for surely her mother was mistaken.
Was Jess hurt? Where was she? The odor came on a breeze, carried too far for him to locate quickly.
He looked down.
And of all the times to be in human form, naked. If only she were here and her scent were happy.
Sprinting, he bounded through the woods and down the steps to his cabin, the route memorized by his muscles even in human form. Slowed by his awkward bones, wishing briefly he were still in bear form to make this trip speedier, he threw on a pair of old jeans and a sweatshirt, shoving his feet into loafers and running out the door, following her scent.
A handful of partying guests lingered at the reception, too drunk to notice him or too tired to care. Her scent should have strengthened along the path to her guest cottage, but instead, it detoured.
To Asher’s.
No.
No, no, no.
The fury drove him to run like the wind, his hands eager to drop to the ground and move on all fours, faster if he were bear but achingly sluggish now. Asher’s home was the oldest building on the ranch, made with a carved oak door that bore scratches from earlier battles that Derry did not have the luxury to think about. With one mighty shove of his shoulder, he cracked the door open, not bothering with the preliminaries, already half-mad with the grief and pure rage that made a polite knock announcing his presence impossible.
“Asher!” he bellowed, her scent filling him. Champagne, roses, baby powder, musk, excitement, sweat—and Jess’s fear, disappointment, anxiety, and a scent he couldn’t name, but he could imitate.
It was the scent that matched the ragged feeling in his chest.
She had just been here, and Asher had put all the negativity into her.
“ASHER!” he screamed, the word no longer articulate, indiscernible from the roar that came from his jutting jaw, the bones crunching for the second time in under an hour, the popping sounds of tendons changing place and the vague sound of his skin stretching, like a wet parchment scroll being unrolled. Clothes became rags. Shoes became annoyances. His spine cracked, and his hair grew thick and lustrous, converting back to fur in seconds, his jaw narrowing as his head grew, and then—
He smelled his oldest brother.
And he was human.
“Derry,” said Asher in a low, calm voice, one that was so sonorous it could put overcaffeinated college students to sleep. “She is gone.”
One sniff, and he knew that. Throwing the large oak partner’s desk aside like a child’s toy in the way, Derry heard the crack of wood against the wall, but it did not matter.
He wanted her.
“She is gone,” Asher repeated, the words clear, his face a stone that needed to have the emotion clawed out of it. “She asked to go home.”
Just as his arm reached for Asher, his brother unflinching, the snick-snick-snick of a familiar machine filled his ears with too much sound.
He knew that sound.
But it was the scent that saved Asher’s life.
Oil. Machine gears. Gasoline. Petroleum and Jess and her her her, and he loped through the open, crooked front door, flurries dotting the path he’d just been on, speeding through the fluffy flakes toward the sound of the machine that would turn her into a bird and make her leave him.
No.
He couldn’t let that happen, and as he rounded the corner at the main stone gate, he lumbered across the field to the landing strip, his eyes unfocused, his heart pumping in his chest so hard the blood pounded behind his eyes, the snow keeping him cool as his internal engine matched the helicopter in its rhythm.
Snick-snick-snick.
He was close. So close, her forlorn scent nearly halting him in his tracks to howl in shared pain with her, to pull Jess into his arms and make it better, to explain and understand and forgive and reconnect and—
The scent began to break.
He looked up, eyes laser sharp, and saw the helicopter lift.
�
�Nooooooooooooooo!” he yelled.
It came out like a ferocious growl, a groan and roar that shook him so deeply inside he would still hear that sound in death, ringing in his ears forever.
Two pairs of eyes glowed in the dark as he reached the ground where the chopper’s landing gear had just rested, the machine now a few hundred feet away and up to the east.
Jess and Edward.
Her eyes met his, and the pain seared him, surely made his fur and thick skin shed until he was naked and mewling before her, the hatred in her look making him wish for words. He leapt into the air, knowing full well it would not work, the ungroomed rocks mingled with dirt beneath his feet scraping against him.
“JESS!!” he called out, the word sounding like the caterwaul of a wild beast.
Because it was.
He kept his eyes on hers until he could only imagine he saw those beautiful mirrors to his own soul.
And then he could see them no longer.
His heart folded in on itself, and he collapsed right there.
Everyone had always been right.
He really was a fool.
Chapter 24
Her apartment back in Waltham was cramped, cold, and gloomy, but blessedly empty. Finally, after traveling all night via the generosity of the Stanton private transit system, she could be alone. When she’d dragged all her bags over the threshold, Jess kicked the door shut behind her and flung her keys to the side, not caring that they missed the little table and fell on the floor.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to escort you inside? I can carry—” Edward had asked on the street downstairs, but she’d refused. He’d held her hand and offered her tissues and tea for hours during the journey back—she’d appreciated every kindness, but now it was time to nurse her wounds in private. He’d assured her that his chauffeur would retrieve and deliver Smoky, her dog, in the morning.
Shock had settled in like ice over a mountain lake. She was cold, her hands shivering, but she barely noticed. Without turning on the lights, moving through her apartment merely by the glow of the dawn, she pushed off her shoes and climbed into bed, still in her clothes.
What day was it? What month? What year? Her life had taken a surreal turn into the unknown, like a disorienting dream.
A dream that had turned into a nightmare.
Derry. Derry.
Neither was each other’s One. It was all an illusion.
Too tired to cry anymore, she fell into a fitful sleep filled with shape-shifting men and women who picnicked on a warm, sunny beach while she thrashed and drowned in the icy water just offshore. No matter how she cried out, shouting each of their names, none turned her way, none stopped laughing. Even Edward, as kind as he’d been to her, was playing cards with Molly. What was she doing there? Why was she allowed to be on the beach and Jess wasn’t?
Asher sat in the lifeguard chair, not on the picnic blanket, but he didn’t move to save her. Lilah and Gavin were walking away, arm in arm, both in their wedding clothes. Sophia was eating and laughing at something the big man next to her was saying. The big man had a woman in his lap—Molly, it was Molly—and she knew the man was Derry, and that he was kissing Molly, stroking her back and thighs, taking off her clothes, oblivious to Jess out in the perilous water.
“No!” Jess cried, waking up with a start, her heart pounding so hard her ribs ached. Still wearing her winter coat under the thick comforter, she was drenched in sweat. She kicked off the covers and unzipped her coat, sucking in calming breaths as she rolled to one side.
Was Molly a shifter? Was she destined to belong to the Stantons in a way Jess never would? If Asher had shown Molly the book, would she have been able to read it?
Maybe her dream was showing her a truth she couldn’t bear to acknowledge when she was awake: it was Molly and Derry who were destined for each other, and Jess was only a brief detour. The catalyst for their true love.
Oh fuck. She crawled out of bed and tore off her coat. Fuck it all. Her dreams might torture her, but she wasn’t going to let her waking mind do it too. She could control her thoughts. If she didn’t, she’d kill herself. How could she go on, thinking about him, remembering him, imagining what could’ve been?
Her mind drove on, pursuing more forbidden thoughts: If it were up to her, she’d be a bear shifter like Derry… She never had liked wolves or lions, too aggressive… but bears… they were strong and warm and clever…
Giving her head a violent shake, she marched to the shower and climbed in before the water got warm. Ah, there. Ice. Remember that. Your heart needs it. Embrace the cold. That’s where you’ll live from now on if you want to survive.
I wasn’t the One. He isn’t the One. It’s all bullshit. It’s just sex and lust and fucking like it always is.
She was going to be a doctor. Those were the dreams to remember.
As always, it wasn’t about pleasure. It was about work. And she was going to return to the habits that had made her who she was—hard work, solitude, and a guarded heart. As soon as she got dressed and had some coffee and toast, she was going to call Professor Lethbridge again about that job. Earlier she’d let herself be intimidated. Now she would take advantage of a job and a connection that could propel her career. And as a bonus, she would have the opportunity to destroy Archie Rumsey.
She let the cold water chill her too-hot blood.
The only dreams she would pay attention to were the ones about the future. Her future. Alone, the way she’d always imagined it.
“This whole lovesick act is making me just plain old sick,” Sophia declared, shoving back the heavy curtains to his loft, making certain a shaft of light as sharp as a needle struck him right in the eyes.
He groaned in response, rolled over in bed, and settled his face between two down pillows.
Which reminded him of Jess’s thighs.
Which made him think of Jess.
Jess.
And… now he was hard as a fucking rock.
He remained on his belly, a prisoner of his own erection.
“Go away,” he muttered.
“I am not leaving until you shower and shave and pretend to be a decent human being,” Sophia insisted. “Or, at least, a partial human being.”
I was speaking to my cock, he thought.
As much as he hated what Sophia was doing, she was his first shred of company in over a week, since he’d come home from the wedding, livid and destroyed at the same time. He’d left the ranch on his own, without a word to anyone. Ignored texts and phone calls. Eschewed all social events.
Gavin would have come long before Sophia, but he and Lilah were in Paris, doing what honeymooners do in Paris.
Which reminded him of his cock again.
Damn it.
“Why do I need to shower?” he asked his pillow, sighing deeply. As he inhaled afterward, his own nose gave him the answer.
Oh God. When had he last managed basic hygiene? His own scent offended him, which meant his sister was right.
He sat up and said, “Turn away.”
“Why? I’ve seen you naked thousands of times. Are you afraid you’ll poke my eye out?” Sofia laughed, using the end of her closed umbrella to stab a stack of pizza boxes, making a disgusted face.
“Fine. Suit yourself.” He slithered out of bed and headed for the shower, his dick deflating instantly. Between the cool Massachusetts late-autumn air and his sister’s joke about his penis, he was quite limp by the time the hot water kicked in on his shower’s jets.
As he soaped up, he made quick work, using two rounds of shampoo on his long, greasy hair, scrubbing his body with a washcloth, his skin prickling with the hot water and the friction of simple attention. Leaning against the marbled wall after the basics had been met, he pressed his forehead into the tile and let the rivers of hot water wash over his tense back, willing the muscles to relax.
They refused.
One week of self-imposed isolation doing nothing but drinking and painting, with the occasi
onal takeout order for sustenance, had left him weak and hollow.
The pain had not abated.
Not one bit.
He wasn’t lovesick. Sophia was wrong.
Derry was heartsick.
If he were the type of man who cried, he would be sobbing uncontrollably by now. But he wasn’t. Stanton men didn’t cry. It wasn’t in their DNA, or something like that, he’d been told. They punched things and fought fellow animals and men. They purchased businesses and squashed competitors. They ridiculed and cajoled.
A Stanton man never, ever cried.
What the other Stanton men didn’t know, though, was that Derry painted his pain away.
And how.
He finished the shower and walked into the main loft area wearing a robe, toweling his long black hair.
“Feel better?” Sophia asked, her hands covered in hospital gloves, a large trash bag in one hand.
“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Cleaning this pigsty.” She shoved a takeout container into the giant black bag, nose wrinkling.
He bristled. “Don’t refer to me as a pig.”
Her brow lowered in confusion, then raised. “Right. That’s why I’m here.”
“To call me a pig? Have you joined Marilyn Murphy’s team?”
She sighed and set down the trash bag, snapping off the gloves and tossing them in. “No. I’ve come here to talk to you. Got any coffee?”
He pointed to the espresso machine, which looked like a small coffee bomb had gone off around it, grounds scattered in little piles all over the counter.
“Jesus, Derry. You really are a p—mess.”
He growled.
She shrugged.
Five minutes later, coffee in hand, she stood behind him and brushed his long hair.
“This really isn’t necessary,” he insisted.
“You haven’t let me do this since we were eleven.”
“Because it’s juvenile.” Sophia used the wide-toothed comb with a precision that a hairdresser would envy, separating his thick locks into three strong cords.
“It’s fun. You always had the better head of hair of the two of us. Mine is just a dull color, like dark construction paper. Yours shines like obsidian.”
