by Leela Ash
She turned around, her eyes wide with fright. Derek! He had followed her home.
“I— I’m — I’m going to scream. Stay away from me,” she stammered.
He stopped, looking just as handsome as she remembered. Then, in a slow, deliberate gesture, he leaned away from the door and shut it behind him. The key turned in the lock, the small sound threatening and final.
“Get out!” she spat.
“Calm down,” he murmured in a low tone, taking one careful step toward her and then another.
“What are you? You’re not human!” she cried.
“I’m as human as you are, Kelly,” he countered. He stopped a few feet away, watching her with hooded eyes, his face wiped clean of all expression.
“I saw you turn into… into that!”
“You were scared and traumatized, Kelly. Your mind was playing tricks on you,” he assured her in a calm tone as though he were addressing an imbecile.
“I saw—” she began.
“You saw a lot of things, Kelly, and now you’re not sure what’s real and what isn’t,” Derek interrupted. “But one thing you can be sure of is that I would never hurt you,” he said smoothly.
That gave her pause. He was right. Even in the midst of her mind-numbing terror, she had known, deep down, that Derek would never harm her; otherwise, she would have started screaming her head off the moment he showed his face. She relaxed a little and allowed her natural curiosity to rear its pretty head.
She wanted to know more, like what he really was and how he had come to be that way. She had read enough novels and watched Twilight a dozen times; she’d heard about mythical creatures, but truth be told, she had always thought that was just excessive writers’ imaginations. She stepped closer to him, her eyes shining with bright interest as she ran her gaze over his taut muscles and lean frame. Everything was in its place. He looked as human as anyone else. If she hadn’t seen him change, she would never have believed it herself.
A thought intruded. If he really was a shifter, he wouldn’t want anyone to know about it. Perhaps, he was being careful?
“Who are you really? What are you?”
“Derek Cavanaugh,” he deadpanned. Then, he went for the jugular, “I seem to remember we got past first names before you let me in your pants.”
Kelly’s fists clenched into impotent balls of fury at her side; it was obvious he didn’t want to talk about his… powers. But that didn’t mean he had to resort to mockery to shame her out of asking.
“Are you going to tell me the truth or not?” she demanded, feeling as though her heart was breaking into a million pieces.
He looked away in stony silence.
He didn’t trust her, she realized in a flash. A few minutes ago, she had discovered she was in love with him, right about the same time she had discovered he had… wolf powers. But he felt nothing for her. She was nothing but a convenient body for him to satisfy his lust!
“Get the hell out of my cabin! Right now!” she enunciated with calm finality.
It was a measure of how little she meant to him that he turned around and walked out without another word.
Kelly slid to the floor, weakened, as her heart shattered into a million tiny pieces.
10.
Derek cursed himself, using every expletive under the sun. He had sensed danger, but hadn’t been able to put his finger on what it was and had just chalked it up to worry about Joshua after his conversation with Bo more than a week ago. That bear hadn’t just been any old bear; he had been a shifter-bear and one single whiff told Derek he came from their rivals, the Archstone Tribe.
Weirna, Derek’s home, was close to the Coyana Waters, which meant that the inhabitants had better access to the Salem witches living across the river. It also meant they were better protected from human eyes. It also meant they were more powerful and automatically, the ruling tribe for shifters in the area. Unfortunately, that didn’t sit too well with some of the other shifters, which meant they had so many enemies.
He had sensed something was up and had been restless, even before Bo called. He should have raced back to Weirna the moment Bo hung up the phone, but no, he had been too fascinated by a woman with fly-away red hair and sad aquamarine eyes.
Thinking of Kelly made him curse anew. He wanted her so bad he could taste it. She had gotten under his skin; she was in his blood. But starting anything with her was too dangerous, he concluded, ruthlessly shunning the inner voice that reminded him he had gone beyond “starting something” with her.
Kelly was human, and he wasn’t. That wasn’t all, he was pretty sure he would have to go back home to Weirna soon. There would be no room for a human girlfriend there; plus, she had a little son. They would both be in danger! Weirna shifters avoided and banned human romantic relationships, and even if they didn’t, he did! He had been burned enough when Marjorie, the girl he had thought was the love of his life, had seen him in his shifter form and had looked down her pretty nose at him. She had taken to calling him a dog, poking mean fun at him that made his self-esteem begin to dissipate. When it rained, she thought he smelled like a wet dog; and when it snowed, she asked if he had sleds. In front of their friends, she blackmailed him into doing whatever she wanted; otherwise, she would ‘spill the beans,’ and one time, she had tossed his takeaway pack at his feet — in public —and told him to, “Get it, Bingo.”
It had been a joke to her, but he hadn’t been amused. That had been the end of their relationship.
He still remembered that night like it was yesterday. He had screamed at her so loud and then he’d gotten violent when a guy from school, Jeremy Shillings, tried to intervene by pulling a gun on him. Derek had forgotten his own strength and in a fit of rage, he had slapped Tom and sent the scrawny kid sprawling.
Jeremy had stayed down, and when Marjorie had rushed to check his pulse, she had looked up at Derek, eyes filled with more hate and repulsion than a human gaze could possibly hold as she wept, “You killed him! You killed him! He was my brother and you killed him! You mad dog! I’ll get you for this! If it’s the last thing I do, Derek Cavanaugh, I’ll get you!”
He’d gotten off with a mere slap on the wrist because he had been a kid at just fifteen and he had merely slapped a guy who had pulled a gun on him. But Marjorie had been inconsolable and filled with hate. She had spread her venom everywhere he went and soon, he was the town pariah.
He remembered the day he’d gathered up his things and told Joshua he couldn’t stay anymore. Joshua had looked at Derek with wise old eyes and said, “Your heart is hurt, my boy. But someday, you’ll find peace again and then you’ll be back. Remember, the humans know this town as The Angle, but to us, it’s Weirna, the greatest home for our kind. Stay in touch and speak with your brothers always. You’re their leader, always have been.”
The brothers Joshua had spoken about were Derek’s five friends with whom he made up the Damaged Pack. All six of them, Derek, Bo, Jack, Luke, Joseph, and Drake, had become brothers in every sense of the word. Then, Joseph had been killed by one of the Archstone Tribe in a senseless manner, and their feud had worsened.
Derek recalled now that his heart had already been shattered by Marjorie, but it had shattered anew when he thought of leaving Weirna and the Pack.
His hands fisted now as he remembered the day he had walked out with his knapsack and four of his friends had met him at the cross-roads out of town with their own bags.
He had looked at them in surprise, but it was Jack, the shifter-lion, whom had spoken. “We will always be connected, Derek. But if Weirna isn’t home to you anymore, then it isn’t home to us either.”
Derek shook his head. He couldn’t bear the thought of forcing his friends to leave with him.
“I’m a wolf like you, Derek, and I understand that when you’ve been hurt as badly as you have, you want to be a lone wolf. We’re all going to see the world and we’ll all return only when you’re ready.”
Derek hadn’t cried in all the w
eeks when the woman he loved had teased him mercilessly and treated him like an animal; he hadn’t cried when his own mother had called him an abomination and poured salt on him to ward off the ‘evil’ she said he had become; he hadn’t cried when he had mistakenly killed Jeremy Shillings. But in that moment of unquestioning friendship and loyalty, he had broken down like a baby and cried, and they had all cried with him.
When they were done, they had all scattered at the crossroads, and headed off in separate directions each.
He had headed to Africa and become one with the locals. He had put the past behind him, but it still haunted him sometimes. He had convinced himself he couldn’t have love again; someone like him didn’t deserve it. And now, Kelly had come along, with her beautiful sad eyes and probing questions, and he didn’t know what to think.
In a flash, it had been as though it were Marjorie asking to know his secret all over again. And though he had been itching to tell Kelly the truth, he had been scared of seeing the same disdain in her eyes that he had seen in Marjorie’s.
But Kelly was completely different from Marjorie. Kelly didn’t have that hard, brittle personality; she was warm and loving and maternal. Kelly was understanding too. And heck, she was one hell of a courageous woman, he thought, gentle pride filling him as he recalled how she had prepared to confront that Archstone werebear with nothing more than tiny stones as though it were a stray cat.
She was also foolish, he decided, straightening from his leaning position on a pillar in his cabin. What if he had been a second too late? She and her puny stones would have been mauled beyond recognition! He had seen the mad glint in the werebear’s eyes that told him that he had been about to kill her. He’d also realized the bear had come for him but had been willing to kill Kelly first, which meant he knew they had been together. He recalled the niggling sensation of being watched when they had been making love, but he had been too distracted by the delectable, feminine vixen in his arms to pay attention.
Why were the Archstone werebears tracking him, and why had Bo hinted that something was wrong with Joshua? Were the Archstones trying to take over Weirna? It was unthinkable because the Archstones were a different brand of shifters. They killed humans who got in their way and thought nothing of it; unlike the Weirna shifters who never hurt humans unless it absolutely couldn’t be helped.
It was time to go home; it was time to reunite the Damaged Pack. But before he did that, he had to tell Kelly the truth; he owed her that much at least because he would never see her again, he thought.
He strode out of his cabin, his mind made up. As he walked, he rehearsed what he was going to say and he mentally braced himself for the revulsion that would cross her beautiful face and the fear that would creep into her eyes as she ordered him to stay away from her and her son. He could just picture her clutching Tom close to her and staring at him like some freak of nature.
Derek didn’t want to examine, too closely, why it felt as though his heart had turned to lead in his chest at the thought of Kelly’s reaction.
He knocked at the door of her cabin but there was no response. With a frown, he knocked all the harder.
The door crashed open under the impact of his fist, and he sighed. Sometimes, he still forgot his own strength. He took a step over the threshold and paused. The cabin was empty!
“Kelly!” he bellowed, feeling his wolf rise inside of him at the thought of never seeing her again.
“They’re gone, sir,” Murphy said behind him.
Derek spun around on his heel, his eyes alive with anger as he glared at the hapless man. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Kelly left very early this morning with her friend and her son.”
“But their vacation is booked until the end of the week,” he reminded Murphy.
“They said they’d had enough.”
Derek’s jaw clenched in anger. How would he find her now? It was almost noon. If she left early in the morning, she could already be half-way across the world by now!
She hadn’t wanted anything to do with him after all, which was why she had snuck off like a thief in the night, he thought uncharitably.
He stalked away from the cabin, leaving the door standing open.
His mind was in a whirl. How could she leave him so easily, he wondered? His heart wrenched in his chest at the thought that, yet again, he had fallen for another woman who didn’t even think he made a blip on her radar. He had fallen for Kelly, he admitted to himself.
And now, he had lost her!
Emptiness and a continued bleak existence yawned in front of him. Suddenly, his resort, in which he had so much pride, began to irritate him. Everywhere he looked, he saw Kelly. He remembered her voice and her laugh and her sad smile, and he could have sworn he felt his heart twist and break in his very chest.
He loved her, he realized. He had been a fool! He had fallen in love with her and because he had been too afraid to trust his love for her, he had withheld his secret from her. And now, she was gone!
He felt drained, empty, exhausted. She had taken his heart, his very essence, and walked away.
No, you pushed her away, his subconscious corrected without question.
Fine! He did. But what other choice had he had?
With a sigh, he dug out his phone from his pocket and dialed Bo’s number as he walked.
The moment the other man picked up, Derek said the words he’d thought he would never say again, “Bo? I’m coming home!”
11.
Weirna was exactly as he remembered it, Derek thought, inhaling a lung full of the fresh, unspoiled country air that marked his home town. Weirna was home to over 8,000 people but more than half of that number were shifters. The place was like a lightning rod for shifters.
There was something about the pagan, virgin, raw atmosphere of the town and even though the signboard leading to town and the humans there called it The Angle. It was always Weirna to all the shifters. It reminded him of Kenya but it was different.
Thinking of Kenya made his heart constrict in his chest because Kenya reminded him of Kelly. He would never see her again; well, unless he could trace her details through payments made to the resort. He had been happily contemplating that option when Murphy had burst his bubble with the information that her friend Therese had made all the payments and she had paid cash.
That struck him as odd. Perhaps the women had been running from something. That would explain the sad, haunted look he sometimes saw in Kelly’s eyes. But what could she possibly have been running from? Maybe Tom’s father?
He gunned the engine, trying to escape thoughts of Kelly. He didn’t notice the temperature gauge on his dashboard shooting up.
Kelly was everywhere he looked, laughing up at him, her hair ruffling in the wind, her eyes shooting angry fire at him, her breathless voice urging him on as he plunged deep into her pussy again and again.
His wolf strained, wanting to be free. Thoughts of making love to Kelly always did that to him. The last time she had been in his arms it had been all he could do not to imprint on her.
He tautened his jaw as he stepped harder on the accelerator, fighting for control. His foot jerked from the pedal as the car started to smoke.
With a muttered curse, Derek pulled to the shoulder of the road. He climbed out of the low-slung car and lifted the hood. The radiator hose had burst and the radiator was overheating. He needed to get going.
He leaned over the engine and blew on it; he had a very powerful breath. Then, he grabbed a bottle of water from the bottle holder and experimentally poured some in. Smoke rose to meet him, and he groaned. He was going to need a mechanic. Great, just great.In disgust, he flung the bottle of water and grabbed his knapsack. He would just have to hitchhike into town. It was about a couple of miles, but he could do it, he thought.
Great, just him and the long empty road, which meant he had plenty of time to fantasize about Kelly as he walked.
The Angle was growing on her, Kelly decided wit
h a small smile as she pruned the hedges in front of her small flower shop. She’d run all the way from New York to the little town of The Angle, somewhere in Chicago, just to get away from Jason and his horrible visits. For some reason though, she couldn’t shake the horrible feeling — the frightening certainty — of being watched.
When she’d come back from Africa, she had headed straight to her new home in The Angle, but Therese had taken Tom home with her to Texas at Kelly’s request.
She missed the little terror a lot but since school was out anyway, she thought it might be better to let him stay with Therese. He would be very safe there and she wouldn’t have to worry about him being hurt by whoever was spying on her.
There was no question that she was being watched. Sometimes, she caught a flash of movement; sometimes, she heard a sound; but every time she went to investigate, she saw no one.
The Angle was an odd little town, sequestered away from other towns, but it had an ambience that was difficult to explain. Sometimes, she felt there was an air of mystery that hung about the town and she had noted some of its inhabitants seemed… odd. Harmless, but odd.
Plus, something about the town reminded her of Derek…
The thought of him sent a fresh stab of hurt into her heart and she rose to a standing position, abandoning the flowers she had been pruning. It had been one whole week since she had returned from Africa and sent Tom safely to Texas before coming here, but in all that time, she had been unable to stop thinking about Derek.
The man had gotten under her skin in a way even Jason hadn’t been able to in all the years they were married. She remembered his voice; she thought she saw him every time an unusually tall man walked by; she listened for his laughter when she saw a group of men gathered together. She was losing her mind! Fleeing the resort and Africa after he’d refused to tell her the truth hadn’t helped because her thoughts had remained trained on him, to her annoyance.
