by Ruby Raine
Lizzy approached him cautiously.
“Do you remember what your father told you?” she asked him, continuing without waiting for him to answer. “Things will catch you off guard. The key is how you react and handle these unpleasant surprises.”
“Our entire lives are one big surprise after another. I think he meant special circumstances. Rare times. It’s not supposed to be like this every single day. I can’t constantly be reacting. And handling. I need to... I need to...” he threw his hands up in the air.
“There will be a calm again, Charlie. You’re in a time of upheaval. They happen. But it doesn’t mean your father’s words mean any less. If anything, they’re exactly what you need to hear right now.”
Jack Howard had said those words to him after they’d watched Eva’s sadistic video of William and Melinda, and he’d flown off the handle and threatened to rush in and kill them all right that minute.
Lizzy’s words drew a soothing tranquility over him. Leveled him. The reminder of that moment making the ache of what he might have to do, reduce to a manageable thought. He was so bottled up, from trying to keep everything together. Keep his family from falling to pieces. Keep the island safe. So quickly, and easily, becoming far too reliant on the strong-willed woman standing in front of him wearing a look of adoration, and sympathy.
“You know, Charlie, in the future,” she spoke with a soft tease of lightheartedness, “there are other more gratifying ways to vent that frustration than tossing furniture across a room.”
He let out a flood of breath edged with an exhausted sneer, peering at the mess he’d made. “This probably isn’t the response my dad meant,” Charlie reproached himself flatly.
“No. But I have a suspicious intuition that even minus the crazy pent up werewolf, he probably would have had the same instinct. Doing the right thing does not mean you have to enjoy it. Or even agree with it in your heart. You love William. And the truth sucks beyond measure. But I think even incriminating as the evidence is, we need to remember there’s still no absolute proof he killed these tourists. I know it feels inevitable. But let’s not damn him yet.” Lizzy refused to give up.
Charlie didn’t want to either, but it did ring out as postponing the inevitable.
“Don’t think about the outcome yet,” she challenged his already reeling downward mind. “Focus on finding the truth. And I hate to ask it, but if William were here, what would he tell you to do? Would he be able to live with himself if he hurt someone? Or killed someone? Or turned someone?”
Charlie closed his eyes. The truth of that answer burning the tip of his tongue.
“William would order me to stake him on sight,” he pushed out. “In his right mind, he’d be devastated. He wouldn’t want to live.”
“Then don’t think of it as killing him, Charlie. Think of it as saving him. Saving your friend from a fate he cannot live with.”
“If it is William, I will do the right thing because I have to. But even if he begged me to end him, carrying out that sentence will haunt me for the rest of my life.” Charlie already considered it his personal duty to carry out this task if it proved necessary. He would not allow his siblings, Mack, or anyone else shoulder the burden.
Lizzy stared back at him with such tenderness, he thought his heart might explode from the overload of love fighting for space inside the loathing over this impending task. It was a strange sensation to be so full and empty all at the same time. It made his heart strum, his ability to be so easily open with Lizzy, and get only honesty in return.
So why was he struggling with it? And fighting it? Making it harder than it needed to be?
When they were not in a moment of chaos, his brain refused to cooperate and he clammed up and turned into a bumbling idiot. His mind overthinking. Over-processing. Doing and saying the wrong things.
Lizzy was sympathetic. Patient at the right times. Pushy when she needed to be. Adoring. Stirring. Beautiful. Held nothing back. Could be downright infuriating at times. Usually because he’d been an ass. But not always, she had a temper. And yet it didn’t anger him, instead bringing a smile to his lips. Ghostly reflex had his body close the space between them.
She cast her gaze down, an unusual timid blush in her cheeks. Lizzy nodded toward the hallway outside the study, deciding they needed a change of topic.
“Why do you keep staring at your parent’s bedroom door? Why can’t you go inside?”
He took his eyes off her and aimed them in the direction of the door.
“If I open that door, I’m accepting they are really gone. And I think it’s a possibility my father may have left something in there for me. I may be wrong. It’s just a feeling.”
“Are you afraid he did leave you something?”
“Yes. But I’m also afraid he did not. I’m just not ready to open the door yet.”
“I stand by my earlier statement, Charlie. Tonight would be a bad night to do that.”
Their eyes linked again.
Where earlier there had been so much rage and sadness, she only saw thirst.
Charlie longed to put his arm around Lizzy and pull her into him. Taste those pouty lips that called out to him to steal me, and make me your own. But acting on that urge also held a desperation behind it. A need to fill the void this William mess was carving out inside him.
“I want to kiss you so badly it’s killing me,” he admitted breathlessly. At the same time he spoke, he took a step back.
“But you can’t. Not tonight.”
“I’m starting to wonder what I ever did without you.”
“Me too,” she returned in smug softness. Lizzy had a way of understanding him, and leveling him, that no one else had ever been able to do before.
“I’m going to bring Courtney some blood, and clean clothes. And then I’m going home.” She went to leave him. “Good night, Charlie.”
“Night, Lizzy.”
He turned, determined to clean up the mess he’d made. To see if there was any chance of fixing William’s desk. It didn’t look promising. What a stupid mistake. A shameful act to destroy something so old and beautiful in a moment of defeat and anger.
“Oh, and Charlie...” Lizzy’s voice trailed back to him from the study doorway. He could tell by her tone she was over the sympathetic portion of the evening. “Don’t even think about using all of this as an excuse to cancel our lunch date tomorrow.” She eyed him sternly. Agreeing to cancel dinner plans, and make it lunch. But no way in hell was he getting out of their date altogether.
“Right. Lunch. Romance. I’m all over it,” he vowed tiredly.
He watched her walk away, wondering why he didn’t go find someone to marry them right that very minute. Sure, they barely knew each other in the scheme of things, and hadn’t even gone on a date yet. But Lizzy was it for him. He was so certain he’d agree to marry her on the spot. And date after...
How crazy was he? To want to marry a woman who was practically a stranger, but who leveled both him and his wolf, while scaring the ever living hell out of him at the same time; yet he was so positive of their outcome he’d say yes in a heartbeat. Like life had handed him this one sure thing, and he wanted to happily accept and get on with their lives already.
But it didn’t work like that.
His heart rolled around in his chest, drumming hard. He still had many unanswered questions. Too many to take any chances, or potentially endanger her life, or safety, because he had no idea how his wolf would react the closer or more intimate he got with her. Or how they’d be able to have a family. Safely. Even if he caved right this minute and bit her, how would it all work?
Would she be a wolf out of control with the rising of each full moon?
Did it automatically make carrying his young safe for her?
Would their children be wolves too?
And how the hell would that work, to have little werewolves running amuck on the Isle? And a wife he might have to subdue, or lock up, if she could not control the change.
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So many deadly and dangerous possibilities.
He wanted Lizzy and he wanted to make her happy. Give her everything she wanted. The very idea of forcing her submission made him ill from the inside out. Willing submission was one thing...
It brought back scenes that had seeped back into memory. The way he’d treated Eva Jordan on their unconscious nighttime trysts. She was already a wolf though. And submitted, her wolf did anyway. Not so much her human half. He might despise the evil bitch for all she’d done, but the very idea that he forced her in any way made him violently nauseated.
Eva was a completely different scenario, he reminded himself. Their wolves, not their human halves, had done the deed. Which wasn’t entirely true either. Their human sides had wanted it at some level as well. This didn’t help his confidence level any. If his wolf was capable of taking over while his human half was unaware...
Okay, enough with this line of thinking he warned himself.
Again, Lizzy would be different.
The Eva thing was a one-time deal because of circumstances that would not happen again. Could not be created again. She was his only creator, therefore his only potential alpha. Their wolves attracted and connected subconsciously.
And Eva was dust.
The Guardian ring hadn’t stopped him and Eva because at a base level, it was consensual. He grasped onto that, forcing the memories deep. There was enough to worry about right now without rehashing the past.
He needed to take things slow with Lizzy. There was plenty of time. No need to hurry. And it started tomorrow; with Lizzy, lunch, and romance.
Charlie glanced warily around the study, wondering if any of these books had any tips on romancing a woman. He was doomed. In so many ways.
MICHAEL EXPLAINED TO Emily what happened with Courtney and William. They were wide-awake and stunned. Heartbroken for both this stranger locked in the basement, and William.
“It’s beginning to feel like it’s never going to get better.” Michael slumped back against the headboard.
Emily stared blankly, like she often did now. Sucking in her emotions. Burying them deep. Hiding them from him. Her stare narrowed, an uneasy breath pushing through her lips. Michael waited, thinking she was going to say something. Hoping like hell she was about to say something.
But as she opened her mouth only a gasp came out. A tremendous crash downstairs... Michael jumped out of bed to check it out.
Melinda was at her door, her eyes swollen from crying. He motioned for her to wait. She did. He flew down the stairs and stopped when Lizzy motioned from the hallway leading to William’s study. It was Charlie. He wasn’t handling the news well. Not that any of them were. But he’d let Lizzy handle his brother tonight. He crept back up the stairs and stopped in front of Melinda’s door.
“Charlie?” she guessed with a sniffle.
He nodded. “Are you okay?” She was nowhere near okay and he kicked himself for asking such a dumbass question.
“I don’t know how to feel about anything anymore, Michael. I kind of want to stop feeling.”
He grasped her shoulder in a sympathetic gesture.
“I’m going to bed.” She closed the door before losing it again.
Michael slipped back into his room only to see Emily with her back turned, pretending to sleep. The moment of potential sharing, lost. Disappointed and too tired to push he climbed into bed, wondering what she’d wanted to tell him.
What a mess their lives had become.
MELINDA DOWNED A GLASS of wine, shakily, and wiped her eyes.
William had not come to her in a dream. He had not spoken to her, for real. It had all been part of her crazy brain trying to process everything that had happened, and she’d made him come to her rescue like he always did in real life.
He had not left the Isle.
And yet even as her brain thought these things it argued against it. Not believing for a moment that even at his wildest, William was capable of such things. He had warned her though, never to think of him as a man. But a monster.
Even her chaotic nightmare reminded her of his dangerous capabilities, when he’d sucked her dry. Perhaps that nightmare had been at least partially prophetic after all. William’s reminder, topped with him draining her dry, a metaphor to reality. Or a harbinger of the terrible truth to come.
She refused to accept it might be him killing these tourists. However, it was impossible to ignore the evidence piling up against him. And to her dismay, part of her wished she’d been the one he’d turned. Why this stranger? This reporter who happened to get in the way, at the worst possible time. Rather than someone who actually loved him.
Would it be so bad to live as William did?
She didn’t think so, as long as it was with the vampire she loved.
But to outlive her brothers, her friends... Melinda understood why William would never consider it. He didn’t even want to date humans. Now, by pure mistake, he turned someone. Taken away a human life. Stolen the reporter’s choices away from her.
If William was aware of what he’d done, he’d never forgive himself. Might even take his own life as punishment.
He can’t knowingly have done it.
No, there’s no way that would happen.
Unless he’s only against turning Howards because of who we are, and our duties to be baby making machines and pop out new witches...
Don’t be such an idiot!
These arguments with herself were getting tiresome.
She was moping around over a choice she wasn’t even ready to make. Bitter she was still human while a woman locked in her basement had that choice stolen from her.
Melinda let the empty wine glass fall to the floor and plunked down to her back, staring up at the ceiling. Willing herself to sleep. And dream. Of anything helpful. Of anything to prove William’s guilt or innocence, or some way to save him.
Her mind wandered. And calmed. But sleep did not come.
If only William was a man, a regular, breathing human being.
She’d dreamed of him that way. With a living, human heart.
That was not a possibility, and soon, he might not have a heart living or dead, if it really was him responsible for these deaths.
This day. This week. This month. Hell, these last four years, had left her hollow, and helpless. She wanted the opposite, strength and confidence. But no matter what she tried, or what happened, the powerless side kept dragging her back in. Leaving her vulnerable and in need of someone else’s help.
Her entire insides quaked with the need for comfort. And shockingly, not William’s, but Riley’s. He had a way of sensing her every need, and filling them. The manner in which he wrapped her up in his arms and spoke to her. Always guessed what she needed, and when. Like he could read her every unspoken word with a single glance at her body movements. She sat up, put her feet over the side of the bed and planted them on the floor.
Enough.
Enough.
Don’t do this anymore.
She got up and ran into her bathroom, staring at the tear-streaked, shaken version of herself haunting the mirror.
“You don’t need anyone to fix this for you. Or fix you. You can do this on your own.” She attempted determination and perhaps if she said it enough, she’d start to believe it.
“You don’t need Riley. Or William. Or any man to tell you how to feel. Or what to do.”
No, she didn’t need any man to do this.
But she did need a woman.
One, in particular.
And she needed to do this right now. She would never take charge of her life if she didn’t make the choice to do it, and stick to it. And there was only one woman she knew who could put her brothers in their place and let her learn, freely. Without them holding her back because they were afraid for her safety. Or hurting her feelings.
She threw on a pair of shorts, a sweatshirt, and flip-flops, and snuck down the stairs and out the front door. Something her brothers would have a
fit over if they caught her, considering the vampire on the loose, and she being perfect vampire bait.
She still refused to believe it was William.
And if it was, he would never hurt her, no matter what else he might have done. She held to this belief entering downtown where the streets were quiet except for a few late night tourists closing down pubs and staggering to their hotels.
And if it’s not William, did you even think about that before screaming out of the house in the middle of the damn night?
Melinda came to an instant stop.
Something crashed down the dark alley she was passing by.
Oh why do I ever leave the house?
Did she run?
Dummy! Can’t outrun a vampire.
But if it’s William...
And if it’s not?
How stupid can you be?
Didn’t even bring a stake!
You couldn’t have this epiphany of needing to find your power in the middle of the freakin’ day? Your brothers will lock you up in the basement if you’re not careful.
“If this vampire doesn’t kill me first,” she squeaked.
Somehow, she had rushed right out and gotten herself neck deep into another pile of trouble. Melinda was determined not to lose it. She raised her palm, aiming to attack anything that flew out of the dark alley. She’d never get a spell off fast enough if it was a vampire.
Footsteps shuffled across the ground.
Faster and faster.
A bit noisy for a vampire.
She gasped and fell backwards.
Strong hands reached out to grab her.
“Oh, Melinda. I’m sorry!”
She got upright and put her hand to her chest, pleading with her heart to beat normally.
“Lucas Deane. You scared the crap out of me!”
“I’m sorry. I...” he glimpsed back into the alley.
She noticed his actions, and recalled this was the same alley she’d nearly been run over by him, previously. And he was acting just as strange. He led them away from the alley, underneath the hazy light of a lantern hanging overhead on the sidewalk.
