Page 43 of Wolf's Forbidden Curse

“Don’t.” I put a hand on his leg as he started to get up from the couch. “I’ve got something better.” I stood and went to the kitchen, snagged a couple of the little sampler whiskey bottles that Al had received as a gift in his last alcohol shipment from a local distillery. He let me take them home one night after my shift, but I had never been the type who drinks alone, so they had been sitting in the kitchen drawer ever since.

“Here.” I tossed one to Rory. He raised a brow as he caught it. “Don’t worry about driving home.”

He smiled and twisted the little plastic cap off. “Alright then.” He threw the whole thing back in one swig, and I did the same with mine. I brought two more little bottles back to the couch with me and got settled again.

Without much food in my stomach, save a few bites of cheese and a handful of crackers, the alcohol was catching up to me fast. I didn’t care, though. I was relishing in the feeling of letting go—of finally opening up about my life to another human being after years of having to hide various aspects of myself or pretend to be someone I wasn’t.

I tried to come up with other stories I could share, tales that I could safely tell Rory without dropping the bomb on him that I wasn’t exactly who he thought I was.

Or maybe I could tell him… Would that really be so bad?

However, a memory came back to me of something my older sister had said to me before I left Guatemala. I still had no idea how she knew I was leaving. I hadn’t told anyone of my plans to ditch town. But somehow, she knew, and she wouldn’t let me go without at least saying goodbye.

She found me sitting outside the corner market one day, sipping a soda and flipping through a tabloid magazine that the market owner had sold to me for next to nothing. I was acting normal, so nobody figured out that I had plans to leave in three days. Those stupid magazines were one of the few ways I still felt connected to my life back in the United States. Even though I didn’t know any of the celebrities that were being gossiped about, whose pictures were printed on those glossy pages, the magazines still somehow reminded me of home.

Dorothy sat beside me on the bench, and I handed her the soda without saying anything. She took a sip and gave it back.

“When you go back home,” she said. “You’re not going to give us away, are you?”

The question came out of nowhere, and it took me a second to even register what she was talking about. I closed the magazine slowly and looked back at her. “Give you guys away? What do you mean?”

“Just promise me you won’t rat us out,” she said. “I understand the urge to tell everyone the truth—trust me, I do. But… I won’t speak for Mom and Dad, but I’ve found a life for myself out here. I don’t want to go back. I’m happy.”

I pursed my lips and said nothing for a while. I hadn’t yet decided what I was going to do about my family once I returned home to the States. I’d been so focused on getting back on my own that there hadn’t been much time to think about what would happen after. In order to protect my sister and parents, however, I would have to keep my identity a secret.

Which would complicate things even further.

If my parents asked me to do this, I would’ve said no. They didn’t deserve my loyalty. But Dorothy—she did. She deserved that and so much more.

I drew my shoulders back and met her gaze head-on. “Your secret will be safe with me,” I said. “I swear.”

Thinking back on that moment now, remembering the feeling of my sister taking my hand and squeezing it hard—her way of saying goodbye without actually saying it—I suddenly realized that I couldn’t betray her like that.

“Are you okay?” Rory asked, perhaps picking up on my sudden stiffness.

“I’m…”

I couldn’t tell him who I was.

But there was another secret burning me up inside—one that I had been dying to talk to someone—anyone—about. Rory had made it very clear tonight that he wanted to get to know me. He had treated me with a level of respect and given me the kind of attention I didn’t even realize I’d been craving my whole life until I got a taste for it.

If there was anyone in my life right now that I could trust with this secret—it was him, right? Nobody else had worked this hard to see past my armored exterior. To get to the real me.

So yeah, I couldn't tell him who I was, but maybe I could tell him what I was.

Or rather, what I had recently become.

Worst case scenario, he thought I was crazy and ran for the hills. It would hurt, sure, but I’d get through it. I’d been through worse.

“I’m actually not okay,” I said, finally getting around to answering Rory’s question after a few seconds of tense silence. “There’s something that I’ve been going through lately that I don’t really know how to talk about. I’m not even sure I should talk about it. If I don’t explain myself well enough, you might call 911 or something. Try to have me institutionalized.”

He shifted on the couch slightly and put his mini bottle of whiskey down on the coffee table. “You have my attention,” he said with a chuckle.

“I thought I might…”

Instead of putting my second bottle next to his, I opened it and swallowed its contents without a second thought. Liquid courage. I winced as the warm alcohol crawled down the back of my throat but thankfully managed to hold everything down. I gripped my fingers tightly around the empty plastic container and sat up a little straighter.

“Something happened to me while I was in Central America,” I began. “Something… magical. At least, that’s one word to describe it.” I groaned. “If only that guy from the psychic shop was here. He would know how to get through this better than me.”

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