Page 25 of The Way We Were(wolf)

“You know that isn’t true.”

“Ha!” Eric ran his hands through his hair, surprised he didn’t pull fistfuls out with the rough motion. “All I know is you’ve controlled every aspect of my life since the day I met you, and I’m done.”

“Done?”

“Yes. Done. I’m staying here in Wheeling. You’ll have to find some other impressionable soul whose life you can commandeer, because I’m out.”

“Don’t do this,” Nathan shouted, almost as though he was pleading with Eric. And for the first time since they’d begun this conversation, the mask of intimidation slipped the slightest bit, revealing the tiniest ounce of hurt. “All I’ve ever wanted for you was the best.”

Eric shook his head, thinking of what Lucy had said about her controlling parents. What good came of clipping someone’s wings like that? “Is that why you watched my every move, dictated my every decision, monitored every book I ever picked up? Don’t act like you care all of a sudden.”

“I was protecting you! I’m not—” His eyes rose to the sky, now blanketed in thick clouds that added to the suffocating tension in the air. “I haven’t always been like this, Eric. I used to be different. A lot like you, actually.”

“Hopping from town to town, from woman to woman? That’s nothing like me.” He raised a brow in challenge. “That’s right. I’ve heard the stories.”

“Stories are just that, though. Stories. They don’t paint the entire picture when you’re only focusing on a small part.” A patter of rain hit the branches overhead as he paused, a couple more plonking Eric on the head. “The truth is, I was that guy, that womanizer you heard about. But you remember Carrie, right?”

Of course he remembered Carrie. She was a part of Nathan’s life several years ago. The reason, Eric suspected, they spent a significant amount of time in that small town just outside of Boston…until he told her he was a werewolf, and she—along with the rest of town—chased them out. “Is that what you’re afraid of? That Lucy will find out the truth and get rid of us?”

“If only it were that simple.”

Sheets of lightning illuminated the darkness, a sure sign they were running out of time before the bulk of the storm settled in. “Look, I can’t speak for Carrie, but I know Lucy. She’s the most accepting person I’ve ever met.”

“And yet you haven’t told her the truth.” Nathan took a step forward, the crunch of snapping twigs filling the air, an air of cockiness returning to his grin. “Why do you think that is?”

“I…” He swallowed once, twice, the answer he knew in his soul to be true but had never said aloud bouncing around his head. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do. It was the same fear I had with Carrie.” He scrubbed a hand down his face as he kicked a pinecone at his feet. His hardened look softened like a candle left in the sun, the slow slackening of his face a stark contrast to what had once been a look that made Eric uneasy. “I never wanted things to end like that with us.”

That was not what Eric had expected to hear from the love-‘em-and-leave-‘em guy he’d come to know. “I don’t think this is quite the same situation. I came out here tonight to ask if we could stay here a little longer. Maybe consider making this a more permanent home for us.”

He watched the rise and fall of Nathan’s shoulders as he inhaled loud, deep breaths in through his nose and out of his mouth. “No human will ever love a monster.”

This again. As if he hadn’t heard enough of it from Nathan his whole life. “I don’t care.”

Nathan recoiled, staggered back like he’d been zapped by the streak of lightning that split the sky. “You don’t?”

“No. That’s why I’m staying.”

“You can’t.”

“No,” Eric said with a steadiness in his voice he had to fight to maintain. “What I can’t do is help it. What I can’t do is stop feeling like I belong with this woman. Belong in this town. Which is why I’m staying. With or without you.”

Nathan’s quick, high-pitched laughter pierced the air as his head tipped back, and his shoulders shook. “You just have all the answers, don’t you? Like, just because you haven’t shifted in a while, you think you have everything under control. That you’re not the monster we both know you are. But we both know that, in two days, the jig is up. In forty-eight hours, you won’t have a choice. None of us do. You’ll turn into the monster she doesn’t know you are, and they’ll run you out of town. And maybe you’ll be able to shift far away from town and then come back like nothing happened, but how long do you think it will take before people start noticing? Because they will, Eric.”

“Not if I love her.”

Nathan froze, his eyes bulging from his head and his mouth hanging wide. “What…what did you say?”

Reestablishing his position, widening his stance with his head held high, Eric swallowed deeply before he replied. “I said I’m in love with Lucy. And that’s how I know I can stay here.” He took a step closer, feeling for the first time in the history of their relationship that the ball was in his court. “Because I know all about the love spell. Despite your monitoring of everything I do, everywhere I go…the one thing you never paid any attention to was what I read. And I read all about it.”

“I don’t know what you think you know, but I assure you there’s no such thing.”

“Funny, since I read quite a few books that dispute your claim. Quite a few stories proving that love can cure a werewolf. So, the only question is why were you discouraging me from making any kind of human relationship if you knew that finding love would cure me from being the monster you swear that I am?”

“Because you’re a fool.” Nathan chuckled menacingly as he stalked closer, his gait slow and measured, like he was assessing his prey, calculating each exposed weakness, before he pounced. And then, with his words, he did. “The love cure isn’t real.”

“That’s exactly what you’d want me to believe. But I’m done being controlled by you, by the full moon, by anything.” He turned around, taking a few steps in the direction of the town before he turned around to issue his parting words. “And there’s nothing you can say to make me change my mind.”

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