Page 105 of Wolf's Chance

“Breathe, Willow,” Doc spoke quietly, pressing the pen into my hands once more. “Focus.”

I didn’t hear him. I remembered the night in the truck with Caleb. The night I had a panic attack, and he breathed with me, calming me down. I saw his dark chocolate eyes, kind but full of secrets. I remembered how close we had been, breathing each other’s air. I remembered how it felt when he kissed me in the B&B. How I’d felt safe when he carried me up the mountain.

Steadying me.

I needed to calm down. This was for Caleb.

Focus.

I began to draw.

Epilogue

The wind sweptpast me as I ran, my paws putting the distance between me and the ones behind me. I felt like I couldn’t run fast enough, far enough, to escape from them.

Running. It’s what I was best at. I started running ten years ago, and I’d never intended to stop. Keep Moving was my motto.Whyhad I stopped? Forher?

When I kept moving, I could keep it all at bay. Keep the shadows in the dark. The mistakes could be forgotten if you didn’t stop and dwell.

But I had felt a pull. An urge. A compulsion to go to a small tourist town at the foot of a mountain and look for answers to questions I’d never asked.

And I’d foundher.Willow Harper.

She was different from other humans I’d met. Living amongst them for ten years had made me more familiar with them than my kind usually was. But she was unusual. She should never have caught my attention. She was completely unremarkable.

Slight. Frail. Fragile.

ButIwas the one who was breakable when I was near her. She found holes in my carefully built walls. She made me remember. She made me feel things that I thought I’d buried deep enough that no one would ever find them.

Not even me.

I’d spent ten years by myself. I’d perfected the art of being alone, shutting out everyone, not letting anyoneinand not letting myselfout. But with Willow…those walls had lowered.

And itterrifiedme.

And now? After today, how could I look at her again? I’d scented her fear. It was thick and cloying, suffocating me as she looked at me with wide-eyed terror when my claws had come out.

I was the monster she feared.

The others were just as bad. Forcing me to be there, to listen to that bullshit. Luna didn’t give a fuck about me. She hadn’t ten years ago, and she sure as shit didn’t now.

Cannon, once someone I may have called friend, had given me one last chance, and he had told me to go, and I hadrun.

As I flew across the mountain, I angled north, knowing where I was going and accepting my destination. This was my path. It hadalwaysbeen my path, and I was taking it without looking back.

I’d had a moment of weakness. Hope? What the hell did I know abouthope? A falsehood. A dream. Nothing more than an illusion of weakness. I didn’t deserve the chance to be anything other than the fragment of my broken past that I was.

The mountain blurred around me as I raced down it. Thenight air was cool, the emptiness welcoming. The void inside me opened wider, embracing me.

It was better this way. For both of us. She didn’t ask for any of this, and she didn’t deserve to be saddled with me. I was nothing.

Worthless.

All I did was bring pain, and she’d had enough pain in her life.

The shaman had said she smelled of fresh air. She did. She smelled of clean air after a light summer rain. Willow waspure. Untarnished. She didn’t deserve to be dragged into my darkness.

We were linked, and part of me knew that leaving her was unfair, but it was the only way I knew to protect her. I may never be able to escape her, and maybe they were right, maybe she was part of me now, and I her, but I could damn well try.

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