Page 78 of Wind with a Chance of Wolfsbane

“Conversing with a butterfly by the side of the road,” said Jonathan. “Wait, she’s now talking to ants, I think. Yes, ants.”

Bram chuckled faintly. “She has been known to do that. She claims they are very talkative.”

Jonathan grinned. “She’s crackers but safe. I mean, I personally wouldn’t sleep soundly next to a woman who can wield magik, but whatever makes you happy. Learned my lesson years ago.”

Bram laughed. “Are you remembering the flea incident again?”

Jonathan scratched behind his ear at the mention of fleas and was happy Bram wasn’t there to see it. “You get that I wouldn’t knowingly put her in harm’s way, right?”

“When you’re mated, you’ll fully understand the nonstop worry. The constant fear that something will happen to them,” Bram said, unaware of what had happened to Jonathan in Grimm Cove eighteen years prior.

For several years after the incident in the cave, Jonathan believed his mind had snapped. That he’d had a moment where he’d officially shattered, and he’d hallucinated everything that had happened that night.

Even now, part of him believed he might have imagined large portions of the night. Like the smell of Dracula, the Weird Sisters, and Lucian, along with the mysterious white light. But one thing had become clear to him as the years passed. He’d met his mate, and he’d claimed her. He knew it in his bones. Not to mention, his body had totally and completely shut off sexually. Where he’d once been the type of man to sleep around whenever he liked, he hadn’t touched a woman since the night of the cave.

It had been Dwayne who had brought up the fact that Jonathan no longer bedhopped. The topic had come up in casual conversation around fifteen years ago, during one of the many interventions Dwayne liked to stage ever since Jonathan had lost control of himself in the Detroit office and ended up chained for five days. Jonathan had gotten so annoyed with Dwayne’s attempt to fix him that he’d blurted out the truth—that he’d met his mate and claimed her while in wolf form.

Dwayne had then pressed Jonathan for every detail he could recall. He’d even attempted to find out information on any female wolf-shifters who had been in Grimm Cove at that time.

Jonathan knew the man was only trying to help. And it was nice to have someone else know the truth—or at least the truth Jonathan hoped was right. He had to believe that meeting his mate and making her his wife had really happened. If not, he was a ticking time bomb that Bram would be forced to hunt at some point.

“She is my heart, Harker,” said Bram. “My wish is that you one day know the joy she’s brought into my dark existence.”

Jonathan had known joy for a couple of hours, not that he’d voice as much to Bram. There had been a time he’d considered confiding in Bram about it all, but the moment never seemed right. Plus, it wasn’t as if he could prove he was mated. Bram would simply have to take his word, seeing as it had been eighteen long years since Jonathan claimed the white wolf, forever making her his. And eighteen years’ worth of searching for her with no leads.

She was a ghost to him.

One that he and his wolf had all but given up hope of ever seeing again. All he could do now was take each day as it came, trying to mask the fact that he was walking a tightrope of darkness and could snap at any point. Whenever he was back in Grimm Cove, he visited the cave he’d met her in, taking flowers with him and leaving them there on the off chance she’d return to the location as well.

He'd only just dropped fresh flowers off there yesterday but was already considering taking more out again. It was an empty gesture but helped alleviate some of the guilt he felt for how wrong he’d let everything go back then. How he’d let her slip through his fingers without a fight. He shouldn’t have ever left her alone in that cave to begin with. Had he remained and not gone running out to fight, he might have vanished with her in the mysterious white light. He might still be with her now, wherever she was.

“Talk of you being mated one day has stolen your tongue,” said Bram with a slight chuckle. “Afraid to be caught by a woman?”

Jonathan’s throat tightened with emotion. “Y-yeah.”

“Should she be yanked from my life, I would cease to exist,” said Bram. “What would be left would be a shell. Nothing but darkness.”

“I know,” said Jonathan, understanding fully what Bram meant. Jonathan had felt like a shell of himself for nearly two decades. “You’re cranky. Do I want to know why you’re awake at this hour?”

“It involves what my daughter likes to call a tree rat,” stated Bram with a dramatic sigh.

Jonathan managed a laugh.

Bram groaned. “I am so glad you’re amused.”

Jonathan smiled, thankful the conversation was taking a lighter tone.

“Boss, I know you’re asleep, but there is an emergency!” shouted Austin Van Helsing from Bram’s end of the call. “I lost Burgess!”

There was a loud, painful-sounding grunt from Bram’s end of the phone call.

“Oh crap,” said Austin, sounding nervous. “Uh, I didn’t mean to startle him. Did he just jump on you and score a direct nut tap, or did it just look that way from my vantage point?”

“Austin,” Bram said, letting the man’s name trail off in a slow warning.

“Nut tap. Got it. Um, Burgess,” Austin said, his voice shaking. “Come with me, little buddy. It’s not really safe to stay in here right now, and I promised your mommy I’d watch you. The big guy will eat you if I leave you.”

Jonathan had to wipe tears from his eyes. He was laughing that hard.

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