Page 42 of Ravaged Wolf
I whimper.
The two-by-fours clatter to the ground. My gaze drops with them, and then travels helplessly back up his body, logging every detail, every change.
He’s wearing tan work boots, just like he wore before. His faded blue jeans are frayed at the hems and ripped at the knee. They ride low on his hips, but they’re tight over his thighs. He’s wearing a worn leather tool belt with a hammer hanging at his side. His white T-shirt clings to his broad chest. His biceps stretch the sleeves.
My insides are caught in a mixer. I can’t untangle what’s happening—can’t sort his feelings from mine. Is this fear his? Is this grief?
I can’t catch my breath. There isn’t room enough under my ribs for my lungs to expand.
My face in the dirt. My airway clogged with snot.
The memory crashes over me, cranking my heartbeat, fast, too fast, triggering every nerve in my body. My bodyprimes to run. The acrid scent of terror erupts from my pores.
My wolf bounds forward, howling, throwing herself into the boundary between us, crying for her mate, trying to drag us closer to him with the force of her longing and loneliness. She isn’t afraid.
I raise my eyes to Trevor’s face. He’s grown up. I didn’t realize it until this moment, but when I compare the face in my memory to the one in front of me, he wasn’t a full-grown male before, but he is now.
My lower lip trembles. I frown to stop the wobbling and blink to force back the tears.
His cheeks and chin are scruffy with stubble—his face was smooth before—but his curly, wheat blond hair hasn’t changed at all. His blue-gray eyes aren’t darker, but they’re deeper somehow, like the quarry lake with its smooth surface that reflects the sky but goes down twenty stories deep.
Holding his gaze is like holding my palm over an open flame, but I can’t look away any more than I could pluck out my own eye.
Another picture flashes in my head. Those beautiful eyes bleeding pure black. His fangs ripping through his bottom lip. His head swiveling on his neck as he scented the air. I whine. The stench of my fear burns my nose.
Trevor jerks as if his body took a hit, his tanned face blanching gray. He raises his palms in the air and backs away, faster and faster, past the males poking the fire and the females on the blanket. When he reaches a maple tree at the edge of the woods, he leans on it with one hand, bends over, and pukes behind the trunk. Then, without a glance in my direction, he disappears down the path toward the fairy tale cottage, leaving his two-by-fours lying on the ground like pick up sticks.
Everyone is watching. It’s theater in the round. He exited stage left, and I’m left here alone, and a dozen strangers are waiting with bated breath for a cue that the scene is over.
My hands curl into fists. I’m not going to cry.
I hate crying. Crying only ever pissed my parents off even more, but I’ve never been tough, even when it would’ve saved me trouble. My eyes fill with tears.
“Oh, girlfriend,” Nia murmurs and wraps her arm around my shoulder. I’d forgotten she was standing next to me.
“Shit, you’re here early,” a female says from the den entrance.
Rosie Kemble and Cadoc Collins stroll out, heading for us. Could this get any worse? Rosie’s brown eyes are brimming with concern while Cadoc frowns in the direction where Trevor disappeared. Because Trevor belongs to his pack now? And I’m an outsider who made him puke and drove him away?
Because I’m a walking tragedy, a living reminder of something no one ever wants to think about?
Because under the pity, there’s the thing everyone whispers, but only behind closed doors—she did this to herself. She knew what would happen, but she forced Fate’s hand anyway and ruined two lives.
I shouldn’t be here. I glance over my shoulder at the bikes. I wouldn’t even know how to start one. Nia kind of stomped on a pedal.
Nia hugs me tighter, reminding me that she’s still there. “That was my bad. Pritchard bet me he could beat me back to the den.”
Rosie shakes her head and arrives in front of us. She stops a few feet away. Cadoc stops further back, almost like he’s her bodyguard, not the alpha.
“Pritchard knows he can’t beat you,” Rosie says.
Nia’s lips curve in a funny smile. “He never will as long as he keeps letting me win.”
“I think this calls for a cup of tea, right?” Rosie offers me her hand.
I take it, but only after getting my hand thoroughly wet by wiping away my tears, like I really was raised by ferals like Mom always said. My face heats. This is maybe the worst first impression I’ve ever made.
Rosie squeezes my hand and keeps a tight hold of it, drawing me toward the den.
