Page 109 of Howl You Doin?
I hear him repeat my name as I hang up the phone, my skin bristling with agitation.
“He’s right, ye ken. Ye really are an idiot.” I turn and catch Lachlan treading water below the bridge’s edge. He must have realized I came here to talk to him, and the want to slap him back to the prehistoric age has my fists curling.
“Did you fucking know she was a Van Helsing?”
“What does it matter?” he asks, his brows dipping in confusion.
“Did you know?” I thunder, my hands becoming claws as I lose my temper, refusing to put up with any more bullshit today. I am going to get answers.
“No, I didn’t. She dinna smell anything like them.”
I pause. If anyone could remember what they smelled like, it would be Lachlan. He even helped hunt them for a time, and his instincts are unparalleled, as old as he is.
“If she’s a Van Helsing, it’s too slight tae tell, and what bloody difference does it make? She’s yer true mate,” he continues, his expression conveying he thinks I’m worse than an idiot.
“I told her days ago, and she kept it from me.” The words sound hollow, even to my ears, as a sinking sensation centers in my gut.
“Ye sound like a wee bairn in need of his mother. If ye don’t get yer head out of yer arse, ye will be in big trouble. Who’s tae say ye won’t lose her in the end over this? Whitley loves ye, I could see it from the first night ye bit her. So what if she’s a Van Helsing? It wasn’t her that did this tae ye.”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Who cares if she’s a Van Helsing? She’s bonnie, fiery, and yermate. Ye get one in all yer life. How many hundreds of years did ye wait, thinking ye’d never have one because of the way ye were turned? Fate brought ye together, and maybe this was the only way it could.”
Regret.
It blooms in my chest as I recall how crushed Whitley looked when I told her to leave, and the horrible things I fucking said, unable to deal with what I went through for the past three hundred years. Shame crests over me at the way I treated my own woman. I associated all that with her, and to learn she came from something so despicable clouded my judgement.
A pit yawns in my stomach, and it churns with dread at how she could leave me, could have already left me. Shit. Fear flashes in my mind next.
What if she already left the castle because I practically forced her to?
Whitley is my one true mate,and she’s perfect—for me. I’ve been so dumb, losing my temper like that, when it’s no fault of her own. I was completely blindsided by the shock and disbelief that she could even be remotely connected with the family I spent so much of my life fighting.
Lachlan’s right, though. I love her, so what the fuck am I doing out here? Why should the past, that has nothing to do with her, matter? Why am I letting the Van Helsings continue to torture me by taking away the one good thing they’ve given me—her—due to old wounds?
My face pulls into a grimace as my anger deflates. “Fuck.”
“Go tell her yer stupid, and that I said hello, ye fuckwit,” Lachlan says, before he turns and swims away.
Chapter 35
Whitley Whitt
Howlways together.
My legs screamwith exertion as I pump them, running through the woods at a breakneck pace and dashing through the trees as fast as I can. In my wolven form, I gain massive headway into the forest near the castle before circling back.
It’s not lost on me how drastically my life has changed in such a short time. I only wish it were something else that could make me participate in exercise willingly, but if I don’t run, my hair kinks and I start crying. It’s been two hours of this, and I don’t feel any better.
I keep seeing Connor’s face and how he looked through me, like I wasn’t even there. Then, when he did, it was with nothing but hate.
I’m sad, and I’m not sure how I’m going to get over it either.
I understand why Connor is so angry. I can’t imagine how it feels or what he is going through, but it’s not my fault, and I didn’t choose to be born this way, any more than he chose to be bitten so long ago.
It’s not fair.
A twinge of pain radiates in my side. I slow, sensing my body is flagging, my breaths choppy and my strength waning.
