Page 53 of The Forbidden Wolf

“Fine for us,” he said just as the female opened the door, flooding the theater with the chatter of male voices. Sebastian lifted his. “My father is a businessman. He knows that scarcity drives desire, so he doesn’t crack down on wolves consuming human culture. It’s not allowed, per se, but he prefers to upsell our own traditions rather—”

“Shhh!” I clapped my hand over his mouth as the female arrived at an older male’s desk. He sported muttonchops and smoked a cigar, and they both wore old-fashioned clothes. A period piece, but what?

I sank back in my seat, instantly transfixed by the immaculate quality of the image, the richness of the dark wood and inky shadows, the composition of the back-and-forth shots as the old male and young female bartered over some sort of story. And the sound! Swish of paper, scratch of quill… so pleasingly atmospheric I shivered. I reached for my popcorn and found my lap empty.

Sebastian leaned over and retrieved the tub and its remaining contents, placing it on my lap with a grin both sheepish and smug. I pressed my tender lips together, trying to appear unruffled by the whole affair as I reached into the carton. His eyes never left my face as I drew a handful of fluffy white kernels to my mouth, and at the last second, I remembered my manners and held out my hand to him. He took a bite right from my palm like some sort of domesticated dog, spilling kernels all over my lap.

I cracked up, and so did he, which made a strange new warmth spread throughout my chest because he was kind of adorable without the serious Alpha Heir mask on. Wiping butter off the space beneath his lower lip, he whispered, “I’m sorry. My wolf told me to do that. He has bad ideas. I should—stop talking now.”

Sebastian melted into his seat and stared at the screen with wide-eyed disbelief that I knew had nothing to do with the female selling her story to the old male. I knew because it was the exact same face I made any time I accidentally referred to my own wolf in the third person out loud. Most shifters didn’t actually experience themselves that way. In fact, I had only ever met one other shifter who did. Him. Apparently.

A hundred questions crowded onto my tongue, but I swallowed them all for the time being because suddenly the room echoed with the clip-clop of horseshoes on cobblestone and the female was running through the crowded streets with an expression of such jubilation that I couldn’t look away. And then the image abruptly cut to a deep red leather-bound book bearing a golden seal that read: Little Women, L.M. Alcott.

I gasped. My hand found Sebastian’s in his lap. “How did you know?”

“Know what?” His fingers enveloped mine.

I didn’t answer. I was in too many places at once. Two blocks from home, lifting the dog-eared novel off a street vendor’s blanket spread on the sidewalk. Tucked into my bed, watching Kiana’s wolf maul it like a bone. In my father’s office, begging him to believe I’d simply found it on the beach. At the pizza joint on the corner, unwrapping the DVD from Charlie, unable to explain I had no way of watching. On the Tower Room sofa, opening a cookie tin full of shiny broken pieces. And finally here. Finding out the end. With him.

After a few minutes, Sebastian released my extremely sweaty hand and slid his arm across the back of my chair. And some time after that, my right shoulder leaned into his armpit. And a while after that, his hand crept onto my left shoulder, fingertips tracing my clavicle—and its totally normal freckles—in this magical way that kept urging my head closer and closer to being nuzzled under his chin. And would that be so bad, really? To just… relax and be held?

Sure, up on the screen, Jo and Laurie were growing up together like Buttercup and Westley, becoming best friends before they inevitably became lovers, but Sebastian and I had already known each other longer than Jack and Rose, and they were also totally hashtag couple goals. And Tom and Meg only really knew each other for, like, ten seconds before walking off hand in hand at the end of Sleepless in Seattle. Extreme whirlwind romances made the world go round. My ear brushed Sebastian’s clavicle—

*Record scratch! Freeze frame!*

I sat up straight, gripping my half-empty popcorn tub.

Did that little shithead really just propose to Jo’s sister instead?!?!

My heart pounded in my ears. No. That was impossible. Amy must have misunderstood Laurie’s meaning when he told her not to marry her suitor. Of course she did. Amy made everything about her, so it was only natural that she would… she would jump to that conclusion and turn Laurie down when he was just trying to look out for her in a brotherly way. This had probably just happened so that her bratty little speech about always being second best to Jo could snap Laurie out of whatever funk he’d been in, moping around Paris while that stuffy professor moved in on his female back in New York.

But Sebastian’s hand on my shoulder had gone perfectly still, growing heavier by the second as the story flashed back in time to the events that led to Beth’s illness, and then forward again to her death while Amy was tra-la-la-ing around Europe, painting pictures while everyone back home struggled. I wanted to cry when Beth finally passed, but I couldn’t because I was so distracted by a little scene in between where Amy told Aunt March she had turned her suitor down, and part of me wanted to cheer because imagine that, turning a suitor down, but I couldn’t because it had almost seemed like…but that couldn’t be right. She couldn’t be that awful, could she?

The scene at Beth’s graveyard gave way to Meg’s wedding, and I relaxed because finally here was Laurie chasing Jo down, telling her how he really felt, and yes, she was screaming at him that she would never marry him, but you know, sometimes it just took a female a while to come around to an idea, and wait—no, this was the past. Oh gods, this movie could be confusing. This was happening before Paris. Amy had just announced she was going instead of Jo because of course she was, and this… this was why Laurie had been moping all along. Jo turned him down, and he just gave up on her. And then…

There was Jo back in her attic, grieving Beth, and there was Marmee, comforting her, and the screen blurred as tears began to bubble out of my eyes because imagine that. Imagine having a mother to console you and advise you, and yes, now we were getting on the right track. Jo realized she and Laurie were meant for each other, and everything would be—oh. Oh no. Back in Paris. Laurie climbing into Amy’s carriage. Amy telling him she wasn’t getting married. And then the popcorn tub popped loudly in my lap as my hands crushed the sides in while Laurie and Amy kissed.

Sebastian’s fingers curled stiffly around my shoulders, but the spell had shattered. Jerking away, I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to watch as an unsuspecting Jo wrote Laurie a letter, confessing her love at last, but my throbbing pulse distorted the voiceover so that it wasn’t Saoirse Ronan speaking at all, but Kiana. Her face loomed larger in my mind than it could on any movie screen. Frozen in the moment when Sebastian claimed me.

I jumped up, spilling popcorn dregs everywhere, and ran to the aisle where I kicked off my stupid heels and lifted my stupid skirt and bolted for the stupid door. Hot tears of shame smudged the glowing exit sign into a giant accusing red eye.

“Elyse, wait!” Sebastian’s heavy footsteps shook the floor, one for every two of mine.

He caught me in the black abyss beneath the balcony, wrenching me backward by one arm. My fingers slid off the swinging door’s smooth brass handle, barely missing his face when I rounded on him, screaming, “Why would you show me that?!”

He caught my wrist before I could swing again. “It’s just a movie!”

“Let me go!” I threw my inner wolf weight into pulling away, but he threw more of his into pulling me close. Our mouths nearly collided for a second time, but I bared my fangs and snarled, “Let. Me. Go.”

“Elyse, just calm—”

I hocked phlegm into my throat. Sebastian recoiled, throwing his hands in front of his face. It was tempting to go ahead and let it fly, but I just wanted to get away from him, so I swallowed and shouldered through the door. Barging into the brightly lit lobby felt like waking up to midday sunlight after a nightmare infested nap. The teenage pups playing the parts of theater employees snapped to attention behind the concession counter.

Sebastian crashed through the doors I’d let slam in his face. “What the hell is wrong with you? Were you really going to spit on me?!”

“I told you to let me go!” I shouted without stopping. “I will never say that twice again!”

Sebastian swerved in front of me, blocking my path with his hands lifted in surrender. “Fair enough. But hear me out. I had no idea—”

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