Page 59 of The Forbidden Wolf

“But she and Laurie were clearly fate—soulmates,” I argued. “So maybe Louisa just never married because she lost hers to her evil, conniving, bitch sister also.”

“Umm, I think the whole meta-narrative aspect might be confusing you.” Charlie patted my knee. “That definitely didn’t happen.”

“What she’s trying to say,” Evan drawled from the opposite bench where he lay with his head on Jayla’s knee, “is that in 1868, sticking Jo with an awkward, grumpy German professor was as close as Louisa could get to saying, ‘Hey, y’all, guess who’s a big ol—”

“No!” I laughed, and my stomach whined in protest. “No. You’re crazy. Jo is totally hot for Laurie. The whole time.”

Evan looked up at Jayla and rolled his eyes. “Methinks someone is projecting.”

“I think you should just read the book,” Charlie said. “Now that you can.”

“Why?” I hugged my queasy stomach. “I’ve seen the movie.”

Charlie’s head thunked against the window. She placed a dramatic hand over her eyes. “You think you’ve raised them right…”

Evan propped himself up on one elbow. “You’re wasting your time fretting over this. That man is not a Laurie by any stretch of the imagination.”

“Well, I’m not a German professor,” Sebastian deadpanned.

Evan cackled with delight, and even Jayla cracked a smile. Sebastian caught my eye with just enough smolder to liquefy my insides. Charlie gave me a knowing look without lifting her head from the window, and I quickly looked up at the narrow Alma Mater Animalis banner at the top of the opposite wall. Jayla had been staring hungrily at the one above my bench for most of the ride. Both featured her future husband’s abs.

Evan sat up and wiggled one finger at Sebastian. “Clearly the vibe here is John Brooke. Marry a little woman who can’t go to college. Make some little babies quick as you can.”

Jayla smacked his arm. “Don’t be stupid. John Brooke was poor.”

Evan lifted his hand for a high-five, and their clap echoed in the otherwise empty car. Sebastian groaned and thunked his head against the far side of the smudged window. A few more crisp strands of hair came loose and fell into his eyes. If there hadn’t been eight feet and one very watchful self-appointed chaperone in between us, I might have been brazen enough to brush them aside. I didn’t steal him. He had always been mine.

“I was joking,” Sebastian said. “About the kids and the money.”

“So, you aren’t rich?” Evan planted an elbow on one knee, and his chin on his fist.

Jayla mirrored Evan’s position. “And the goal of an arranged marriage isn’t for you to get our barely legal friend pregnant as soon as possible?”

“Jayla!” I stretched my leg across the aisle and rammed my bare heel into her knee. “Please! I know you want to haze him, but I’m right here. And I’m twenty! That is sufficiently legal.”

My friends looked at me skeptically and then turned back to Sebastian, clearly expecting answers. I slumped lower in the seat and covered my face with both hands. Charlie patted my knee but didn’t do her human alpha thing and shut the club down this time. I guess she wanted answers too.

“I am rich enough to buy as many rubbers as my wife wants me too,” Sebastian said.

Wife. The forbidden word raised goosebumps on my arms, and if I were honest, the same thing had happened earlier when I had called him my future husband. Was this how human couples felt when they dressed up in silly costumes and roleplayed outlandish scenarios?

“I feel like that was a really good answer,” Evan said after a long awkward silence, “but I am going to defer to the ladies for final judgment.”

“I find no fault,” Jayla said. “It was even a little bit clever.”

“A little bit,” Charlie said. “I’ll give him that one.”

Evan cleared his throat after another brief period of awkward silence. “Elyse? Do you find his answer acceptable?”

“Yep!” I squeaked and then cleared my throat. “Yes. Sounds good. I mean, fine. That sounds—honestly, it sounds like I hate all of you right now.”

My friends had a grand laugh at my expense. I cast a shy sideways glance at my fiancé. His lips twitched, but there was a troubled look in his eyes, and I realized with a start that he’d answered not just honestly but hopefully. He was afraid. Of whatever he’d done to his mother. Of what I’d done to mine.

No. What Kiana did.

My stomach flipped with that turning of the tables. And also… If Sebastian turned out to have been right, if Yara had been having a vision from my life, then not only had I not killed my mother, but I had actually been held by her. I was the one she had prayed for. I was the one she had talked to and sang to while she waited for me to arrive. I was the one she loved.

I didn’t even notice we were stopping until the doors whooshed open and the pre-recorded voice crackled over the speakers, urging anyone coming or going to mind the gap between train and platform. The car rocked as the first heavy footstep fell in the doorway to my right, bringing with it the stench of sweat, booze, and… wet fur? I started to look, but Charlie squeezed my knee, and I instinctively sat up straight and proper, legs clasped together.

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