He would expose the pack. I knew this. I knew if he kept sending people to look for me, that I would be the undoing of the pack.
Nate wouldn’t settle until he either had me or a body. No fake death certificate would do, no matter how much Derek wanted me to believe that it would solve things.
I hated how easily my fingers dialed his number into my dingy burner phone. I hated this wine for making me feel bold. I hated the fear that he created in my stomach.
And I hated the part of me that missed the way he used to hold me.
But that part of me was quickly stomped out when I thought of Nate anywhere near Derek or Levi. Nate may be human, but his wrath was as vicious as Levi’s teeth. They were my friends. The first set of friends I had had in a long time, and I wasn’t about to let Nate and his sickening wrath reach them.
He needed to end this hunt. He had to end his hunt. But the little voice in my brain also wanted—hoped—that for the first time in his pretentious-ass life, he would say, “I’m sorry.” That, after everything, he would realize how bad he fucked up and finally admit his wrongdoing and respect my wishes by leaving me the hell alone.
There was over a thousand miles between us and still my fingers shook like they used to before he would come home.
My heart was raging while a cool sweat brewed on the back of my neck. The phone rang a few times before he picked up—neither of us saying anything.
Outside, it was cold, but I had been smart enough to bring a blanket. The moon was out, watching me. The last thing I wanted was someone else to watch me make another stupid mistake.
“Hello?” The breath I was holding fell out of my lips at the sound of his voice.
“Nate.”
“Charlotte?” I had no idea how to reply. Part of me wanted to curse his name and part of me wanted to cut my heart open so he could see the shameful veins that still loved him. “Charlotte, is that you?” he added, a firmness in his voice I knew too well. It was the sting behind the sweet.
“Yes, it’s me.”
He was silent for too long. I thought he would hang up.
I wished he would because in that moment I was much too weak to do it. “I don’t know what to even say, Charlotte.
What do you want me to say?”
After everything, he had nothing to say? “Is that the best you can do, Nathaniel?”
“I haven’t heard from you in weeks and now I get a call from a random number in the middle of the fucking night?
Yeah, I have no idea what to say.”
“You could say ‘I’m sorry,’” I hissed, hoping the anger would hide the sorrow.
“I think we both know that it’s a little late for that.”
“Fuck you!” The beast churned in me. Hair on my arms started to stand while a small fire crackled to life. “You almost killed me—”
“Charlotte . . .”
“You almost fucking killed me, and you don’t think I deserve an apology? Seriously, is that normal for you?
Attempted murder, but it’s fine, right, Nate?””
“Is that what this is about? Did you leave just to see if I would care?”
I almost laughed. “You know why I left, Nate.”
“Do I, Charlotte? Do you even understand what you did?”
Not really, no, to be honest. I was about to turn into a werewolf and still didn’t understand what the hell I was getting myself into. But with Nate—oh, I knew exactly what I’d done. I’d left him. An act that, if he had it his way, I’d be marching up to a guillotine for.
I looked up at the moon, which was starting to get heavier in the sky, the glow around it almost calming. “I know damn well why I left, Nate. You do, too, whether you want to admit it or not.”
Because I did. He was hammering nails into the coffin holding what little was left of any feelings I had toward the relationship—toward him.
“What do you want? Are you coming back?”
“No,” I snapped. “I’m not. And you need to stop looking for me, Nate.”
“Then what is this, Charlotte?”
We spent five years together and he couldn’t even apologize. Five years and nothing. Our love reduced to the tone of voice that he used when he thought something was a waste of time. I leaned forward in my chair, my body ready to burst. Anger and frustration bubbled in me, nipping at the lid that was starting to come loose around my soul.
“Charlotte?” It was the same tone he had used that night, when I thought it was him who would end me.
“You need to stop looking for me.”
He laughed. It grew colder as the wind outside picked up and cut right to my core. “You’re a fucking idiot if you think I’m going to let you walk away. If you want to end it, you can come and tell me it’s over yourself.”
“Don’t fucking tempt me,” I found myself hissing. My chest vibrated as she snapped her jaw in the back of my mind. I could feel her anger toward Nate, and toward me. I disappointed her. That in itself killed me.
“Baby, just come home.” He used the voice that used to work all the time. The same voice that made me step away from the door and back into his arms time and time again.
“I’m not coming home, Nate. You’re wasting your father’s money.”
“Fuck you, Charlotte—”
I hung up the phone.
The peaceful quiet outside was screaming at me —exposing me and stripping me down to the ugly rawness I’d kept hidden. The need to scrub my own skin off returned, as did the feeling of his fingers caressing my shoulder—a gentle reminder that those fingers weren’t so gentle.
Snow was starting to fall but I could barely see it through the tears. My throat tightened, and my chest ached.
I’d thought he was going to put a ring on my finger. I’d thought I was going to have his children. How had I put my future so willingly into someone who so easily discarded it?
Was he looking because he actually cared? Did he even worry? Wonder if I was alive or dead in a ditch? Or did he just sit on his ass while his intern blew him, throwing away what we had one orgasm at a time.
My chest squeezed at that last thought. At how pathetic I must have seemed to him. The beast in me snapped at these thoughts, but all I wanted to do was let the familiar tide of pain pull me back out to sea. I shoved her down while the pain in my chest shoved back. Tears fell as I struggled to catch my breath, gasping like a fish out of water.
“Charlotte?”
Elliot walked slowly over to me. I shrank back as shame rolled over me. How long had he been there?
He knelt down so he was eye level with me. “Bit cold out here, yeah?” He rubbed his hands together. “You should come inside.”
“Please don’t—”
“It’s not my business. But I can’t let you freeze out here.
Sorry, but we have a strict no-freezing policy.”
“I—Derek—”
“It’s not my business or his,” Elliot repeated.
I placed my burner phone in his hand. “I’m sorry.”
Elliot tucked it quickly back in his pocket. “Hey, it’s okay. Nothing to be sorry for.”
“I fucked up,” I found myself whispering.
Elliot nodded to himself. “We all fuck up from time to time. If we didn’t, well, things would be less interesting. Do you want me to take care of him for you?”
A laugh bubbled through the tears, but one look at Elliot made me suspect that he was semiserious. “No.”
“Okay, shite, let’s go. It’s bloody cold.”
• • •
The next morning, I found myself cozied into Levi’s chair with a giant quilt tucked around me. Elliot was snoozing on the love seat. I didn’t remember getting here, but I did remember that Elliot insisted I warm up by the fire before I went to bed.
I started to wonder if it was going to be this way forever.
If I would always be tied to Nate in some way—unable to stay away, even when everything in me screamed not to pick up a fucking phone. I wish I could just erase his number from my mind.
How could he not be sorry? It wasn’t like I was a one-night screw. I was important—or at least I thought I was, wasn’t I?
He would never let me go. That was the more terrifying part of it. He would never stop. Not until one of us was dead.
The hairs on the back of my neck rose as the feeling of a steady, pulsing current made its way through me. Turning, I saw Levi leaving his bedroom. He slowed, eyes looking at Elliot before he looked at me. “Get up, we have work to do.”
I didn’t know if Nate had tried to call me back. I never asked for Elliot to give the burner phone back to me. Part of me wanted to ask; part of me was too ashamed to ask. I knew that right now, it was too dangerous for me to have that phone in my hands again. But another part of me, something that had been buried for a long time, didn’t care. That part of me was a fire brewing every day, a dragon with teeth that wanted to rip apart the phone and my memories of him.
While it did scare me, it also was something I was glad for, especially on days like today, when I was sure that Levi was trying to kill me.
“Now go on, hit me. Don’t worry about breaking my pretty face.”
“Go on, Charlotte, he definitely deserves to have his teeth rearranged.” Derek chuckled. He had a juice box in his hand that I was sure had blood in it.
Levi scowled at Derek then looked back at me; clearly his patience was starting to wear thin. “Charlie, hit me.”
All I could think about was that night. In my ears, I could hear the sound of Nate’s fist meeting my face. There was no calling it an “accident” now. It was there, black and blue on my face, looking back at me the next day.
“Charlie,” Levi said, and I could feel the scar on the side of my leg from when I’d “tripped” on Nate’s bougie oriental rug and fallen into the corner of an end table with a glass top. He’d told the nurse that I was always so clumsy, especially when I was in a rush.
The scar felt like it was burning on my leg. I wondered how long I would have to lie about it. Even if I made it through this mess, would I ever live to speak my truth?
I shook my head at Levi. “What’s the point of this again?”
“So you don’t get eaten up by a bunch of wolves,” he replied, digging into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes.
“I don’t see why—I mean, why not use your words?”
Both Levi and Derek broke out into deep belly laughs.
I felt a rumble escape my mouth. The beast inside had not only grown stronger, but more vocal. Apparently, she didn’t take this teasing or my discomfort well. She was annoyed with me. It felt like we were always at these strange odds with each other; at a crossroads where I felt torn in two.
“Come on, Charlie,” Levi said, a taunt in his eyes even though his words were calm. Nate used to do that. He had a tone he saved for when we were in public that was the red flag for me when I hovered too close to disapproval.
I shook my head, the phone call playing over and over in my mind. “No.” With that I walked away.
My throat tightened again as the words What do you want me to say? ran through my mind like a bad ringtone.
I stumbled through the forest until I found myself leaning against a tree while treacherous tears tried to fight their way out of my eyes. I was so damn angry at Nate. But I was angrier at myself. I was so much better than calling him—he beast in me agreed—but it was hard to fully believe it when the shame in me still reminded me that I had called him. Why did I have to have so much wine?!
“Charlotte.” There was a gentleness to Levi’s voice that scared me.
Quickly, I wiped my eyes, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Wasn’t going to ask,” he replied, leaning against a tree a few feet away from me while he took a long drag from his cigarette.
I didn’t want to cry in front of him, but I was losing the war with my eyes, and my nose was starting to run. I wiped my face with the edge of my sleeve.
“You’re better than this, Charlie girl.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You sure about that?” My throat clenched, and I felt the ugly crying face coming on. “Charlotte?”
I couldn’t answer. I felt myself start to shake. I could feel it coming. I could feel the fear for my life mixed with the painful yearning for a past life that was gone. Levi sighed and dipped his head so he could look me in the eye. “You’re going to make a small pond right there if you keep that up.”
“Oh! Fuck you!” I growled.
I had no idea what I was shouting, but in three steps he had tossed his cigarette down and was over to me, and in one step I was beating at his iron chest with everything I had. There were things I said that I knew I didn’t mean, but I just wanted someone to hurt as bad as I was hurting in the moment. I didn’t want to feel alone.
He wasn’t hugging me. He was just trying to keep me from hurting myself. Eventually my arms gave out and my knees buckled. He was holding me up before he carefully knelt us down in grass lightly dusted by snow. I was crying against his sweatshirt, sobbing until it was just a mess of whimpers and growls.
He pushed me back and carefully wiped some of the wetness away from my cheeks. “Why did you call him?”
“How did you—”
Shame sucked me into the quicksand. Of course he knew. He always knew. I shook my head but Levi dipped his farther so I couldn’t get away from him. “Why did you call him?”
“Because . . .” I hated the answer, the true answer. I hated it but I knew I had to say it; I had to stop lying to myself.
“Because I still love him.” My shoulders shook as more sobs came. “I fucking hate him too. I wish he would leave me alone. I just—what’s wrong with me?”
“A lot,” he answered. My head snapped up to look at him, shock dripping over my face, but he just shrugged.
“You were with him for a long time, it’s reasonable that you feel the way you do. There’s nothing wrong about that. He, however, is a real piece of shit.”
“Did you hear?” I rushed the words out.
“No, but I could have guessed as much. Man doesn’t do what he did without being a real fucking bastard.”
I bit back a sob. “He—he didn’t even care. He didn’t even say sorry! He almost killed me!” My fists clenched over the memory of it. “And he just said, ‘Well, what do you want me to say, Charlotte?’ Who the fuck—and—how did I—”
“Charlotte, he’s a piece of shit.” Levi pulled his sweatshirt off, leaving him in a long-sleeved gray T-shirt, then held it open for me. I slipped into it and found myself feeling better. “Sometimes bad shit is going to happen, and you’re not always going to be able to tie it in a cute bow and walk away from it.”
“Is that what you did?” I asked, instantly regretting the words.
He sighed and eyed me. He wasn’t angry or annoyed; if anything, it looked like he got it. Oh, he got it more than Derek ever would. “I’ve screwed up enough to tell you that you’re going to have to find a way to tie your own pretty bow and move on.”
“How?”
He shrugged and helped me up. “Figure it out. It’s not wrong to still care about him—piece of shit. He sounds like a sniveling bitch.” He paused and took another cigarette out, lighting it up, then taking a long drag. “You’re not always going to get a clean break.”
I wiped my eyes then nodded at him. I could feel the thing in me moving quietly, like she was afraid her footsteps would break the resolve I had left. “I hate this.”
He offered me the other end of his cigarette. I shook my head. He sucked on the end of it for a moment, pausing before letting a large cloud out of his nostrils. “I know,” he sighed tiredly.
After one last drag he tossed the cigarette down and stomped it out, then cracked his neck. “Now hit me. Come on. Don’t forget to do your hand like I showed you, I don’t want to deal with a damn broken hand of yours.” He watched me while my heart raced. All I could think about were the fists of someone else racing toward me. “You know you’re not him. This doesn’t make you the same person.”
“I don’t see why I have to do this.”
“I’m not telling you to go around picking fights, but you’re going to have to learn to fend for yourself.”
“But why do I need my fists to do that?” My voice was hot. This thing in me was scratching at my brain.
“Sometimes you don’t,” he conceded. “But if you live, you’re going to be living in a world of wolves and, at the end of the day, there is a beast inside of them that doesn’t always understand pretty words.” He shrugged at me. “We’re not heathens, but one day some dumb wolf may come at you and you’ll have to be able to beat its ass instead of running the other way. You don’t run. You start running and you’ll never stop.”
The beast in me was pawing harder now, almost like she was trying to tell me that she agreed. I sighed in defeat.
“Fine.” Because he was right. I wasn’t going to run from any more monsters.
He rubbed his hands together and rested them at his hips. “Now hit me. Square in the nose.”
I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my beast. She was aching to get out, begging for blood. She wanted to prove that we weren’t weak. But mostly, she wanted to prove to me that I could trust her. A new energy buzzed through me. I felt my fists tighten. The cold air hummed around me.
Before I knew what I was doing, I walked straight to Levi, pulled my arm back, and nailed him right in the nose.
He staggered back, holding a face that was now trickling with blood. Derek gave me a slow clap of applause as he walked up. He leaned against a tree, with a soft smile on his face.
My mouth dropped at the sight of Levi’s blood. I wasn’t sure if I had royally fucked up or made Levi proud.
“Dammit, that was pretty good for a girl.” He cracked his nose back into place as he uttered a string of curses under his breath. My mouth dropped more.
Something fanned the flame in me. “Well, maybe if you practice enough, you could hit like one too.”
Where the hell did that come from?
Derek covered his mouth to muffle his laughter before he started to slow clap as he walked over with Elliot in tow.
“Bravo, Charlotte.”
Levi’s brows rose high. There was a pleased look on his face, along with traces of what looked like relief. “Well, hell,” e grumbled before he walked toward me. “If you can do something good once, you can do it twice. Now do it again.”
Almost instinctively, I threw a blow at him, but he leaned out of the way, stepping around me—out of sight. I whipped around to see him standing behind me. A sly smile was on his lips. “Hit me.”
I threw another blow, this time with my other fist. He leaned out of the way, moving like he was the wind, out of my line of sight. I turned, punching in the air toward him, but he caught my fist, which looked like a child’s wrapped in his hand. He pushed my hand back. I stumbled backward while he slowly stalked around me.
His eyes pulsated with a glow. The beast in him was close.
Power radiated off him in waves that made goose bumps run over my skin. I looked at his feet, something in me pushing me to move. I found myself mirroring his motions, not sure if I was doing the right thing, but it was better than being a sitting duck.
The wolf in me was pacing, her animalistic nature licking through my veins, scratching and snarling to be let out. She was pawing harder now, wanting to come out and play, but I was afraid of letting her get too close. I didn’t want to be a monster.
“You’re going to have to learn to trust her,” Levi told me.
“This is what you’re going to be. Do you want to spend the rest of your life afraid of yourself?”
“I don’t want to go mad.”
“That’s only going happen if you don’t learn to work with her—you have to learn to trust her or she and every other wolf out there will eat your ass up.”
She was quiet. It was like she was trying to show me that he was right. That she was on my side. I didn’t want to be afraid anymore. I didn’t want to be the girl who could be easily discarded.
I didn’t want to lose myself again.
My eyes closed, and when they opened, I ran toward him, lunging with a fist aimed at his ribs. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I was letting this thing in me drive me.
Levi blocked me with ease, hands grabbing me and tossing me across the ground. “Shit,” I hissed while clutching my side.
I jumped up. Levi was walking toward me and something crackled to life in me. The feeling of it was addictive; the adrenaline on my tongue mouthwatering.
He stepped toward me but somehow I sidestepped him and threw another blow. He blocked it but almost instinctively I moved my fist out of the way and slammed another into his chin.
How the hell did I do that?
He stepped back and stared at me in shock while I stared at my own fists. A deep-rooted nature was taking hold of me. My fingers itched to be thrown again and my toes curled in anticipation.
This beast rumbled inside me but I was too consumed by Levi to be perturbed by the sound rolling off my chest. He stepped toward me and swung. I dodged his fist but when I did, I fell into his trap. A hand reached for me and grabbed me, then tossed me across the grass.
A groan fell out of my mouth along with the air that had been knocked out of my lungs. Something prickly started to poke through the back of my neck, small needles making their way through my skin.
“Get up, Charlie,” I heard him say.
A hiss came out of my mouth as the prickling became more painful. It spread down my back and behind my legs.
My gums ached while my vision swirled. The clawing was rampant. She pawed at my brain while I tried to seize control of her.
“Charlie?”
A whimper fell out of my mouth. The prickling started to spread through my whole body. I tried to pull her back, but a pain in my abdomen began to swell. I groaned and clawed at the ground, but it was hard to breathe through the pain clouding my senses.
“Charlie!” I couldn’t answer him. My gums felt like they were about to explode. The pain in my abdomen wasn’t subsiding.
Suddenly, I was flipped onto my back and silver eyes bored into mine. I tried to catch my breath but it felt like no matter how much air I gulped, it wouldn’t be enough.
“Push her back.”
“What?” I gasped.
“Push her back,” he calmly ordered. Derek cradled my head in his lap, his hands pushing the hair out of my face while Levi held my gaze. “Push her back.”
I closed my eyes and retreated to the place where she was. She was angry. She wanted to protect us and show this male that she wasn’t going to be so easily tossed around. I felt like I was tearing myself into two. I tried to pull her back but she lashed out angrily at me.
“If you can’t work with her, then this shift is going to eat you alive.”
I didn’t want to let another being rip me apart. I wasn’t going to lose my mind, not to this beast.
She was snapping at me again but I shoved her back and pleaded with her. Tried to reason with her. I didn’t want to die; I doubted she did either. She was seething. Our time would come when she could have at Levi but right now, we had to worry about living—about surviving.
It felt like we were at an impasse until I pushed her one last time, this time reminding her that I wouldn’t stop. If I had to sit here and do this for hours, I would. I didn’t want to die. Not when I had worked this hard.
I felt her cock her head at me. It felt like if she could smile, she would have. She stepped back, calming down within me. The prickling in my gums ceased and the pain in my abdomen diminished.
My eyes fluttered open to see both Derek and Levi looking at me like I was about to melt away. A wariness in both of their eyes scared the shit out of me.
I rubbed the sweat off my brow while my heartbeat started to simmer down. A long breath fell out of my lips.
“What was that?”
“She got too close,” Derek answered.
“What does that mean?”
Levi stood up and brushed his pants off before walking away. He looked back with an eye-roll. “It means nothing.”
I blinked. “Nothing?”
Derek helped me up and brushed the backs of my legs off. I winced when he brushed over the side of my hip that had slid across the cold, hard ground.
“We’ll get something for that,” he told me.
“What—this doesn’t mean nothing!” I whisper-hissed to Derek while Levi walked back toward the house.
“Come on, Charlie girl!” he called. “You have wood to chop before it gets dark!”
“You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for,” Derek added. He turned and zipped ahead to fall into step with Levi.
I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know what kind of strong he was talking about.
Usually when someone said you were strong they meant that you were channeling your inner pop star of the moment with flawless brows and perfectly puckered lips, ready to spit venom on whoever dared subtweet you.
Strong women were contoured masks made up of layers of filters, like a puff pastry baked to a crispy perfection. But inside that pastry, it was ugly. It was rotten and broken. But of course, that wasn’t for anyone to know, because you were strong, weren’t you?
“You all right?” Elliot strode up from the forest. Blood stained his mouth even though it looked like he had tried to wipe it off.
The beast in me snapped with a power that made me jump. She was the strong one. The one who wanted to tear Nate’s face off instead of kiss it.
She snapped again, this time at my own monologue of self-deprecation. I wanted to be better for her—for myself.
I didn’t want to be the wet blanket she would have to drag through this world.
“I didn’t tell him,” Elliot said quietly.
He didn’t have to tell Levi for Levi to know. “I know.”
He picked up my hand and looked at the broken skin across my knuckles. Blood was starting to peek through the split pores. “It will heal.”
“At least that will.”
His eyes snapped to mine before they found scars on my shoulder. The marks that would never fade. “Wolves find scars to be almost like ornaments. The more the merrier. They’re going to think you’re the fiercest warrior of them all.”
I shook my head, my eyes dropping to my feet. “I don’t deserve that.”
His fingers reached under my chin and tilted my gaze to meet his. “Oh, now, we can’t have that. People who survive what you have—you’re a fighter, darling. Through and through.”
“A fighter who is still fucking scared.” I paused with a sigh. “I’m scared, Elliot.”
His eyes twinkled as a smile tugged at his lips. “People will tell you to face them, ‘conquer them.’ They don’t have the demons we do. When our monsters come for us, we become the monsters they fear.”
I started to shake my head, but Elliot’s fingers moved my gaze back to his. “A brave man dances with his demons, a strong man becomes one of them.” I let out a long breath, nodding. “I compelled that gent. You’re safe, for now,” he added, his fingers falling from my chin to give my shoulder a comforting squeeze.
I stepped away with an uneasy feeling. “For now?”
“’Course, my little monster. He thinks you got eaten by a bear. He’s going to get a fake report from the authorities next week.”
“I don’t want to be a monster, Elliot.”
His fangs descended while his lips curled into a dark smile. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”
