He does, and a small inhuman whine escapes him, sounding like a dog who’s been kicked. Or a wolf.
I lower my hands from my heart and my mouth. I’m safe. I was just scared. My heartbeat is already slowing.
“Deke. No. Deke...it’s okay—”
He turns and leaves. I scramble off my bed, grabbing a blanket to toss around my shoulders. “Wait!”
My front door slams open. I run out of my bedroom, but I’m too late.
“Deke,” I cry. The neighbor's dog next door is going crazy, but there’s no sign of Deke.
His car is still in front of my place, parked at the curb. No Deke. I run down my front path. “Deke!”
A giant black wolf runs down my street, leaping my neighbor’s decorative fence and skidding crazily over the lawn. The last I see of its dark shape is the fanned tail and pointed ears heading into the hills.
Deke
I could’ve fucking killed her. My paws beat over the ground in a constant rhythm. I run until they’re bloody, leaving wet tracks on the red earth until my shifter healing kicks in. The stinging stops for a little while, but another mile, and the rocks on the trail slice through my paws, and I bleed again.
This is the end. This is what I deserve—to run to the ends of the earth. Would that the world were flat, so I could leap over the edge. I will run until I die or until I can think of a better punishment.
Dawn breaks, and I pause in my quest. I’m on a mountain peak, surrounded by red boulders. The air is thin enough to make me lightheaded. I throw back my head, savoring the haziness in my mind. A sort of drunkenness, separating me from the pain. When clarity comes, I remember: I can never go back to Sadie.
My wolf howls and howls and howls until there’s no other sound in the world.
Sadie
Dawn comes and sheds a thin, sad light on the wreckage of my bedroom. I clean it up the best I can, just for something to do. I’m a kindergarten teacher, I’m used to cleaning up messes. At least this one doesn’t involve peanut butter or scissors in the hands of a six year old.
But I’ll never forget the savage rage, the growl in the darkness.
He’s a werewolf. This was never going to work.
The closet doors aren’t salvageable, so they go outside into the trash. My shredded cardigans, same. All that’s left of the damn jackalope is mostly bits of black fabric and cotton fluff. I vacuum and then get dressed to go to school. Not ideal, but I have no idea what else to do. I don’t know where to look for Deke. The desert? The pound? The other option is to sit in my apartment and cry.
Not an option. But I do get a little sniffly when I walk outside. Deke’s Mercedes is still parked at my curb. Inside my house are his keys and his phone, all his stuff. If he comes back for it, he won’t be able to get it unless I’m here.
He will come back for it, right? I hope so, but a part of me is terrified he won’t. A part of me fears he’s gone for good.
Deke
I run until night falls, and then I run some more.
I’m loping down the side of a mountain when a giant black wolf with amber orange markings stalks across my path. My alpha.
I skid on my aching paws. Rafe lowers his head, sniffing me. I stay still on stiff limbs. I didn’t eat today. My wolf made me drink, but I’m weak. My body trembles.
A second and third wolf rise from the brush and flank me. I’m surrounded. If I want to continue my quest, I’ll have to fight it out, and in my weakened state, I’ll lose.
I don’t want to fight. I lower my head. Lances presses forward and licks at my side, cleaning away blood from a wound I got from tearing against a rock. On my right side, Channing presses his shoulder against mine, bracing me.
My wolf relaxes in the presence of the pack. These are my brothers, for better or worse. They heard my call, and they came.
We point our noses to the moon and howl. They sing for a brother found, but I cry for what I’ve lost.
Sadie
Two days pass with no sign or word from Deke. I finally cave and phone a friend. Not all of them, just Adele. I can’t take a full Inquisition.
As soon as I open my door for her, Adele knows something is wrong.
“What happened?” she asks.
I press my lips together to keep the tears back, and she pulls me into a hug. “Sadie, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m okay,” I sniffle.
“No, you’re not.” Adele pulls back and studies me. “That asshole. I will end him.”
“No, don’t do that.”
“Tell me everything.”
So I do. I leave out the part about Deke being a werewolf, but I tell her everything else. The trip, the flirting, the wedding. The sex—of course I skim over those details. “We were all over each other,” I summarize, my cheeks hot.
“Hmm,” Adele murmurs, swirling her wine. Totally non-judgemental. “And he was a total gentleman?”
“Yes. I mean, he’s intense.” I blush red as Adele’s wine. “Especially in bed. But I liked that. Things were fine. He told me about his past, his arrest, and we talked about it. He has PTSD from his service to our country. Sometimes it triggers violence. I was willing to work through it with him.” Crap, now I have to tell her the worst of it.
“But then he…”
“He what?”
“It was the toy. The stupid jackalope. It’s been malfunctioning, and it went off in the middle of the night, and Deke...went crazy.”
Adele goes still. I swallow. “He didn’t hurt me. But he….he thought it was a threat. He wrecked my closet. And destroyed the toy before I could stop him.”
“Well.” Adele sits back in her seat.
“So that was early Monday,” I finish. “When he realized what he’d done, he was devastated. He told me he’s too dangerous, and he took off. I haven’t seen him since. I did leave a voicemail at his office.” There was no answer. I spent last night by the window, waiting, wondering who else to call. “It’s been two days. I’m worried.”
Adele rubs her forehead, an unusual gesture for her normally poised self. She looks tired tonight, the shadows dark as bruises under her eyes. “This is a lot.”
“I know.” I bite my lip, desperate to defend Deke. But I need a cool head to weigh in on things. My instincts when it comes to men are all messed up.
“You care about him.” The statement is more a question.
“I do. He’s...he makes me strong. He never tells me what to do. Never tries to control me.” Not like Scott and my dad. “He gives me space to be who I am. He likes who I am.” I search for words to articulate who Deke is to me. It’s impossible. A few days, and Deke has changed my whole life. “I feel stronger with him. But this violence in him… I know he won’t hurt me, but my instincts might be screwed up.”
“He has PTSD—it’s common in vets.”
“Yeah.”
“Can he talk to anyone about it?”
I shrug.
Adele’s voice hardens. “He needs to talk about it. He needs to do something to fix this. He’s dangerous. His first instincts should be to keep you safe.”