“You have nothing to apologize for,” I said, pressing soft, tender pecks to her forehead, then each of her cheeks. “Go ahead and rest, baby. And when you wake up, it’ll be the first day of our forever.”
She smiled wanly as her breathing slowed and her eyes slid closed. “Mmm, that sounds wonderful.”
It really did, didn’t it?
TWENTY-SIX
HAUNTED MIRROR
Haunted Mirror
I stared at the small cabin at the end of the long, dirt driveway that looked like it was walked more than it was driven over, emotions swirling within me. While I’d come a long way since I’d started therapy, I wasn’t sure if I’d come a long enough way forthis.
“What are ya doin’, man?” I asked myself as that surge of blood-red guilt and rage began to lap at my feet, eager to drag me back down into the depths.
Stop the spiral,I reminded myself, focusing on breathing in, holding it, and slowly exhaling. That was a trick Giselle had taught me. But that wasn’t the only card up my sleeve. One thing my therapist had taught me was to use my sense of touch to keep me from getting lost in a PTSD fugue state or negative dissociation.
Reaching into my pocket, I gripped the pain fidget Giselle had bought me and grasped it, alternating the pressure of my grip. It was such a little thing, essentially a tube with spikes onit, but the sharp little pricks of non-harmful sensation kept me grounded in the present.
I needed that since the cabin I was staring at belonged to none other than Melton.
What a stupid name.The pettiness was a balm to all the growing feelings within me. Even though I was dealing with them, they weren’t exactlycomfortable.
I was choosing to be here. Sure, Melton had been the one to send the letter to my home, but I was the one who’d gotten into my car after a couple weeks of deliberation and driven to the address a state over.
It could be a trap. But something in me doubted that. Maybe it was foolish optimism, or maybe it was the words from the letters, which were still burned into my mind.
Alpha Poynter,
I did wrong by you.
My family owes you blood.
Here’s where you can find me to collect.
He’d scribbled his address. And that was it.
I knew the words of a man who had given up when I saw them, and they hit something deep within me. A sort of commiseration right along there with the hatred and the rage.
That was a confusing mix, to say the least, and even though I was a short walk from his home, I still had no idea what I was going to do.
The wolf and the wounded part within me wanted to rip. To tear. To get my family’s vengeance weighed in blood. But there were other parts of me that…
Weren’t quite sure.
It wasn’t too late for me to get back in my car and drive away. By being here, I was opening a door to a past trauma that I had been workingreallyhard to heal from.
But then that option evaporated when a door opened in the distance, and I saw a man step out onto his porch.
Even with my enhanced senses, I couldn’t quite make out his features clearly, but I didn’t need to in order to know it was the man from the clearing. I’d only seen him in his human form as he drove off in my car and when he was covered in blood with a medical bracelet stuck in his eye, but I could recognize him from miles away.
Shit. Retreating definitely wasn’t an option now.
I didn’t need to scent the air, but I did, confirming that it was the same wolf that had kidnapped Giselle.
Charles’s brother. The brother of the wolf who had taken away everything of mine.
Not that long ago, I would have ripped him limb from limb. Let him carry on his brother’s legacy even into death. But I was a different wolf now. A different alpha. I wasn’t healed, but I was healing.
