‘And you’ll tell me what happened?’ Kit carelessly lifted my bags and chucked them into the boot of his car. If I hadn’t suspected he was a werewolf already, I had pretty clear evidence now.
I looked around again. Still no sign of Callum. ‘So long as you promise not to judge me.’
Kit slammed the boot shut. ‘Why would I judge you?’
‘I’ve been a colossal idiot.’ I walked over to the car.
Kit pursed his lips. ‘I’m fairly certain there’s more to it than that.’
He climbed into his Mini. I stood on the passenger side.Desperately, I searched the rolling hills. In the distance, the sea raged in one direction and the still waters of the loch glittered in the other. Except for wind-bent trees swaying in the ever-present breeze and goats frolicking in the long grass, there was nothing.
‘Bye, Cal.’ I didn’t know if he was in listening distance, but I hoped his wolfy skills were powerful enough that he’d be able to hear me. ‘I’ll miss you.’
I couldn’t say anything else. I cried so much in Kit’s car as we drove down the mountains that he grabbed a spare scarf from the back seat and passed it to me. He only cringed a little when I blew my nose on one corner.
He couldn’t have been too disgusted. Once he bundled me into his red cottage and up the stairs to the cosy flat above the bookshop, he held me. The comfort was good, but reminded me of whose arms I really wanted wrapped around me.
That wouldn’t happen again. No matter how painful it was, I had to face that things with Callum were over. We’d had fun, but that was all it was to him. He wanted me to leave the island. Only I had caught feelings.
I hadn’t learnt my lesson in the way I’d planned when I came to Doughnut, but I finally accepted that romantic relationships would only result in heartbreak for me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CALLUM
Ithought I knew loneliness.
Almost my entire family was murdered. My sister had been kept from me by guilt and shame. I pushed away my pack and lived alone in the mountains. I habitually went days, if not weeks, without seeing another person.
All of that had nothing on what I felt now. Or perhaps I’d forgotten what loneliness was like. I’d worn it across my shoulders like a heavy blanket, one Aster had lifted away.
I’d assumed that when he left, my life would fall back into the familiar patterns I’d adopted since I fled into the mountains. I expected pain, but I couldn’t have prepared for this.
This was beyond pain. Beyond longing and wishing.
My whole being ached as Kit ferried a sobbing Aster down the mountains. I’d stayed still while Aster packed, my face securely pressed into the ground as I knelt with my arms tight around my torso. If I moved, I’d run and tug him into my arms and never let go. I wouldn’t allow myself to be that selfish.
I’d assumed that after an hour or so of deep anguish, the sadness would lift and I would go on with my day. Instead, I stayed on the mountainside until a goat headbutted my ribs. I groaned, then rocked back onto my heels.
If not impossible without serious magical intervention, I would have assumed my healing powers had switched off. Every muscle, every ligament and joint, screamed in sharp pain. All my body wanted to do was dash down the mountains after Aster, but I wouldn’t let it. I made myself stand, made myself walk to the cabin. Inside, I didn’t look at all the spaces that had been so recently occupied by Aster’s things. I stumbled through to the bedroom. On the bed was a jumper carrying his scent. I pushed my face into it and hours later cried myself to sleep.
I thought I would recover as days passed, but they were torture. Aster returned to the mountains each morning, the whining Mini announcing his arrival. He didn’t park up outside the cabin. He left Kit’s car further down the road and walked between his examination squares.
I didn’t follow him. Didn’t avoid him. Didn’t do anything. I huddled on the side of the sofa he’d favoured and listened intently to him breathing. He spoke to the goats, muttered to himself. At the end of each day he walked back to the car and drove down the mountains.
Five days after Aster left, my phone rang as I was thinking of making dinner. The previous days, I’d eaten hunks of bread and random vegetables. I needed something more substantial, but all food became tasteless mush in my mouth.
Before Bonnie’s ringtone could lodge itself in my head, I unearthed my phone from between two books on my bedside table.
‘What?’ I didn’t bother to erase any of the misery from my voice. Bonnie would be able to sense it, even across the miles separating us.
‘What the fuck have you done?’ she growled. ‘Aster has just been here for dinner and he told us he’s been living with Kit the last few days, that he’s not taking the job on the island.’
‘You shouldn’t have meddled,’ I snarled, uncowed by the displeasure of my Alpha. ‘You’ve made everything worse.’
‘How on earth was arranging a job for the man you want to have biologically impossible babies with the wrong thing to do? Please explain this to me, dearest brother of mine, because I am struggling to do the maths here.’
I shook my head. ‘Aster can’t stay. He’s got a life to go back to.’
