“It’s not impossible, because it already is.”
He kissed alternate cheeks three times and headed for the door.
He would call Maria to help Nonna, then he would call Nico and the airport, and be in the air in an hour.
He was digging out his cell phone as the elevator hit the lobby and the doors opened when the scent of roses flooded his nostrils.
“Oh my god, I’m hallucinating,” he said as his wolf snarled, and he looked up to see Catarina standing in the lobby of his building.
The elevator doors began to close, and he leaped forward, jostling until they opened again and he could stagger out, cell phone still in one hand.
She was dressed like she was going for a hike in the woods in plaid, boots, jeans, and the backpack she wore when they met.
God, he loved her.
“Hi,” he said.
“Sorry!” she said and spun for the door.
24
“Wait!”
Cat was already stopping herself. She couldn’t run away again.
She spun back around. “Sorry!”
She hated that she was shaking as he dashed toward her and held out the hand still holding his cell phone. He cursed and stuffed the phone in his pocket.
She knew she was the one to push him away and that he wanted her here, but she’d still been terrified of this moment, to see disgust or disappointment in his eyes.
It had replayed over and over in her head as she’d gotten on the plane and throughout the flight until she wasn’t sure if it was a needless worry or a genuine vision, and she should get on the next plane out of there. But the thought of going back to that cabin alone, where she’d been holed up since she’d regained consciousness, was untenable.
The twins hadn’t kicked her out again. The lightning strike—that’s what the town was calling it—had at least shaken them out of their conviction that the solution lay in messing with ancient, incredibly powerful spells they didn’t understand.
But she couldn’t look them in the eye. She couldn’t go back to the bookstore and look through the catalogs and not hear his voice, bewildered, talking about the ecliptic. She missed him with every cell in her body, and a voice within her kept screaming that she needed him.
She’d walked away from her life again and went back to the tiny cabin in the woods to see if the voice would get quieter, but she went to exactly the wrong place, sleeping in the bed that still smelled a little bit like him.
She had asked herself whether living in some skyscraper in New York was really going to be worse than this. She’d been so afraid of losing herself, but she’d already given up her life for him—not to have him—but because the fact of him was more important than their fear. Whether she was with him or not, she could not stay with the family who fought against who he was.
So why not be with him? What was she trying to prove?
She’d arrived in New York that morning and tracked him through the city with half-coherent visions, since his address wasn’t in any directory anywhere. She just hadn’t expected him to be in the elevator. She hadn’t braced herself and had immediately run.
“Sorry!” She realized he’d been standing in front of her, not touching her, with a hand outstretched for who knew how many minutes.
“Why are you sorry?” he asked quietly.
“For running.” She took a deep breath and faced him fully. “For telling you to run.”
“I was coming back to you.”
“What?”
“I was on my way to the airport.”
“Mateo, no! You don’t have to do that for me.”
