I hear the way her heart thuds in her chest, the sting of adrenaline in the air, before I hear her scream.
I move before I even think to, catching the way she staggers back, and then I see it.
My hand finds the back of her head and pulls her face towards me, turning her away before she has more than a glimpse of a dead deer that’s kind of ripped apart in a way too gruesome to linger over. I’ve seen this sort of thing plenty in the woods, often smaller animals, often not half-eaten like this. Not decimated. Not done with such a violence that goes beyond simple prey.
“I can’t look.”
Elise has never had the stomach for so much as a teen-rated horror movie.
I put my hand over her eyes without thinking and feel her eyelashes flutter closed against my palm. She curls in towards me, the bridge of her nose pressing hard into my chest.
Even though I can bear to look at the gory mess behind the bar, its existence leaves me unsteady, my stomach turning at what the deer means.
There are only a few werewolves in this territory, and the majority of them are standing right here with me. Any of uscould have done this, even me. I’d convinced myself I had such control over my wolf that I’d forgotten what I was truly capable of. And this side of myself was terrifying and dangerous to Elise.
It’s every reason I couldn’t let her know what I was, why I had to leave her side so many nights, why being with her at all was stupid and dangerous. It had been reckless of me to endanger her by living together.
She could never know. I don’t know that I could live with myself if she looked at me and saw that I was a monster. It was bad enough now that she was so close by, when my wolf was hunting, stalking, preying.
I swallow, and it’s only a moment before the others are hurrying out. I don’t know if they were able to hear our fight over the din inside, but there was no way the three of them didn’t hear her scream.
I’ll never shake that sound for the rest of my life.
Laura pries Elise out of my arms, helping her cover her eyes on her way to the car.
“What was it that Mom called it? Coyotes?” Aiden offers with a low whistle when he sees the deer, and Logan shoots him a disapproving look.
A few other people start to shuffle out of the bar, also gawking at the overkill, someone immediately throwing up.
“There’s certainly something on the loose,” Logan says. His stare holds on me, as I glance between Aiden and him. Both their faces are a little too serious.
There’s definitely a werewolf turning feral in this town, and it can only be one of us.
13
Elise
“Between the two of us,” Aiden announces, “we’ve come up with the Emotional Support Smoothie.”
He holds out a cold, plastic takeout cup, wet with condensation on the outside, like he’s personally snagged fire from the gods for me and is aware of how cool his gift to me is.
It looks vaguely chocolate flavored and only somewhat frozen. I might have to put it in the freezer for a bit first.
More than anything, it marks just how long I’ve been sitting on the hood of Aiden’s Jeep with Shawn and Laura, not talking. Apparently long enough for the brothers to walk a few blocks and back.
I glance between them. Logan, carrying a few pizza boxes, nods from a few steps behind Aiden, a quiet endorsement of the Emotional Support Smoothie.
I’ve seen them go through this kind of thinking process a number of times, so I’m familiar with the whole logical path that must have gone down between them: Logan posing that they should cheer me up after what happened at the bar, Aiden quickly chiming in with what always makes him feel better—a protein shake with a little chocolate syrup on the top (something he’s come into the kitchen to make a number of times), Logan coaxing the idea into something a little less gym-bro-y.
It’s both heartwarming and heart-breaking.
I feel cared for in a way I need more than anything, and it hurts. These are the people that pretended I didn’t exist for years, who never bothered to meet me. But clearly Shawn’s brothers are caring. I know they are. I’ve seen it. They’ve been my family while I rebuilt my life out here.
Shawn frowns at all of it. I guess he’s not used to me liking his family more than him.
He’s been rubbing my back sporadically between pacing the length of the front porch. I hate that I’ve been letting him. It’s too easy to seek solace in Shawn. I keep trying to remind myself not to.
“Really guys, it’s ok. I’m not traumatized, just a little...” I struggle for the right word, but nothing fits. Rattled? Nearly hurled at the sight of that much blood?
