ChapterTwenty
She didn't texthim as soon as she got home. Instead, Camille rushed into the office attached to her suite and frantically dug for the letter she’d angrily discarded amongst the paper copies of all the official, death-related paperwork she had to file in the family vault at some point in the future.
It took her several agonizing minutes to recall where she'd stuffed it. In a fit of ire, strung out on grief, she took the letter Viktor left her and shoved it into a plastic bag before,apparently,dropping it behind several boxes of replacement staples and ballpoint pens in a drawer of the desk.
Sweating a little, Camille sank onto the Persian rug. Her legs splayed in front of her as she eyed the sealed letter in her hands.
Her name stared up at her in slanted, angular handwriting she would recognize anywhere.
She found it partially stuck under the front door the week after her mother died. At the time, she’d been nearly inconsolable and exhausted and furious at the world. The sight of Viktor’s handwriting had nearly compelled her to shred the damn thing as soon as she saw it, but Camille couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.
Instead, she stashed it away, unable to face the reasons why she couldn’t bear to be rid of it.
I hear they write love letters.
But was it a love letter? How did she know it wasn’t just another condolence card, or something equally disappointing? Why did it matter, anyway? What would she do if it was? What would she do if it wasn’t?
Camille gnawed on her lip as she considered the ramifications of opening the bag. She didn’t think his pheromones would stick around on the paper long enough to be a problem, and if they had, they would be in such negligible quantities as to not make much of a difference to her, all things considered.
Besides,an insidious, yearning voice whispered,you aren’t even really trying to avoid him anymore, are you? You didn’t even take an ice bath this morning.
Camille swallowed hard. This wasn’t making a choice. This was just… knowing all the factsbeforeshe made a choice.
Sliding the tip of a claw into the seam of the plastic bag, she parted it with a quietsuuuuuhpsound. Immediately, the air in front of her was ever-so-faintly perfumed with his musky scent.
Heedless of the consequences, she sucked in a deep breath. Camille’s slitted pupils expanded to swallow nearly her entire iris before they contracted again.
Gods, he smells so good.
Luckily for her self-control, the thrill was as short-lived as his scent.
Shaking off the brief wave of goosebumps that broke out across her skin, she delicately extracted the letter with the tips of her claws. It seemed veryViktorto use a regular paper envelope instead of, say, a text or an email, and even moreso that he wouldn’t bother properly closing it. He simply tucked the flap inside the envelope rather than peel the paper off of the complimentary adhesive strips inside.
Suppressing a reluctant smile, she gently pulled out the slip of lined paper from inside. It looked like he’d torn it out of a notepad, though this time he took the care to tear off the jagged edge on the perforated line.
It was a single page, folded in half, and inscribed with blue ink in his usual slanted hand. Holding her breath, Camille scanned the writing quickly once, to determine whether it was what she dared hoped it was, before she blanched and read it a second time.
Cam—
I’m not very good with words, but I need to try harder because you deserve all of the best ones.
I know that right now you think the world is ugly and dark. I know that you’re grieving, and that grief doesn’t ever really end. I know that you are hurting by yourself.
I’m here, Cam. I’ll always be here. I’ll be here when you need me and when you don’t. It was the biggest mistake of my life letting you face this world by yourself.
You’re my heart. My very first pack. My first and only love.
I adore all that you are and all that you will be, with or without me.
You are not alone, Cam. I’ll come when you call, and if by chance you never do, I’ll love you every day anyway.
Yours,
Vik
Camille couldn’t catch her breath. She couldn’t see the page through her tears. When she set the letter oh-so-gently aside, she barely felt it leave her trembling fingertips.
She sat there with her back pressed up against the desk’s drawers for nearly a half an hour before she sniffled, wiped her eyes, and sent Viktor a simple text.
