For now.
I descended the mountain to the fenced part of our land, chasing focus.
Lida.
Guilt consumed me for leaving her. It was witchcraft that a devil whispered to me that it had been for the best. That she deserved better than to live with the man I became when I did not dothis.
It was beginning to get light, giving weight to the creeping realisation that I had spent most of the night slumped against a tree. More spiked remorse threatened the detachment I’d prioritised over everything else. It broke through, and I stumbled, jarring my damaged hip back to life, a pain that still lacked the ability to make me angry enough to fight.
It is you that lacks.
Always you.
But for reasons I could not fathom, Lida loved me anyway, and the need to get back to her kept me moving until my house was so close I felt the sun-warmed tile of the floors against my cheek—I felt that I was not alone, an instinct that had saved my miserable life already tonight. A sixth sense that dropped me to the grass and had me reaching for a phantom weapon.
Lida. My girl was gentle, but she was not above ripping the femoral artery of any man stupid enough to cross who or what she felt compelled to protect. And she was trained to win—to dodge guns and blades. Tosurvive. But she was as mortal as any living thing, and the fear that gripped my heart was visceral enough to choke me.
She’s not in the house. You left her with Katya, remember?
I tried, but the memory didn’t sit right. I sniffed the air for gunpowder and blood. Strained my ears for sounds of a fight. I heard nothing but birds. Smelt nothing but the dawn of a spring day, but still, something was... different.
The fence was live again. I descended further down the mountain, to the gates, unlocking them with my fingerprintand slipping through before they fully opened, disabling the mechanism, shutting them down.
It was not a soundless operation, but enough shadows lingered to cover me as I stalked towards the land that surrounded my house and the weapons cache behind the annexe.
Another fingertip swipe and I was armed, my palm moulded to a Glock. I had not touched a gun since Locke and I had broken out of a Crow prison, but as much as I felt born to die right now, this... it came easy to me. Second nature perhaps. Destiny.
Or maybe I just really loved my dog.
You still left her.
Urgency quickened my pace. I scoped the back of the house and rounded the east side where the sun was rising above the ocean. Anticipation lit my veins, but it was different to what had driven me away from my home. Brighter—almost luminous, as sandalwood clouded my senses.
Do not think of him now.
It was a moment—theonlymoment—when such a thing should’ve been easy. But the closer I got to the front of my house, the sharper the scent became, dizzying me, stealing the gravity of my pace, slowing me to a criminal stroll, as if the animal that lived within me had stood down long before the message reached my brain.
You are not a wolf.
No.
I was not.
But as my front porch came into view and I laid eyes on my dog—on Lida, relaxing in the early sunshine with the object of every good dream I’d ever had, the primal emotion that ripped me in two hurt too much to be human.
To bereal.
My footsteps slowed, my scratchy gaze zeroing in on long limbs, tatty boots, and inked arms. On dark hair that was longer than I’d feared, grown out and shaggy, obscuring the soft lips and ebony stare that would send me to my broken knees.
It cannot be.
I still clutched the Glock. Lida glanced my way, drawing the attention of the man scratching tattooed fingers through the thick fur at her chest.
That obsidian gaze found me. The gun fell to the ground and madness finally swallowed me whole.
“Asher?”
[ 8 ]
