It sounded so magical, so transcendent, so…romantic. “If that’s true, how could Remy walk away from what we had?”
Her mother’s smile was sad. “Only Remy knows the answer to that, my dear.”
Triana sighed. “Which is your way of saying I should find Remy and have that conversation about how we feel about each other, huh?”
“It is,” her mom agreed. “If you want to be in his life, and you want him in yours, Triana, you need to fight for it. If you love him, don’t let him walk away or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
Getting up, her mother pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then took Triana’s plate and walked over to the sink, leaving her to ponder how she was supposed to fight for a man who had made it clear he wasn’t interested in falling in love again.
* * *
Triana was poking voodoo dolls with a pricing gun, wondering what effect the little plastic pieces might have on future victims of the dolls, when the tinkling bell above the shop door rang. She didn’t have to turn around to know it was Remy. She knew it was him because she could feel him.
She set down the pricing gun and slowly turned around. He stood just inside the doorway, looking as bad as she felt. His eyes had dark circles under them and his face was haggard. His uniform was dry though, at least.
He gave Zane a nod, then looked at her. “Can we talk?”
Zane pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning against, using his finger to mark his place in the book of spells he’d been reading. “I’ll be outside.”
“No, stay.” Triana glanced at Remy. “Let’s go for a walk. I’ve been cooped up in here all day.”
While she loved her mother’s shop, in all honesty, she could use some air. Even though it had stopped raining, Triana grabbed her coat, slipping it on before walking out the door Remy held open for her.
“Where to?” he asked.
“Nowhere in particular,” she said. “Let’s just walk.”
Between the cloudy night, light fog, and nearly empty streets, it felt like she and Remy had the city to themselves as they walked past Jackson Square and headed toward Woldenberg Park. She used to love going there with her father when she was little to watch the street performers and jazz musicians, so it seemed somehow fitting she and Remy went there to talk. If nothing else, maybe her father’s spirit could give her some insight into the workings of a werewolf’s mind.
Despite the decorative lamps along the paved walkway, darkness shrouded the area, but they managed to find a dry seat on one of the park benches. For a while, they both just sat there, gazing out at the Mississippi River, watching the water go past. Triana had so many thing she wanted to say, but she wasn’t quite sure how—or even where—to start. Beside her, Remy seemed to have the same problem.
“I’m sorry I scared you last night,” he finally said.
“I’m sorry I was scared.” She turned her head to look at him. “How did you become a werewolf?”
Triana held her breath, afraid to hear the answer. Her mother had said people who became werewolves had gone through a traumatic event that triggered the change. Loving Remy meant loving all of him, and that included his werewolf side. So while she didn’t want to know what horrible thing had turned him into a werewolf, she needed to know.
He started to speak, then cleared his throat and began again. “It happened when I was a marshal. Remember the other night when I told you I’d been involved with someone?”
Triana really didn’t want to know about the other woman in Remy’s life, but she nodded. “The woman you said things didn’t work out with, right?”
“Yeah.” He took a breath and let it out slowly. “The reason it didn’t work out is because I got her killed.”
Whatever Triana had expected him to say, it wasn’t that. “What happened?”
Remy stared out at the river as he told her how he and his partner/lover had tracked three escaped prisoners to a farmhouse in Idaho. To hear him tell it, his arrogance had not only been the thing that sent them into the place without backup or even a plan, but that had also gotten Jess killed and turned him into a werewolf.
Triana’s first instinct was to point out that Remy wasn’t responsible for his partner’s death, that it had been the escaped convicts who killed her, not him. But she was sure other people had told him the same thing more than a few times. He still held himself accountable—maybe because he was the naturally heroic alpha her mother had told her about. He would always risk his life for others and always blame himself when he failed to save everyone.
“It ate at me for a long time. It still does in a lot of ways, I guess,” Remy continued, hunching over to rest his forearms on his thighs and stare down at the ground. “For months after her death, I kept wondering why she wasn’t the one who turned into a werewolf instead of me. Why didn’t she live and I die?”
Tears burned Triana’s eyes. This story would have been sad to hear anyone tell it, but listening to the man she loved recount it was pure torture. She moved closer, wrapping her arm around him.
“I hated being a werewolf,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “Somehow, in my messed-up logic, it was the werewolf’s fault for changing me instead of Jess. So, to get my revenge on the beast, I started doing dangerous, outrageous stuff in an effort to get myself killed. I went after every bad guy on my own that I could find, but no matter what I did or how many times I got shot, the werewolf wouldn’t let me die.”
The tears she’d been holding back ran down her face. The idea of a world without Remy in it was one she couldn’t bear to think about.
“When the direct approach didn’t work, I started drinking—a lot,” Remy continued. “I couldn’t stand what I was, so I figured I’d drink the wolf into oblivion every night. People who know about the subject will tell you that a werewolf can’t get drunk because our bodies break down and eliminate toxins like alcohol faster than we can drink it.” He snorted. “It’s not something to brag about, but I disproved that particular piece of werewolf lore. We can get drunk; we just have to be committed to the task. Some guys walk into a bar and line up a bunch of shots, then knock them back one after the other. I did the same thing, except I’d line up full bottles of whiskey, then drain them one after the other until I was so drunk I couldn’t see straight.”
