“You—you do?”
“Your story and Ezra’s match. Your parents’ story was…a lot to swallow. We had some suspicions heading out here, but we have to check every time.” He cleared his throat, glanced to Robert and back to her. “Your father’s language made it pretty clear this is about his objection to your boyfriend’s apex status.”
“Not apex. Wolf. If I were dating a vampire, my mom would think I was ‘one of the cool kids.’” She ducked from Robert’s gaze, shame pooling like tar in her stomach. “The pack’s privacy is all broken now. I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault,” he said. “Anyway between the pack and the PD, there’s been a decent rapport for a long time.”
“Wait, so…y’all knew?” she said to the cops.
“That Lunar Lane is inhabited by a lupine community and has been for generations?” Sergeant Kelly’s smile was the first from anyone since Willow had come outside. “Not news to the Harmony Ridge Police.”
“Oh.” One less cost of her father’s hatred. She’d take it.
“I think we’re able to wrap this up,” Kelly said. “If we need anything further, it can wait until morning. But I’d expect this matter to be dropped going forward.”
“Thank you,” Robert said.
“And I know you lupines can hear for miles, so… Ezra, if you’re interested in Brandon Fitzgerald being charged with assault, just say the word so Robert here can let me know.”
For a moment all five people on the porch—too many people on the porch—were quiet, and then Robert shook his head.
“He wants to leave it alone.”
“If he changes his mind, it would help to know sooner than later. All right, well…I think that’s that. Y’all try to have a good night.”
As the officers left, including a third man waiting in one of the squad cars, Willow’s body began to shake. By the time their taillights faded down the dirt road, her teeth were chattering.
Ann wrapped her in a hug. “There now.”
“Ezra. I want Ezra.”
“He’s on his way,” Robert said. “Loping full-speed.”
“Ezra.” It was the only word she could say.
And then he was there. Bounding up the porch steps, scooping her up, burying his face in her hair, rumbling his relief from deep in his chest. Willow clung to him, buried her face too. His red button-down shirt wrinkled up against her cheek. His body was solid and safe and so warm. Ann whispered something to him, and then the screen door opened and shut. Ezra and Willow were alone except that his dad could hear everything they said.
She had to say it anyway. “It’s too much. What happened tonight, what happened to you. It’s too much.”
Ezra didn’t speak. Instead his chest rumbling continued. He sat on the porch swing, and she snuggled on his lap. But he had been degraded, insulted, punched, and now interrogated. His body bruised, his character questioned, his private feelings trampled. It was too much already, and what if it didn’t stop here?
“I must have been wrong. I must have been wrong about everything, because you can’t be with someone whose family treats you like this. Ez, you have to break up with me.”
“No,” he growled.
“Then—then do I have to do it?” The question tore a hole in her heart. But if he needed her to, if a wolf’s intense attachment didn’t allow him to end a relationship no matter the circumstance… “I’ll do it if you can’t. For your sake, I’ll…I’ll break us up. Now. Before I’m the reason something else happens to you.”
“No,” he said, harsh this time.
“Yes. I have to. So…okay. We…” The words seemed to fight coming out of her mouth, but she forced them. “We’re done. We’re over. There.”
Ezra’s head fell back, and he let out a broken blend of human groan and canine whine. She’d never heard a more awful sound.
A sob broke from her. She was the cause of that sound. Her fingers dug into his chest. She was trying to hold onto him while trying to let go. That wouldn’t work. Wasn’t right. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to do. Whatever I do, you’ll be hurt.”
He seemed to try to speak to her, but he couldn’t. What was she doing? Hurting him more in order to stop hurting him. If only she had a choice. Oh, please, to be able to choose him, but her parents might do anything from this point. To hurt Ezra. And she wouldn’t be able to protect him. She was only Willow.
A gentle instinct, maybe the voice of fate if such a thing existed, whispered to her. Whispered to the analyst inside, to the quaking little girl, to the whole of Willow’s heart.
