“I hope that doesn’t make you mad,” Ember said. “If I was wrong to back off, I’m sorry.”
“It’s just…out of character for you.”
“It’s not like I didn’t try, but by that point all you’d say was that he wasn’t worth talking about. I figured it was something you and Tai had to work out.”
Claire let herself into her condo and dropped her purse at the door. She wasn’t angry with Ember. She didn’t remember specific conversations, but she could imagine herself shutting Ember down. Maybe Ember had been right three years ago. Maybe pushing harder would have only made Claire shut down harder.
Or maybe she could have had the last three years with Tai.
Either way, Ember wasn’t responsible for the lost time. Tai was responsible for his part, withholding the truth and walking away, but Claire could forgive him for that. He’d been terrified, ashamed. She had to accept that most of the responsibility was on her. She had believed the worst of Tai. She had disbelieved Ryker when he tried, without breaking a confidence, to help mend the rift.
“Claire? Are you really mad?”
“No.” Claire set her phone on the coffee table, sprawled on her couch, and gazed up at the ceiling. “Ultimately it’s on me, Em. We’re okay, I promise.”
Ember gave a little sigh. She could be anxious if strain entered their friendship even temporarily, but her anxiety came from an insecure childhood. These days she was so much better, more settled and sure of herself.
“I’m curious though,” Claire said. “You’ve met him one time. What made you think we’d be good together in the first place?”
From the far distance on Ember’s side of the call, a chorus of howling began. A crackle of energy snapped down Claire’s spine, readiness to fight, but Ember gave a satisfied sigh.
“There go the wolves,” she said with a smile.
Claire would never understand her friend’s comfort with the other apex class, but if she were human, maybe she wouldn’t bristle so much at the sound of them, the smell of them, the sight of them. Or maybe if she lived in Harmony Ridge, Tennessee with a wolf pack down the road, she’d get used to the eerie howling on full moon nights, used to meeting a random wolf in the grocery store. Leslie didn’t mind them, and she’d verbally slay anyone who spoke anti-wolf bigotry in her presence.
“Anyway,” Ember said, “I just know when I saw y’all together, it was clear to me. Like…yes. Here’s Claire’s match. I mean, plus you were into him. That was obvious too.”
“Obvious?” Gosh, how transparentwasshe to people who knew her?
“To me, yeah, but I don’t think Tai could tell. But let’s be real, the man is unnaturally gorgeous. I can say that, and I’m the happy mate of a very hot wolf.”
Claire laughed even as Ember’s words set a pleasant chill across her shoulders. A soft hum escaped her as she pictured… “His eyes.”
“Uh-huh,” Ember said, a warm tease in her voice. “Go on.”
“Tai is…just beautiful. His grace and his speed, the way he moves. The way his mouth quirks up on one side before a full smile. His hands, his fingers, there’s strength and precision in everything about him, everything he does. Gosh, I love to watch his hands on a piano. And he plays violin too, I found out. And guitar.”
“Nice.”
“His eyes are like…I never want to stop looking into them. That blank thing he does is just a defense mechanism; when his guard is down, his whole heart shows up in his eyes. He has so much heart, Em. I had no idea back then. His heart is so deep and full of so much…” Claire’s voice caught.
“Is this where it gets weighty?” Ember said quietly.
“Do you know what a bloodfiend is?”
“Um…no? Doesn’t sound familiar.”
Ember would have no reason to know. Vampires didn’t spread the knowledge to humans, not even best friends, not without reason; and other than Claire, Ember’s life was planted firmly in the world of the wolf pack.
“I need you to keep this in confidence,” Claire said. “You can’t tell Aaron.”
“Because he’s a wolf?”
“Even if he were human. Tai gave me permission to tell you, but only you.”
“Okay. You have my word.”
Wolves and their mates were bonded as intensely as vampire eternals. For Ember, not sharing something this important with her wolf would feel unnatural. “Thanks, Ember.”
