I fought it.Barely.The shift pushed halfway through, my hands warping into something between fingers and claws, my spine curving, my jaw elongating before I shoved it back.Sweat poured down my face.My whole body shook with the effort of containment.Pain ripped through me, the half-shift worse than completing it would have been.
And then, finally, the wolf retreated.
Not in submission.In grief.I felt it curl into some dark corner of my soul and begin to howl, a sound of loss so profound it made the human part of me want to weep.
I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor.My hands were shaking.My face was wet.I hadn’t even realized I was crying.
The room was too quiet.Too empty.Her absence was a physical thing, a void where warmth had been.I could still smell her everywhere, but the scent was already fading, already mixing with the stale air and the cold ash of the dead fire.
The collar lay where it had fallen.I reached for it without thinking, my fingers closing around the chain that still held her scent.Even now, even soaked in grief, she still smelled like everything I’d ever wanted.
The bed behind me.The sheets.The pillows.Everything smelled like her.Like us.Like the happiness I’d just burned to the ground.
I should strip the bed.Air out the room.Erase every trace of her presence.
I couldn’t move.
The sheets were still warm.I could see the indent where her body had been, could see the darker stains where we’d made love.Evidence of the future I’d just murdered.
I sat there on the floor, holding her collar, breathing in her scent, and let myself feel what I’d done.The emptiness.The loss.The knowledge that I’d just destroyed the only good thing I’d ever had.
She’s gone.She’s gone.You made her go.
The wolf’s grief was a mirror of my own.For once, man and beast were in perfect agreement.We had done this.We had chosen this.And we would have to live with it forever.
I’d told myself it was protection.I’d told myself it was necessary.I’d told myself she’d survive this, that she’d hate me and move on and build a life that didn’t include a monster who could tear her apart.
She would find someone else.Someone human, who could love her without the constant fear of what lived beneath his skin.Someone who could give her children without the risk of passing on the curse that ran through my blood.
She would be happy.Eventually.Without me.
The thought should have been comforting.It wasn’t.It felt like swallowing broken glass.
But sitting there in the wreckage of everything I’d wanted, the only thing I knew for certain was that I would never be whole again.
30
LENA
The world passed by the car window in a blur of gray and green, and I felt none of it.
Parsons drove in silence.He hadn’t said a word since I’d climbed into the back seat, hadn’t offered comfort or condolences or even a tissue for the tears I couldn’t seem to stop.Professional to the end.Just like his employer.
His employer.The word felt wrong.Too small for what Raphael had been to me.
What I’d thought he’d been.
I pressed my forehead against the cold glass and watched the trees rush past.Late winter morning, the sky heavy with clouds that couldn’t decide whether to rain or simply hang there, sullen and gray.Everything looked washed out.Faded.Like the color had drained from the world along with everything else.
My throat felt raw where the collar used to sit.I kept reaching for it without thinking, kept finding nothing but bare skin.He’d taken it back.Unclasped it like it meant nothing, like the weeks of wearing it had been a joke I wasn’t in on.Let it fall to the floor like garbage.
Like me.
The contract is fulfilled.The debt is paid.We’re done.
His voice echoed in my skull, cold and flat and utterly devoid of the warmth I’d heard the night before.Had that warmth ever been real?Had any of it?The way he’d held me, the way he’d looked at me like I was precious, the way he’d whispered my name against my skin.Had all of it been performance?
It was adequate.
