Those words were my undoing. And not in any romanticway.
I began to cry, hundreds oftears.
If he knew what I’d done to his father, he wouldn’t think me veryperfect.
He wouldn’t want to kissme.
He wouldn’t want to touchme.
“Hey.” He slid me onto my side, then brushed his knuckles over my face to dry my wet cheeks. “Hey. What’s goingon?”
A savage sob raked up my chest, erupting from my mouth. I threw the back of my hand against my trembling lips and bit the thin skin to silencemyself.
He combed a lock of hair behind my ear. “Tell me what’s goingon.”
The words shivered on the tip of my tongue but never made it out. I couldn’t tellhim.
I tried to turn my face away from his, but he forced me to look athim.
“Do you also think my mother cheated on my father?” I croaked. It wasn’t what had set me off, but it was troubling me almostequally.
The tension burst from his taut features in time with his breaths. “You have his dimples. And hissmile.”
Were dimples and smiles proof of geneticaffiliation?
He caressed the side of my neck. “Is that all that’s botheringyou?”
I swallowed before I lied, “Yes.”
“Good.” He smiled, the slow scrape of his nails agonizinglypleasurable.
I shivered, and not because of how good his touch felt, but because I knew, with unfaltering doubt, that the next time his fingers would come in contact with my neck, it wouldn’t be to caress it, but to snapit.
Chapter Forty-Three
Liam left a little after midnight.I’d pretended to have fallen asleep so he wouldn’t soil his lips further on mine. The guilt of having let him kiss me was tenfold-worse than the guilt of having druggedHeath.
In the gray hours of the morning, glum thoughts turned my mind the same dull shade as the sky. I got up and walked onto my balcony. A warm wind combed through the tall evergreens, making them shiver, making me shiver. My skin itched to shift, and I let it. I pulled off my tank top and sleep shorts and transformed into my other self, and then I jumped over the balcony and raced away from the inn, not caring if any guest had awakened. They all looked forward to wolf sightingsanyway.
The lavender sky was no longer littered with stars, and the air was calm, abuzz with the beating wings of oblivious things. By a stream, I ran into a herd of mule deer. Even though I meant them no harm, their perky ears twitched at my approach. When their large, shiny eyes zeroed in on me, they pranced away in a blur of gray-brownfur.
I watched them leave, like everything else in mylife.
Only Evelynremained.
Evelyn…
I needed to get back to her. I needed to speak to her. But what would I tell her? I hadn’t decided what to do. To leave or tostay?
I stared at thehorizon.
Icouldrun.
Right now, I could run. As a wolf, I’d cover a lot ofground.
But Liam could run too. I had no doubt he’d track my scent with ease. Even if I had hours on him, his legs were so much longer than mine that he’d catch up. And thenwhat?
A fly buzzed by my ear, droning loudly. I flicked myears.
