Usually, I’d have rolled my eyes at such a question.
“No, but I could have,” I admitted. “And it felt like I had no control, like it was my wolf,” I explained. “I don’t know. I’m fine now. Just needed air,” I told her.
“I’m worried about you. We need to talk tomorrow.” I heard her shuffle around. “Or more accurately, later this morning.” Her voice was all business, meaning I had done or not done something and she was going to micromanage.
“I regret calling you,” I told her.
She laughed and hung up.
I pocketed my phone.
I felt better after hearing her voice.
Sara was good at distracting me with a new problem I didn’t previously know I had.
Wondering what it was that Sara was apparently worried over grounded me in my responsibilities and made it easier to ignore the need to go inside and find Harriet and…
I shook my head again.
No.
Sepher Logistics had paid up. Blizzard would be brought into step soon enough. It was slow, work-wise, for me. What was Sara concerned with?
The light in Harriet’s window eventually went out, and the cold of the night cooled my instincts enough to feel safe entering my own home.
I didn’t know Harriet, not really. My wolf recognised her as mine under the full moon, and maybe a part of me had recognised her as such since I first laid eyes on her.
Everything was fucked.
Sara was in her late forties; she wasn’t going to have any more children, and even if she did, we didn’t have the time to wait a couple of decades to discover their presentation. The Pack needed a clear line of succession that didn’t end with me.
I didn’t even want children. That’s something Hannah and I agreed on. We were going to be the fun aunts or great-aunts, more accurately, whenever Darren met someone and started a family.
He knew I hated it when he called me Auntie. We were more like siblings than Sara and I were, given our age difference.
Andrew was a headache; one I’d never get rid of.
I hadn’t yet managed to accept that I would eventually have to sleep with him.
Sara and the Council had thankfully agreed to a summer wedding next year, and we were to start trying to conceive immediately. I had just under eight months of freedom left. Or rather, I used to.
Since the last full moon, all I could think about was Harriet. She was perfect. The sex last week only confirmed it. I’d never been so turned on, so in that headspace of utter dominance. And she was there with me. My equal opposite.
I had been doing my best to avoid her since she told me to leave her alone. Since I realised that it was impossible to reconcile Harriet with my responsibility to the Pack.
It was impossible.
She crowded my mind and snuck into every thought.
I made my way upstairs, hovering in the space between our respective room doors, listening for her. I thought about knocking, apologising. I didn’t. Partly because part of me was still riled, angry that she would ever claim someone other than me, and I wouldn’t apologise for something so wrong. And partly because I didn’t trust myself when it came to Harriet.
I went to bed instead.
***
Chloe was knocking on the door before I had even had time to pour myself coffee.
I had barely slept; dreams of the last argument I had with Hannah had morphed into Harriet and tormented me all night.
