Lindsey arched a brow, pouring a double for both of us.
After I’d taken my shot, Lindsey said, “You’re going to have to talk to him. You know that, right? And cut it with the ‘but he’s human’ crap. That’s not what’s really going on, is it?”
“You didn’t see what happened to that hiker,” I replied, shaking my head. “It happened on my watch. And what happened to Jeremy…”
Before I could stop it, memory tore through me. Jeremy, Thierry, and I all locked in combat with three nightmare creatures, each of them covered in vines and black viscous fluids that burned the ground. The creatures were impossibly strong. Jeremy, in wolf form, going down. The monster getting behind him and pulling its claws back—
I moved to spring to his defense. But I knew—deep down, Iknew—I wasn’t fast enough or strong enough to help him.
And then, an instant later, I was being picked up and thrown. Then the awful solidity of the evergreen tree as I slammed into it hard enough to black out.
I was already crawling toward him as I came to. Thierry fed Jeremy his blood and begged him to wake up. All three of the monstrous creatures from the Otherworld were dead at Thierry’s hand. He must’ve gone berserk.
And my best friend—the guy I’d known, loved, and sometimes hated since we were kids—was lying there on his back, naked and pale, his chest covered in blood, and not moving.
Gone.
I was right there and I hadn’t been fast enough to stop them from killing him, despite having fought monsters from the bleeds all my life. I’d been too distracted with my own life-or-death struggle, too focused on my own monster.
But the thing that kept me up at night was wondering if I hadn’t fought viciously enough because deep down, I hadbelievedthat Jeremy couldn’t die. Partly because he’d always been so strong and in control. Or maybe because he’d found his true mate—vampire or no—and the universe wouldn’t take that away from him. Especially not after what had happenedwith Ian, his previous mate. Or maybe it was because Jeremy had been my closest friend for our entire lives and the idea of him dying in some random monster attack, even a formidable one, was like thinking the sun might randomly decide to move backward: an impossibility of nature.
And maybe that was really what had gotten him killed. Maybe I would have fought harder if I had let the possibility of his death berealfor me.
“What happened to Jeremy wasn’t your fault.”
I swallowed the guilt, not wanting to argue with her about it. But the whiskey did nothing to prevent the chill that swept through me. “I already like him. Harris, I mean. What if I’m handed this gift—my destined person, something most people never experience, even though I don’t deserve it—and then I lose him?”
The way I lost Jeremy.
I didn’t need to say that part aloud. I figured we both understood.
Before Lindsey could reply, two of our regulars—Jess and Charles—sauntered in.
“We need beer. We’re celebrating tonight!” Jess announced, holding up her left hand to show off the diamond sparkling on her finger. “Charles finally did it! And I said yes!”
Behind her, Charles was beet red and beaming from ear to ear in an aw-shucks way that would have been completely adorable if I had been in any other headspace.
“Well, screw that, Jess!” Lindsey said, recovering first and grinning back at them. “Just a beer won’t do! How about a beeranda shot?”
Jess grinned, practically bouncing on her tiptoes in excitement. “Hell yeah! We’re getting married!”
Lindsey busied herself with the customers and I’m pretty sure I must have said all of the things I was supposed to say,given that I saw these folks every single day: congratulations, when’s the wedding, how did it happen, all of it. But the moment the words left my lips, they were just as quickly forgotten. I was on autopilot, lost in my thoughts.
Harris was a fuck of a lot more breakable than Jeremy had been. And being a werewolf—hell, even being thealpha—hadn’t helped my friend when the monsters had attacked.
I hadn’t been able to stop it then. And I wouldn’t be able to stop it now.
CHAPTER SIX || HARRIS
Alone in the cabin, I took stock. Reed was a werewolf. He’d been imprinted on my brain as the warm and sweet guy I’d met at Thierry’s wedding, but he was behaving kind of like an asshole. Though I was reasonably sure that was an act.
But he’d made it clear he wanted me to leave.
That was insane, right? He was my fated mate. While I wasn’t quite sure what that meant yet, the bond between us was undeniably there. Why the hell would he not want to explore what that meant?
And I’d kissed him. My first kiss with a man. And it had been…
Nice. Better than nice. Until that moment, the idea I might be bisexual or pansexual or something along those lines had seemed like an academic question. A faraway notion that might’ve been true, in a very abstract way.
