“Tell me about your childhood. What was it like for you growing up?” I ask Ryan while he simply glares at me with that unwavering stare of his. Most clients avoid eye contact, but not him. Even through the computer screen, it’s raw and powerful, making me feel like I’m the one in the spotlight. Like he’s trying to figure me out.
But I don’t squirm under the intensity. I don’t waver. I use the silence as a tool, allowing the seconds to tick by until he’s the one who needs to fill it.
“It was fine. Normal,” he says eventually.
“In my experience, no one really has a normal childhood. Just normal for them. Can you tell me more? Who did you go to when you were upset? How was tension managed in your household?”
Ryan leans back against the white wall behind him, letting my words settle in. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”
“What would be the point in that?”
That gives me the barest hint of a smile, a minuscule lift of his lips at the corner before he pushes them back into a straight line. “Growing up was actually pretty great. We lived near woods and a lake where I swam with my friends in the summer. My parents seemed to have a happy marriage, up until my mother left and my father had a… mental health crisis. He stayed in the area but stopped working and moved out of the family home. I was twenty-four, but Sofia was only fourteen, so I took over the business along with raising her. At least as much as a stubborn teenage girl would let her older brother, anyway.”
“That was a huge upheaval. It sounds like your entire life changed overnight.”
He lets out a huff of breath, as if that’s the understatement of the century. And maybe it is. He wasn’t a kid, but he obviously wasn’t ready to run a company or be a parent to a teenager.
“It did,” he agrees and my heart pitter patters with excitement at his acquiescence. He’s starting to let me in. “But it’s not like I had a choice. I had to get on with it. There were hundreds of sh—people relying on me. I was raised to do this job. Born to do it.”
“Sounds like a lot of pressure,” I say softly. “And it sounds like there wasn’t much space to process any of it. You’ve been in survival mode.”
He breathes out slowly, and his shoulders slump, as if he’s never even had a chance to consider any of it. He probably hasn’t. No wonder he’s resistant to therapy—something that has the potential to highlight all the cracks in the walls he’s built to protect himself.He saw how much his mother leaving destroyed his father, so it’s no surprise he’s afraid to meet someone. Afraid to give another person that kind of power over him.
“What about now?” I ask, gently probing and keen to make inroads while he’s not shutting me down. “Are you still in survival mode? Still putting everyone else above your own needs?”
“Yeah, I guess I am. It’s what I was raised to do.”
“And what if you had a choice?”
“If I had a choice…” he trails off as he contemplates his answer. “Maybe the only choice I have left is her. Finding my perfect partner. Maybe that’s why I won’t give up. Why I won’t settle for less than what’s been written in the stars.”
I smile softly at him, allowing him the space to process the words he has just spoken. For a man who had no interest in being in therapy, he’s already making strides. He’s already buying into the process. And that’s all I can ask for.
Chapter Five
Ryan
Two weeks later
The walls are closing in on me. Tonight is my first full moon locked in this cell. The fact that I’m the one who threw away the key does little to soothe my wolf’s rage. The silver embedded in the bars and walls tamp him down but don’t block him out completely the way the silver cuffs did. I can feel his anger, his intentions, and his desire to run and hunt.
But he isn’t able to take over. He can’t overwhelm me or claw his way out. As long as I stay here, everyone will be safe. Still, his incessant growling and gnawing at me remain ever present, and it’s wearing me down. Up to now I haven’t agreed with him, but tonight that’s different.
Tonight, I’m torn between wanting to stay here—where I’m not a risk to anyone—and wanting to run. The moon calls to me, as it does to all shifters. It’s the night we are closest to our animal, the night the entire pack, from teenagers who have just connected with their wolf to our oldest members, shift and run together. I usually lead them racing through the woods and around the lake until mated pairs split off from the group, and unmated adult wolves hook up to blow off steam together.
Not me though. I haven’t looked at a female in years. Neither my wolf nor I have had any interest in anyone. As Alpha, I’ve had plenty of offers, but no one I wanted. No one my wolf would even consider. And now he pushes me to get out of here, to hunt, to find my mate. Like it’s that easy. Like I haven’t spent years looking for her only to come up short, time and time again.
“Hello, hijo,” Dad says as he walks into the hallway outside my cell. “Figured you could use some company tonight.” He holds up a sleeping bag and damn if that doesn’t soften my icy heart. He hasn’t joined the pack runs since everything with Mom. Instead, he goes off on his own. As far as I know, it’s the only time he still shifts into his wolf’s form.
“I’ll be okay; you should be out there. You should run.”
“There will be other full moons,” he replies, rolling out the sleeping bag in the cell next to me.
“I don’t know if there will be many more for me,” I admit. The silver will only keep my wolf at bay for so long, and I can’t stay locked up forever. My mind won’t survive it. I need the connection to the pack. I need to shift. But I can’t have those things without endangering everyone.
Dad lets out a low respiration and nods his head while looking down at the sleeping bag before him. I can smell guilt rolling off him in waves.
“I know that a lot of what is happening to you is because of your mother,” he says. “And me. I’m so sorry for that. I put too much on you. But some chosen bonds do work out. We were the exception, not the rule. Isn’t there anyone you would consider?”
