Because he was his father’s son. Because despite what Flora had said, if Hyde broke free he would destroy everything he valued.
He climbed the porch steps and let himself in, locking the door behind him, the click of the deadbolt echoing in the empty hallway. He hadn’t had any patients this afternoon and Petal had already gone home. The house felt abandoned.
He climbed the stairs to his living quarters and found everything exactly as he’d left it—neat, ordered, sterile. His books were organized by subject on the built-in shelves that lined one of the walls. His medical journals were stacked precisely on the coffee table. There wasn’t a dish in the sink or a cushion out of place. It was a scientist’s house.A lonely male’s house.
He looked down at his hands. They were still shaking, and Hyde still pressed against his control, frustrated and restless. He needed his treadmill and an injection of the suppression drug he’d been working on. But first, he needed to remember why he had to remain in control.
He walked down the hallway to the small back bedroom and opened the closet. On the top shelf, behind a tidy collection of winter sweaters and extra blankets, sat a metal lockbox. He pulled it down and looked at it for a long moment before dialing in the combination for the lock.
The box was full of photographs. There was one of his mother, young and smiling, holding baby Victor. There were family dinners and Christmas mornings, birthday parties and a rare, special fishing trip. But beneath them were the others.
His mother’s face, older now, wearing an expression he had learned to recognize—careful neutrality masking fear. Another where she was pressed against the wall while his father loomed over her, his eyes blazing green. The back door torn from its frame where Hyde had broken through. He had taken the photographs in secret, determined to prove to someone—anyone—that they needed help.
But who did you call when the monster was also the town doctor? When he saved lives by day and terrorized his family by night? And when part of you still loved him and remembered when he was different?
Another photograph—this one showing his mother’s bruised wrist before she’d quickly covered it with her sleeve. She’d claimed she’d fallen. Everyone had believed her, or pretended to. It had been taken two weeks before she left. She hadn’t told himshe was leaving, hadn’t tried to take him with her, and he knew why. He carried his father’s blood, his father’s curse.
I’m not him, he told himself, but he’d lost control in the store. He’d growled at a werewolf over a woman who wasn’t his and could never be his, who shouldn’t be anywhere near him. What if he’d hurt Jasper, or frightened Chloe? Except she hadn’t been frightened. She’d followed him outside and smiled at him. She’d even kissed his cheek. His hand drifted back to that spot.
She doesn’t know. She doesn’t understand the danger.
He closed the lockbox and returned it to the shelf. He would just have to stay away from her outside of her appointments, and he would keep those brief and professional.
Alone, Hyde protested.
“She’s safe alone. Safer than with us.”
Needs—
“It doesn’t matter what she needs,” he said harshly to the empty room. “We’re not the answer.”
Hyde went silent, sulking, but he ignored him, heading for the basement where his treadmill waited. He’d run until his legs gave out, then inject enough suppression serum to quiet Hyde for a few hours. Maybe then he could sleep without dreaming of warm brown eyes and vanilla scent. Maybe then he could forget the feel of her lips on his cheek, soft and trusting and utterly, devastatingly wrong.
But even as his feet pounded the treadmill and sweat soaked his shirt, even as his muscles screamed and his lungs burned, one thought circled endlessly through his mind: Chloe was alone in that cabin. Alone, pregnant, with winter coming and no one tocheck on her. And despite everything—despite his father’s legacy and his own fears and the very real danger he posed—some treacherous part of him wanted to be the one who made sure she was safe.
The part that was still standing by her car, his fingers touching his cheek where she’d kissed him, watching her cross over to the Town Hall. The part that whisperedminein both Hyde’s voice and his own, until he couldn’t tell which was which anymore.
Control, he reminded himself, pushing harder, running faster. But for the first time in his life, the word felt less like a shield and more like a cage.
CHAPTER 8
Victor’s house still smelled of lavender and that subtle underlying spice that Chloe was sure belonged to him. She’d arrived ten minutes early for her Thursday evening appointment, which meant she had plenty of time to sit in one of the old-fashioned chairs and pretend to read a parenting magazine while her heart attempted to beat its way out of her chest.
This is ridiculous, she told herself.He’s your doctor.
Except he wasn’t just her doctor. He was the male who’d carried her out of the basement as if she were made of glass. He was the male who’d growled at a werewolf for flirting with her. The male whose eyes had flashed green with possessive fury. The male whose cheek had been warm under her lips when she’d kissed him.
She touched her fingers to her mouth, remembering the kiss, replaying as she had every day since then. Every day and most nights, when her dreams had gone far beyond the brush of her lips against his cheek. She’d acted on impulse—something the old Chloe would never have done. The old Chloe had been quiet,careful, anxious to avoid conflict or disappointment. But the old Chloe had also stayed with Travis far longer than she should have, ignoring the red flags and swallowing her hurt because making waves seemed worse than being unhappy.
The new Chloe—the one who’d packed her car and driven to a town full of monsters to start over—was determined to trust her instincts. And her instincts said that Victor Jackson, for all his rigid control and careful distance, was a good male. A lonely male. A male who needed someone to see past the walls he’d built.Someone like me.
“Miss Bennington?” Petal appeared in the doorway, clipboard in hand. The brownie wore a sweater covered in dancing acorns today, her dark hair twisted into an elaborate braid. “The doctor’s ready for you.”
Her stomach did a complicated flip as she followed Petal down the hallway to the exam room. She told herself she knew what to expect. She knew that he would be professional and thorough. She knew that his hands would be gentle when he checked her blood pressure and his voice would soften when he asked about the baby. But as soon as she stepped into his office and their eyes met, she forgot how to breathe.
He wore dark trousers and a pale blue shirt that brought out the color of his eyes—at least one of the colors of his eyes. When their eyes met, his flared green for one brief, incendiary moment before he looked down at the chart in his hands.
“Miss Bennington,” he said coolly. “How are you feeling?”
