Alone.
The word echoed in his mind, triggering something deep in his chest, something that growled and shifted and wanted.
“No,” he said aloud to the empty office, and the growl subsided. Barely.
He set the file aside and pressed his fingers to his temples. He’d barely slept. The dream had been too vivid, too real—running through the forest under a full moon, his muscles bunching and releasing with a power that made his human form feel like a cage. The scent of pine and river water, the rush of wind against his skin, the pure, savage freedom of it. The moment when his control slipped, and Hyde took over completely. In the dream, he’d thrown back his head and roared, the sound echoing through the mountains as he claimed his territory…
His hands clenched on the desk before he forced himself to relax them. It was just a dream. Hyde was contained. He’d spent thirty-six years learning to keep his other side locked down, channeling that primal energy into discipline. He ran every morning. He meditated every evening. His schedule was rigidly controlled and he avoided strong emotions like a man avoiding a lit fuse.
It worked—or at least it had worked. Lately, the dreams had been getting worse, both more frequent and more intense. Last week he’d woken in his garden, with dirt under his fingernails and his shirt torn. He was certain that Hyde had been running, and he’d had no memory of letting him out.
The clock ticked forward. Six-twenty—time to run. He needed to burn off the restless energy thrumming through his veins before the first patient arrived. The basement held his treadmill, his weights, and the punching bag he’d replaced three times in thelast year. Physical exhaustion was the only thing that quieted the beast.
He stood, rolling his shoulders, and headed for the hallway. The old Victorian house that was both his home and his office was silent around him, except for the floorboards creaking under his weight. He’d inherited the house and the medical practice from his father, who’d inherited it from his father, all the way back to the original Dr. Jackson who’d arrived in Fairhaven Falls in 1847 with a leather medical bag and a secret. A curse, his father called it.
He took the stairs down to the basement two at a time. The air was cooler here, the scent of earth and stone replacing the lavender Petal insisted on using upstairs. He flipped the light switch and the bare bulb illuminated his makeshift gym—a spartan space designed for one purpose only.
He stripped off his shirt, tossed it on a bench, and stepped onto the treadmill. His reflection stared back at him from the darkened window—pale skin, lean muscle, blue eyes that flashed green when he wasn’t careful, when his control slipped.
He hit the start button and began to run. The first mile was easy—his breathing steady, his muscles warming, and his heart rate slowly climbing. He increased his speed on the second mile, and the restless energy began to bleed away, channeled into the rhythm of his feet hitting the belt. By the third mile, his mind had quieted enough to think.
Chloe Bennington. Pregnant. Alone. Hyde stirred again at the thought, and he pushed harder, his speed increasing until his lungs burned. She was simply a new patient.Her living situation is not my concern,he told himself but the words felt hollow.
The Thornhill cabin was isolated, set back from the main road, and surrounded by dense forest. Beautiful, if you liked that sort of thing, but also potentially dangerous, if you were a woman on her own. There were creatures in those woods—Others who lived by instinct rather than reason. Most of them would never harm a female, but…
She wasalone.
The treadmill beeped a warning, letting him know that he’d hit eight miles. He forced himself to slow, to bring his heart rate down, to breathe through the irrational urge to shift into Hyde and run to that cabin, to stand guard, to?—
Stop.
He killed the treadmill and stepped off, his legs shaking. This was exactly the kind of thinking that got Hydes into trouble—that primal fixation that was impossible to reason with once it was fixed on someone. His father had warned him never to let Hyde get attached.
His father had failed his own advice. Victor had been twelve when he’d watched his mother pack her bags, her hands shaking, her face pale. His father had stood silently in the doorway, as she’d walked out, his hands clenched so tightly on the doorframe that the wood had splintered. She’d sent him letters for the first year. Then nothing.
I couldn’t live like that, she’d written in one letter.Always wondering when he’d lose control. Always afraid.
Even at twelve he’d understood, but it didn’t make it any easier to be left alone in a house with a father who slipped further and further into madness every day.
No.He would not become his father. He would not let Hyde dictate his choices and his future. He’d built a good practice here and regained most of the trust his father had lost. He helped people, and that would have to be enough.
He checked his watch. Seven-thirty. Petal would arrive any minute, and he still needed to shower. He took the stairs back up to his private quarters on the second floor, then stood under the hot water longer than necessary, letting the heat work into his muscles. He tried not to think about his eleven o’clock appointment. She was just another patient.
Alone.
“Shut up,” he muttered to Hyde.
The presence in his chest rumbled, amused. It knew. It always knew.
By the time he’d dressed—white shirt, charcoal trousers, shoes polished to a mirror shine—he heard Petal bustling around downstairs. The scent of fresh coffee drifted up, followed by the sound of her humming something cheerful and off-key. He descended the main staircase and found her in the kitchen, arranging files on the counter with the precision of a military general.
“Morning, Dr. Jackson,” she said without looking up. Flower petals—marigolds today—were woven into her bun, bright orange against her dark hair. “Coffee’s fresh. First appointment’s at nine, but Mrs. Clarkson always arrives early, so expect her at eight-forty-five.”
“Thank you, Petal.”
She glanced up, her sharp brown eyes taking him in. “You look tired.”
“I’m fine.”
