She paused, her knife halfway through a potato, a wry smile on her lips. “You mean about you two bickering over breakfast the other day?Oh,and the continuation outside? Yeah, I heard.”
Embarrassment burned in my chest. “People saw us outside?” I asked, despair circling in my head like a flushing toilet.
“Sweetie, this is areallysmall community. I was going to ask you about it, but you’ve been a little out of it the last couple days.”
I tossed down the peeler. “Shit. I guess I should just get it all out, then.”
I told her about my spat with Eugenia and how Levi had jumped in to help. I told her why I’d gotten upset, and how bad I felt about it now.
“How would you go about apologizing?” I said at last.
Linnea continued chopping. “I’d go knock on his door.”
“That simply?” I asked incredulously. “Walk right up like it’s no big deal?”
“Better to tear the Band-Aid off fast than to let it linger,” she explained.
I stewed on that, then she waved at the door with her knife. “Go on. Get to it,” she said.
“What?Now?” I gaped at her.
Linnea rolled her eyes. “What did we just say? Go rip off the Band-Aid.”
With great reluctance, I stood and smoothed down my clothes, then headed out the door. The entire walk to Levi’s cabin, it felt more like I was trudging a hundred miles rather than a couple hundred yards. It was unseasonably warm, with the temperature hovering in the low fifties, just enough to give off a hint of spring. I didn’t even need a jacket. When I got close to his cabin, I saw his door was open. Frowning, I slowed as I approached. He never left his door open.
Inching up the steps, I glanced in. From my vantage on the porch, I was able to see straight into the living room. What I saw nearly made me turn around and walk away. Levi sat on his couch, staring at the painting of the woman. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of her, and all I could think of was how Levi had yelled when he’d caught me here snooping around.
I took one hesitant step backward before his voice rang out. “You can come in.”
I froze. He hadn’t even glanced in my direction. He was bent over his sketch pad, his hand moving furiously over the paper.
“I smelled you,” he added, eyes still on his paper.
Sighing, I stepped inside. “I came to apologize about the other day. Your door was open,” I said lamely.
“It’s nice out. Decided to get some fresh air,” he said, finally raising his head to meet my eyes. “You don’t need to apologize. You were right.”
The sadness in her eyes made my heart lurch, and I took a few steps forward out of instinct. My gaze landed on the sketch of a wolf’s head hanging low in misery, the moon and mountains in the background.
“I’m not sure about that,” I said. “Either way, I still want to say I’m sorry.”
He smiled sadly. “Fair enough. Apology accepted, and I’m sorry too. I should have let you handle it.”
Now that I’d gotten through that part, I took a seat beside him and asked what I’d been wondering for days. “What happened to her?”
Levi looked at the painting and chewed his lower lip before answering. “Her name was Naphele. She was murdered.”
Whatever I’d been expecting,thatmost certainly wasn’t it.
“Levi… I’m so sorry. What—” I paused, unsure if it was okay to ask, but he saved me from having to make that decision by continuing.
“She was my mate,” he explained, setting his sketch pad aside. “Someone killed her and framed me for the murder.”
“Oh mygod.”I put a hand to my mouth.
He nodded slowly. “I was the alpha of the Idlewild pack back then,” he said. “The elders and my beta banished me. Everyone, including her parents, thought I did it. It gutted me. You can’t imagine what it was like.” He turned to look at me, and that sadness was still etched in his features. “The whole pack you had led and loved and cared for, all believing you would kill the one person you loved more than anything? It broke me in ways I still can’t explain.”
I thought about how it had felt to be shunned and made fun of as a kid. Back then, it had felt like the end of the world, but in reality, only around half the pack had treated me poorly. The rest of the pack had been polite or apathetic toward me. Yet it had drained me. It had caused my depression and sadness. I couldn’t imagine having the entirepack turn on me like that. It also brought up another question.
