Chapter Twenty-Six
The room seemed hollow with the absence of Jordy’s belongings. Lily was happy for her roommate’s promotion, and subsequent move to a larger room, to a section of housing reserved for the senior Ops staff. Although she barely ever saw Jordy in the room, it was still nice knowing that another occupant was there. She only hoped that the next person who moved in would be as friendly, although she was grateful to have the housing at all.
The bed that Jordy had been in was already kitted with a new set of sheets and a different bedspread, and all of Jordy’s horror movie posters had been removed from the walls. The desk and Jordy’s nightstand were cleared of her effects, and Lily bet the bathroom would be similarly devoid of the girl’s belongings.
“Looks like it’s just you and me, Mr. Calabash,” Lily said, picking up the small stuffed bison and holding it close. There was something comforting in feeling its soft shape against her. It had been the only thing she had left from her father. The father that had disappeared when she was five.
Apparently it was her favorite toy as a toddler, and she slept with it throughout her grade school years. Now it reminded her of her mom as well, and the strength the woman had displayed at the end. She held the bison tighter, grateful that Lucie had packed for her, that it was something Rey had allowed her to keep. He had even helped repair it, she recalled. It was the only half-way decent thing she could remember about him in the recent years.
But aside from that, she didn’t miss him at all. No, the heaviness in her heart had nothing to do with Rey, and all to do with the tall man with the auburn hair and hazel eyes who filled her waking thoughts. She pressed two fingers lightly on her lips, with the memory of their last kiss.
He had unlocked so much in her, the discovery that she had the capability to feel…whatever this was that she was feeling, and the intensity of it that was at once exhilarating and frightening. Had she ever felt this with Rey? She had certainly never found herself wanting so badly to feel his lips on hers, his arms around her. To feel his breaths against her hair, hear his heart beating, as she pressed her cheek against his chest.
Even if that were gone forever, if Col never looked at her again, he had given her this gift, the knowledge of this potential for feeling.
Lily kicked off her shoes, and lay down on her bed, still dressed in her chemise and overdress, curling up with Mr. Calabash tucked under her chin, trying to tamp down the tendrils of fear that flickered up. Perhaps it wasn’t such a gift after all. Despite the clear departure from her past life, what if Col was the only person who could make her feel the way he did?
She would soon move on from here, and her heart would be broken either way, it seemed. Screwed either way. She would either be in pain from having to interact with him the way he was today, for however many weeks longer it would take to have her car repaired, or she would be in agony at having to turn her back on someone who had made her senses come alive.
She had asked him to kiss her! Lily had never been so forward before, yet something about him pulled at her, drew her into its orbit and refused to let her go.
She stroked the worn, pilled fabric of Mr. Calabash’s head. “Poor thing,” she said, her fingers catching on the many stitches that laced the stuffed animal’s body, “you’re more patchwork now than anything else, aren’t you?” She snuggled with it, glad that no one could see her with this toy, not certain whether to laugh or cry.
And yet.
She had the disquieting feeling that she was being watched. Her mind had to be playing tricks. It was the disorientation of her room being emptied of Jordy’s belongings, of her routine being unsettled, of her earlier reflection on Rey and her having to move on. Or the fact that this was her first night by herself, where she wasn’t expecting her roommate to come in at any moment.
It had to be.
And then she heard the scratching at the door.
* * *
He had thought his wolf form would free him. He was wrong.
His wolf form had betrayed him. It had led him here, after a dash through the woods in the moonlight, his instincts taking over. Col’s wolf was a silent predator in the dark, the leaves cushioning the pads of his large paws as they sped through, uncaring of the branches and twigs that grabbed at his auburn fur.
At last his wolf slowed, the beast at its destination. The earthen ground had given way to asphalt, the stars hidden in the glare of artificial lights that bathed the area, highlighting the lack of trees and wild growth.
This area was quiet, with only sounds of the human residents with their dwellings, living side by side yet cut off from one another. As he was, of late, with hisBredhren.
Why had his wolf brought him here? He forced himself to turn away, and a pulse of energy glimmered around his furred form, before it swept outwards, revealing his muscular, human frame.
He was wearing the clothes he had been in before he left the house, the heather grey tee shirt that clung to his torso as a second skin, the dark blue denim jeans that fit his large form perfectly.
He looked around where he stood, not recognizing why his wolf had stopped in this particular location. Col rubbed the back of his neck. There was no one else around outside, with only parked cars on one side, and a bank of rooms to the other.
It was another sign that he was losing control of his faculties, his wolf now even more unpredictable than his human form, landing him in the most arbitrary of sites, scratching at inexplicable spots. Perhaps that was why theVixarhad sent him out, and now he would have to report that in both wolf and human form, he was becoming increasingly erratic. To a point where it was perhaps undeniable: Col’s usefulness as aWaryeorhad come to an end.
As a final mockery, his head jerked up as a scent appeared as if out of the ether.
It grew stronger, and its potency revealed itself.
Col was helpless, ensorcelled, as the fragrance of night-blooming flowers beckoned to him, ensnaring him as it neared. So much so that he was unprepared as the sudden sound of locks turning, hinges squealing for want of grease, the sudden flood of interior light reached him.
She stood in the doorway, her eyes blinking in disbelief.
“Col?”
