AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Mom always told me when it happened, I would know. She couldn’t explain how exactly, but she said it would be like this light. In my head and chest. The clouds would part and there would only be sun where there’d once been shadow.”
I blinked rapidly against the sting in my eyes.
He shifted in his seat. “And I guess it was like that. But I wasn’t in a position to do anything about it. I was different than I was before I left with my brothers and Gordo. Harder. Less trusting. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want you. I was too focused on trying to keep my family alive. I didn’t trust you, especially given all we’d been through. I told myself that I was pissed off about it because you were a stranger and you’d carved yourself a home in the hole we created when we left. It took me a long time to realize I was jealous too.”
I looked back up at him. “You were?”
He shrugged. “A little. I didn’t know what to make of you. You were always… there. There was this one day before the hunters came and tried to take over the town. It was just you and me. We were in the kitchen, and you said something that made me laugh. It took me a moment to realize I was the only one laughing, and when I stopped, you were staring at me like it was the first time you were seeing me. After that, you always found some reason to stand near me.”
“Wow,” I muttered. “So smooth. I don’t know how you were able to resist.”
His lips twitched. “I don’t know either. It was weird. Good weird, but weird all the same. And I didn’t know if I wanted to do anything about it. I knew who I was, and I knew who you were, and I didn’t know how to make it work or even if I wanted to.”
“The whole ace thing?”
He snorted. “Yes, Robbie. That was part of it.”
I hesitated. “I didn’t… force you?”
He shook his head. “No. Never.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
“It is.” He leaned forward, resting his hands on the table again. It wouldn’t take much for me to reach over and take his hand. I didn’t. “I know you can’t remember, and that’s not your fault. But you can’t blame us for remembering. That’s not something we can control. We shouldn’t have done what we did. Or what we didn’t do. We should have believed in you more.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked, needing to hear it from him. “If we were together, why didn’t you trust me? Why didn’t you do everything you could to get me back? I may not remember what we had, but I know I would do everything I could to get to someone I cared about. Nothing would have stopped me.”
He was at a loss for words.
I nodded. That was all the answer I needed.
Then, “I did.”
“What?”
“I did,” he repeated. “Gordo and me. We looked for months. And then Ox found out what we were doing, and he helped too. It took a long time, but we spread the word through the packs we trusted. This network we have, these wolves and witches and humans who believe in the Bennett pack, they kept an eye out, ears open, for any hint. Any rumor. Any sighting. It took eight months, but then we found you. In Caswell. There was a wolf who said he’d seen you in the compound. He was visiting, and he recognized you from your picture. He said he tried to talk to you, tried dropping a couple of hints, but there was nothing.”
I couldn’t think of who this had been.
“And it hurt,” Kelly continued, “because he said you seemed happy. And I almost convinced myself that maybe what we’d thought was right, that you had betrayed us. But then I remembered something, and I knew it couldn’t be true.”
“What did you remember?”
“The way you loved me.”
It was a punch to the stomach.
“You loved me,” Kelly said softly, “without reservation. Without expecting anything in return. You loved me, and I knew that you wouldn’t stop, not unless you were forced to. And I knew then that I wouldn’t stop, no matter what it took.”
“I wish you had,” I said hoarsely.
“Why?”
“Because you’d still be a wolf. You wouldn’t be stuck like you are. And now we can’t fix you, and it’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault.”
I scoffed.
