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“I called Candace Burns,” Claire said, pulling me from my thoughts.
Despite how annoyed I always got with Claire’s disregard for her safety, I could never quite squelch the pride I felt when Claire talked about her connection to the women’s shelter in Mystic Springs. She was on a first-name basis with most of the volunteers there. And I knew for a fact they looked to Claire as something akin to a saint.
As they damn well should. Because my Claire always took care of people, even when doing so meant she might suffer herself.
My Claire. Not mine. Get it together, Beaumont.
“You can’t save the world, Claire,” I said, betraying my thoughts. The words came out harsher and more annoyed than I had intended.
Finally, I turned to face her. “What if I hadn’t shown up this time?”
Her expression was cold, neutral. She looked nothing like the young girl who had once looked at me with all the awe and desire of a young witch who thought she had found her mate.
“Why do you keep showing up, Jack?”
It was impossible to ignore the subtle changes in Claire over the years. After the day I’d found her in that cabin, I’d been able to trace back every interaction I’d had with Claire with startling accuracy. I remembered the gangly teen that had sat in a classroom as I’d talked to kids about bullying and general safety.
I could now trace every moment Claire’s life had intersected with my own. My mind had cataloged the few times I’d had a reason to stop in the bookstore where she had worked. Remembered seeing her laughing with her friends as they shopped downtown or grabbed a bite at the local diner.
What stuck out about each of those times was how free-spirited and innocent she had seemed then. Now, some of that shine had dulled. The innocence had faded.
“You know why you keep showing up,” she said, pushing past me and making her way toward the kitchen. “It’s fine if you’ve forgotten. It’s fine if you don’t care, but just know that I’m not stupid enough to forget.”
She grabbed a towel from the counter and began angrily scrubbing at the surface. As far as she was concerned, she’d dismissed me.
“You can go now. I’m sorry I bothered you, Jack.”
“Claire,” I began, scrubbing my face when all that fire left me without a damn word to say.
“Lock the door behind you when you leave.”
She tossed the towel back onto the counter, the fabric slapping the surface with the force of the motion. And then she marched back through the hallway and disappeared into her bedroom, the door slamming behind her.
* * *
Shep’sBar and Grill lay on the outskirts of Mystic Springs on Highway 198. It was a forgettable little dive with a bland, stucco exterior. One dirty plate-glass window looked out onto the highway, a bright neon Budweiser sign winking at those who drove by. It was the kind of place where everyone knew your name. Usually, your name was something akin to “asshole” or “hey, motherfucker.”
I didn’t want to go back home. Didn’t want to go home and jerk off until I passed out as I usually did whenever I had been near Claire.
If I’d been a lesser warlock made of weaker stuff, I would have said ‘fuck it’ long ago and mated her. Made her mine. Not worried about whether she hated me later.
But none of this had been done with her consent. It wasn’t fair that she’d had her choice taken away from her by a drug crudely injected into her neck. She deserved that sweet moment when the reality that she’d finally found her mate came over her like a rush of warmth. Not a fake bond that happened in a smelly, dirty cabin as two men lay dead and stinking on the floor. Two men who had abducted her with the intent of one of them raping her and binding her forever.
My “bond” with Claire had been an unintentional side effect of my finding her just when she needed someone the most. That one moment had stolen her natural presentation for her true mate. I’d merely been the wrong warlock at the right time.
Claire Landon deserved far better than that. Far better than me.
The inside of the bar was dark and smoky. Nobody bothered to remind the proprietors that smoking indoors had been illegal for decades. Just like nobody bothered to comment on the fact that a cop was sitting down at a rickety old table and about to get shitfaced. No one here would ask whether I was on duty because no one gave a good godsdamn.
It was exactly the type of place I was looking for.
The waitress who handed me my draft gave me a wink and sauntered away. I grunted a “thank you” when she was out of earshot, too bogged down in my thoughts to realize our interactions weren’t in sync.
“You look utterly morose,” a deep, British voice said, interrupting my navel-gazing. “Personally, I think it’s a terrible look on you. But you’ve got at least three little human females at the bar wondering if they can be the ones to turn that miserable frown upside down.”
Sebastian Cavanaugh took a seat across from me without an invitation. The man was always tailored to perfection. Though I didn’t know how old the warlock was, I suspected we were fairly close in age. His accent suggested we’d shared similar roots. But while mine had been slowly wrenched out of me by years of living in the States, his British accent had seemed to only become more refined.
“How do you know they’re looking at me, Cavanaugh?” I asked, leaning back in my seat and trying to feign interest in the man before me. “According to the dispatcher back at the station, your British accent is the equivalent of werewolf smut and firefighter calendars.”
