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The wounds would be slow to heal.
It was four hours before I could drag myself back to my car, and my extremities were numb from the night air while my circulation system focused on returning blood to my healing chest. It was another two hours before I could drive home, and after that, I spent three days in bed.
But I made it, and I would need to return to see the wolves again.
Hours later, I awoke, and the dreams which were memories of the first time I had met Dante and Bane swirled in my head. The werewolves were gone when I regained consciousness, and their last act of mercy had been to bandage my chest where they had destroyed my mark. I didn’t bother to peel back the gauze to see the damage. I trusted them to have done what they needed to do, and judging by the way my skin felt like it was going to split open as I stood, it certainly seemed as though the pentagram had been removed correctly.
That was it. There would be no returning to Hell for me. If I died on Earth, I died for good.
For over a decade, I had seen the werewolves at least once a month. Aside from the howling and screaming, which after time lost its ability to control my desires, Dante had come up with another idea. They allowed me to lose control, to turn into my full demon form, and I would wander the woods for hours while they guarded the perimeter and made sure I didn’t leave the area.
They were there to take me down if I got out of control.
It worked, allowed me to stay in my true form safely for a period, which gave me the strength to keep balanced while I was in human form.
But that was over now, and I no longer had their protection or help. I couldn’t blame them. They had taken a risk to help me at all, and I appreciated the time they had, but we weren’t friends. That much was always clear.
Now I was on my own, and until I found another means of control, I was even more dangerous to be around.
Which meant I couldn’t risk allowing myself to be anywhere near Jacob, let alone entertain the idea of dating.
Does personal sacrifice make me any less of a coward?
Probably not.
JACOB
This was getting out of hand, and I couldn’t let it drag on much longer.
Dad had mistook my keen attitude in the meeting the other day with Mike as my growing interest in the business, and how could I tell him otherwise? Especially after the way my date with Mike had turned out—an absolute train wreck of a night. Which was beyond a pity because he was an absolute gentleman and had all the right levels of domination once we were alone. I still hadn’t figured out what I’d done so wrong that Mike needed to turn me away as harshly as he did, but at least he had the sense to look ashamed of his behavior. It was difficult because I was certain there was some deep trauma and pain behind his actions, and the implication his scars were caused by an ex was more than I could take.
So while I sat in my cubicle, working on yet another spreadsheet to show a client for the fourth time if he continued his same spending patterns, then he was going to be bankrupt within two years, my thoughts wandered. Because I was still drawn to Mike, perhaps even more than before. When I met him, he was a dashing man in an expensive suit, someone who could show me a good time and be good company, but now there was more, and I wanted to know what his pain was.
Iwanted to protecthim.
However, he hardly seemed the type to let himself be protected.
My phone buzzed in my desk drawer, and while we weren’t supposed to use our personal cell phones during office hours, I suspected no one would care much if I checked a text message. I had to resist the urge to groan and slump back into my chair because the message revealed Dad had made an executive decision that I was to hand deliver the second draft of the proposal back to Mike. Dad and his people had been over it, and the plans would go back and forth between them and the architecture firm several times, perhaps over months, until the final design and detailed specifications were settled.
Sounded like a riot.
Dad liked to work with paper rather than email, and Mike humored him by printing out the designs on large rolls of paper and delivered them rather than sending an electronic copy.
The lie I’d built around myself simply couldn’t continue, and soon I would have to come clean with my father about what I wanted to do. The problem was I wanted a planbeforeI had that conversation. I wanted to be able to go to him and say,Dad, I want to be a mechanic. I’ve found a shop I can rent. I’ve saved this amount of money, and I have a business plan.
Because I’d spent too much time already in denial about how much I truly hated my job, and while my business and accounting experience would come in handy when it came to running my own shop, I couldn’t see myself chained to a desk for the rest of my life. Neither here nor working with Dad.
I could’ve told him no, and flicked back a text telling him I was too busy and couldn’t get away to do the delivery.
But I wanted to see Mike for two reasons.
I wanted him to look me in the eye after how he had flipped out the other night, and perhaps it would draw from him not an apology but an explanation. Perhaps, like me, he would want to try a date again. Another date, another dinner, something more casual. Maybe I could take him out in my car, show himmypassion because I certainly didn’t want him to think I wanted a sugar daddy.
Secondly, because I wanted to be sure this chemistry I felt—the draw to this man—was more than simply my memories of him and my libido playing up and making it seem more than it actually was. Like when you share a flirty moment with a stranger in a bar, and you build it up in your mind the next day until you’re convinced you had some sort of fairy-tale moment and you were long-lost soulmates from another life.
When really it was only flirting.
Apparently, absence makes the heart grow stupid as well as fonder.
