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“Fuck, I know it. Not good if he shuts everyone out. Also not good if that witch is doin’ something to disconnect him from us.”
“Nope,” I agree. “Either way it’s not good. What’s your sense after watching her all day?”
He takes a minute before he speaks. “I don’t know a hundred per cent yet, Joel, but maybe 75 percent sure Riley should get his ass back here and claim his woman.”
“Hm.”
“Riley Savage is a good fucking guy,” Linc grunts.
“The best,” I agree.
“And after what he’s been put through, I can’t help but think he’s got a sweet reward coming. Maybe she’s that reward.”
“Could be he gets the pain and reward in the same package,” I say.
I probably can’t compare what I know about this pain to Riley Savage, though in my mind I feel like I know more about it than most. Used to think I didn’t know what was worse: thinking the woman I loved was dead or knowing she was living her life with another guy.
It’s been said repeatedly that Susan wasn’t meant to be mine. I haven’t kept close tabs, but do know she’s now got four kids with him. Word is she’s happy. But I haven’t ever fully been able to wrap my head around that. I’ve dreamt a hundred times of the night I watched that bastard carry her away from me, fear in her eyes.
And it’s made this whole situation of watching my council alpha brothers find their mates strange. I haven’t spent a whole lot of time around the two that mated with their mates, but what little I have has had me in a state of reflection about Susan and me.
Was our bond as strong as theirs? Pack lore says it wouldn’t be, and it’s said that young love feels so intense because of hormones mixed with infatuation. We all had girlfriends. Some serious. Some not so much. I thought Susan and me were serious. I figured one day I’d know we were forever, that she’d be mine. And when I found out she wasn’t, I didn’t think I’d ever feel anything as strong as what I felt about her. Time will tell.
13
Erica
“What do I do, Aunt Lyrica?” I plead, gripping handfuls of my hair as I once again plummet toward the river. The angry river that can’t wait to swallow me whole. “How do I survive this?”
“Beautiful girl…” her voice, a comforting whisper inside my head, encourages, “I’m sure you know, deep down, that you have to wait. Wait. Endure. And then finally reap your rewards. So many are coming…”
Rewards? I haven’t earned any where Riley Savage is concerned. I know by the hatred in Riley’s eyes that nothing I could do would make up for what I did to him.
So I drown. I drown in my dreams again. And just like the other thousand times it happened, it feels real. It’s terrifying. Even though I know it’s not real, even though I know I deserve it, my every instinct tells me to fight it as my lungs fill with gallons of water.
***
Throbbing pain behind my eyes is palpable as I open them and squint at the too-bright sun. Sometimes I wake up just before plunging into the angry water. Not today. I struggle to catch my breath as I pull the quilt over my head, my sleep-terror state fading, giving way to my bleak reality. Another morning here on my bus. Another day in the village of Arcana Falls, the place where my deepest fantasies as well as my most vivid regrets live, breathe, and ache.
I often talk to my deceased aunt in my dreams, hearing her voice like a narrator over the vivid images, sometimes images like this morning with the sensation of falling and drowning. Other times, it’s a psychedelic-looking kaleidoscope I see behind my eyelids in those few minutes somewhere between asleep and awake. I ask questions. She answers in non-answers, politely imploring me to search within myself, to summon my own wisdom.
Wait? Endure?
If only I’d had some wisdom seven years ago.
Do I throw myself at his feet, hook my arms around his ankles and beg him to listen to me, enduring the contempt in his eyes?
Wait for him to tire of ignoring me, finally demanding what I’m sure he must be itching for?
A severing. A permanent separation from the mate bond he would’ve felt and grieved for the last several years.
He’d finally be free of the pain I caused him.
I dash away the moisture leaking from my eyes as I throw the covers back and crane my neck to look out the netting surrounding my bed. I watch the wolf beside the store get up and stretch, before shifting back to his male form.
Lincoln. Keeping watch for his friend and pack mate, Riley.
Lincoln squats to pick up a steaming mug on the pavement by the door.
