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“After your fey friends healed me and took me back home?”
“Yes. Start from there.” I gave his hand a quick squeeze and let go.
He shook his head. “Only for you.” He stared up at the night sky quietly for a while, and I looked up, too.
The moon was waning, but still beautiful. I wanted to watch Chris, but if he needed space to answer my question, I would give that to him.
“I was lost,” he said after a while. His words were soft and quiet. “For a long while. I didn’t have a pack and I didn’t want one. Except for some visits to the nearby town, I’d never left my pack’s land before then. All I knew was what you saw. So, I kept to myself. Partly out of fear of other people, but also fear that I’d hurt anyone I got close to. I didn’t know if there was something bad in me that—”
“There’s not.” I was ending that question immediately. “I wouldn’t have saved you if I’d seen anything bad in you.”
He looked at me. “I know that now, but it took me a while to really believe it. You know?”
I nodded. I did know.
“So, I wandered.” His gaze went back to the night sky. “Most of the time I stuck to the woods.”
I should’ve checked on him more or done something more. He shouldn’t have had to live like that, but I knew he’d stop talking if I showed even the tiniest hint of pity. “And how did that go?”
> “About how you’d expect.” He laughed. “I was a mess. I hunted in my wolf form. Found shelter when I needed it. Eventually, I was in my wolf form and I ran into another Were.”
“Who?”
“Adrian.”
“Ah.” So that was why Adrian knew. “He’s a nice one.”
“The best, but I ran away. He came back with more Weres. I was terrified, but his Alpha shifted and talked to me. It was the first time…”
“The first time what?”
“The first time I realized what I’d missed.”
He looked at me then, and he had a soft smile on his face that didn’t quite cover up his sadness. I wasn’t sure what he was going to say next. “What? What did you miss?” I finally asked.
“Family. Not people who want to kill you all the time, but real, true family. You know?”
“God. I know how you feel.” That hadn’t been what I’d expected, but I understood. “I’ve felt that way for nearly two hundred years. When I see Tessa and her family—”
“Jealous doesn’t even begin to cut it.”
Exactly. He knew exactly how I felt. I don’t know why that surprised me, but it did.
I scooted away from the wall so that I could see him easier. This time, I wasn’t looking away.
He looked at me, too. “The first Sunday I went to their house, I was like—is this what normal is?”
“No.” I reached over and squeezed his hand, and this time, I didn’t let go. “There is no normal. It’s a myth. Everyone is just trying to do their best with the circumstances that they have. Some have it better than others. Some get it easier. It’s not about what’s fair or what you deserve. You get what you get, and sometimes that really sucks. But you can’t let it get you down because you are good.” I paused. “Can I ask you a question?”
He threaded his fingers with mine. “Anything, princess.”
I laughed. “God. I hate it when people call me that, but you make it funny. How do you do that?”
He grinned and the flirt I knew and loved was back. “Just my charm.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
