Chapter 7

“What’s wrong with your sister?” Despite his best efforts, every word out of Rafe’s mouth was a growled demand.

Ruby narrowed her eyes. He’d pissed her off again. But he would be damned if he was going to leave her alone in this house before he figured out what that wolf wanted with her and who else was involved.

“Nothing’s wrong with her,” she snapped. She moved to the counter and poured herself another cup of coffee. “She just… She…” Ruby sighed and sank into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Rafe lowered himself into the one across from her. It groaned beneath his weight.

Ruby rested her forehead on the table, exposing the nape of her neck and a few dark curls nestled there.

“She has these episodes sometimes and no one can really explain them.” She spoke down at her lap and it was the first time since he’d met her that she sounded defeated. He fucking hated it. If there was something he could kill to make this go away for her, he would.

“That guy said she said something. Does she always?”

Ruby raised her head. “How did you hear him? He was whispering across the room from you.”

Rafe shrugged, the tightness in his shoulder already better. “Wolf hearing.”

Ruby frowned like she didn’t like this little invasion of privacy, but he needed to know. He needed all the information he could get to figure this out.

Ruby sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” he insisted.

“Why? You’re here to protect me from some other wolf, right? Not my sister.”

Rafe let out an impatient growl. “It might matter. I don’t know what we are dealing with.”

Her eyes flickered with concern, her teeth digging into her bottom lip, reminding him of all the shit she’d been through in the past day. About how this whole world was foreign to her. About how damn brave she was to still be sitting across from him.

Ruby blew out another long sigh. “When it happens, it’s like she can’t see me anymore. She goes somewhere else and I can’t get to her.” She slumped in her chair. “And she always says the same thing. ‘ They’re coming.’”

They’re coming? Well, that was ominous.

“When did it start?”

“A few months ago.”

“Does she see anything? Like a vision or something?” He leaned forward, his arms on the table. Even in this tight space his body was drawn to hers, like he couldn’t get close enough.

“A vision?” Ruby scrunched up her face. “She’s not some kind of fortune teller.”

“Then what is she?” He tried to keep his voice gentle but it came out gruff anyway.

The glare Ruby sent his way may as well have been a punch to the throat. “She’s my sister. That’s what she is. And you need to leave.” She pushed back from the table and stood as though she were ready to escort him out, but there was no way he was leaving.

“Something’s not right, Ruby. About any of this. That wolf. Your sister’s … episodes.” He stood too, and even towering over her he felt like she could knock him over with a touch. “I can’t just leave you alone.”

Ruby crossed her arms over her chest, her dark eyes narrowed. If she had her boots on, she’d probably kick him in the shins. But he wasn’t going to give in on this. If he’d listened to her before, that other wolf would have killed her.

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“You are reckless and naive.”

Her eyes widened and her red lips hung open. “How dare you? You don’t even know me.” She tried to storm past him into the living room, but he grabbed her and held her arms. A slight tremor ran through them both.

“I know that if I wasn’t there last night, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

She wanted to argue with that. He felt it in the tension in her body and the fury in her stare. But she couldn’t argue with the facts. As much as she hated to admit it, she needed him right now. She deflated a little in his arms and it took all his strength not to pull her to him, to press her body against his. He was a sick man.

“I’ll sleep outside. You won’t even know I’m here,” he said, even as he already hated the idea of being separated from her again.

She let out an annoyed laugh. “You’ll sleep outside? And how am I supposed to explain that to the neighbors? Oh, just disregard the enormous man camping out in the backyard. He’s our new guard dog.”

“Guard dog?” he growled. He tugged Ruby closer and she had to tilt her head back to look at him. A small smile crossed her face. He wanted to kiss it off her lips.

“Sorry. That was rude.” She sighed and that glimmer of a smile disappeared. “You can sleep inside. I assume you’re housebroken.” She bit her bottom lip but the giggles burbled up out of her anyway.

Rafe couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his mouth. He was just so damn relieved that Ruby wasn’t upset anymore. She put a hand on his chest, still laughing, and he felt the shock of her touch jolt through him. By the sudden surprised look on her face, she felt it too.

Ruby cleared her throat. “You can let go of me now.”

Rafe dropped his hands and Ruby pulled hers away too.

“What are you going to tell your sister?” he asked, pretending he didn’t feel the absence of her touch like a kick in the gut.

“We’ll tell her you need a place to crash for a few days. She won’t mind.”

The tension eased a bit in Rafe’s shoulders. It was a start.

“But I have conditions,” Ruby went on, retwisting the hair that had tumbled down during their argument. “First of all, Lena doesn’t need to know about this, about what you are or about what happened last night. I don’t want to stress her out any more than she already is.”

Rafe had a feeling Lena was a bigger piece of this puzzle than Ruby wanted to believe, but he wasn’t going to push her on it. Not yet anyway. If she didn’t want her sister to know the truth about him, he wouldn’t tell her.

“Fine.” He nodded and Ruby continued.

“Secondly, I’m not a prisoner in my own home. I still need to work and live my life.” She frowned a little, twisting a stray hair around her finger. “Although, I guess, living my life is basically just working. But it’s non-negotiable.”

“I’ll go with you.”

She laughed. “No. You won’t.”

Rafe felt the low rumble of a growl building in his chest but he swallowed it. “Fine, but I’ll walk you to and from.”

“Don’t you work? Won’t this keep you away from your own life?”

Rafe thought about his cramped cabin and his workshop filled with half-finished projects. “I can step away from it for a while. No one will miss me.”

Something flickered across Ruby’s face and when she met his gaze again, her eyes were softer. “But you’ll stay out of the woods,” he grumbled and her frown returned. Better she thought of him as an asshole than whatever that sweet expression meant.

“Fine,” she gritted out. “Lastly, I want complete honesty from you. I want to be a part of whatever this is. It clearly involves me and my sister. Anything you know, I want to know.” Her hands were on her hips now, the look of determination back on her face.

He couldn’t help his smile. “Deal.”

“Okay, deal.” She let out a long breath, blowing the wisps of hair out of her face. “Now pour yourself another cup of coffee because I have a lot more questions.”

* * *

“So, can you change whenever you want or do you have to wait for a full moon?”

Rafe gave her an amused smile. They were sitting on her back deck; the late afternoon sun was low enough now that the trees at the edge of the woods cast long shadows across the backyard. Ruby could see the torn-up grass where Rafe had fought that other wolf. She didn’t let her gaze linger there. The rest of the yard was wild and unmowed. Dandelions waved in the breeze. Her bare feet hung over the edge of the deck, the wood rough beneath her palms. They’d never bothered to put furniture out here.

“No, that’s a myth. I can change whenever I need to.”

Interesting that he said need instead of want, like he never changed just for the fun of it, but Ruby didn’t get to delve into that further. It was Rafe’s turn. They’d been trading questions for most of the afternoon.

He studied her for a minute before asking, “I thought you only wore black.”

Ruby peered down at the Care Bears tank top she’d found at the thrift shop and her purple terry cloth shorts. They’d both taken the time to shower and change, despite Rafe’s reservations about leaving her for even an hour to go get stuff from his house.

She flashed him a smile of her own. “That’s also a myth.”

Rafe laughed, the sound like a roll of thunder in the distance. It was quickly becoming one of Ruby’s favorite sounds. It was her turn but she was running out of general werewolf questions: were there other paranormal creatures out there? Yes. Full moon required? No. What did he eat? Mainly hamburgers and Snickers bars, but the occasional rabbit if he felt like hunting.

“What does it feel like to be a wolf?”

Rafe hesitated, thinking, his eyes fixed on the forest beyond the yard.

“Brighter,” he said. “Like all your senses are magnified, but your self-control is weaker too. Like you want to run and run forever. Wild.”

Wild. Ruby’s blood rushed faster through her veins at the idea of running wild. What would it be like to leave it all behind? Her job, her sister, her bills … and just run. She breathed in the fantasy together with the wildflower-scented air.

They were quiet for a long time before Rafe asked, “Favorite food?” An easy one.

“Chicken Parm.”

“Fancy.”

She could go with another easy one, but she wanted to know more. She wanted to know everything. Talking to Rafe was easy, even while it was intense. Like she wanted to unpack all the tangled-up shit inside her and lay it out for him. Like she already knew he wouldn’t mind. And she wanted him to do the same.

“You mentioned something about your pack…”

Ruby could feel his body tense beside her. He sat the same way she did, with his long legs dangling over the edge of the deck, leaning back on his hands, face tipped toward the late day sun. But now he turned to look at her.

“You don’t have to tell me. I was just wondering what happened to them.” Ruby had been on the other end of this question enough times in her life to know what was going through Rafe’s mind, the calculations being made. How much should you share? How would the other person react? No matter how many years went by, she still hadn’t found a good way to tell people about her parents’ death. There was no good way.

When Rafe finally spoke, his voice was rough and his gaze was on the treeline as if he could see all the way to his past. “I left five years ago and I haven’t gone back.”

He didn’t elaborate and Ruby didn’t ask. If he wanted to tell her more, he would.

“Does anyone else in your family have episodes like Lena?” he asked, shifting his big body so he could look at her.

She wasn’t expecting that one, but she supposed she had it coming after asking about his family. She turned too, criss-crossing her legs in front of her.

There were those times when Aunt Millie’s mind had seemed to leave the room even while her body stayed behind. But she was so old, ancient by the time Ruby and Lena had gone to live with her. Wasn’t that just typical for someone her age? Plus she never relayed creepy messages afterwards like Lena did. She usually just asked the girls if they wanted ants on a log for a snack and they all moved on with their day.

A different memory flickered through her, one that had only gotten fuzzier over time. Had she really dreamt about her parents’ accident before it happened? She had never been sure, but that couldn’t be what Rafe was talking about. It wasn”t the same as what was happening to Lena. Just a strange coincidence. One she hadn’t thought of in years. She pushed the crazy idea that it mattered now out of her head.

“Uh … not that I know of. My Aunt Millie was pretty into seances for a while, but I know she was the one pushing that ouija board thing. She denied it but I’m sure she was cheating.”

Another low-thunder laugh had Ruby spilling more than she intended.

“She was just trying to cheer me up. After the accident…” Ruby paused. She could leave the story here and never tell Rafe about her parents. Never give him the chance to pity her. Or add the tragedy to her pile of personality quirks. Fun facts about Ruby: wears black, favorite color red, sad little orphan.

Rafe leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. His hair hung forward, half obscuring his face, but his silver eyes flashed from the shadows. “You don’t have to tell me either. We all have shit in our past that we’d rather forget.”

But that was just it, she didn’t want to forget. She stopped telling people about her parents because it made them uncomfortable, not her. “My parents died in a car accident when I was eight. I went to live with my great-aunt in her big old house. And I was sad, of course I was. It was obviously the worst thing that ever happened to me; it still is the worst thing. And I was attacked by a werewolf … so that’s saying something.”

Rafe’s lips tipped into a smile, his gaze never leaving her face as she spoke.

“But I loved my aunt. She was smart and hilarious and she took good care of us. And I had my sister. Lena has always been my best friend. But…”

Ruby shifted, the sun-warmed wood comforting beneath her palms.

“But?” Rafe’s voice was soft, not pushy or demanding, just curious.

“But after it happened, it was all anyone saw when they looked at me. Oh, there’s poor Ruby, the girl who lost her parents. I was the sad girl and then the weird girl and then the creepy girl and now occasionally the weirdly hot girl when guys have a particular goth kink.”

A low growl from Rafe on that particular comment curled up inside Ruby like a pet. It was possible she could get used to this protective shit. From him anyway.

She shrugged. “Anyway, my aunt would take out the ouija board when we got sad. She would say, ‘Let’s call up Mom and Dad and tell them about your day.’ I know that sounds insane and kind of morbid, but it helped. I still talk to them.” She was rambling, telling this man, whom she hardly knew, way too much, but she had never been good at small talk.

“That’s why you’re not scared.”

Ruby huffed a quiet laugh. “When the worst has already happened, there’s not much left to be scared of.”

“Oh, Ruby.” Rafe’s voice was a low whisper, caressing and gentle. “Things can always get worse.”