Chapter 17

seventeen

DEE

Another powerful, even sadder howl fills the night air as I jog the last block to my duplex. It strains at the edges of my heart, making it feel tight and squeezed. A shiver runs down my spine, and for a moment, I feel compelled to turn around and run back to him.

I didn’t want to leave, but it was the right thing to do. Tomorrow, I’ll probably need to get law enforcement involved.

I don’t want that, either. But is Russ even... sane? I rub the spot where he bit me, and my hand comes away red with blood. My blood.

If I were smart, I’d get a restraining order. But my heart seizes at the thought that I might not see Russ again if I went through with it.

Our cub , he kept saying. I hate that it sounded good. How many times have I thought about Bill and wished that I could find him again, that he would see the way my belly has grown with his child and love it the way Robbie never will ?

He wants so badly to watch over us and keep us safe that he followed me for months. He wants me, all of me, in his life. In a way, it’s profoundly hot—but it’s also very, very dangerous. The alarm bells are going off in my head, and I should listen to them.

I can’t be his mate, as much as he believes I am.

When I finally get back to the house, I usher Boomer inside then jump into the shower. There, the soreness sets in from when Russ stretched me wide, because I haven’t used the dilator in weeks. I scrub myself clean, especially the sticky mess between my thighs, then get out and throw my torn clothes in the garbage. When I’m showered and dressed in fresh pajamas, I climb into bed, Boomer taking his usual place at my feet.

But I don’t sleep, not for hours still. All my nerve endings are on high alert, and I can still feel echoes of how Russ felt, deep inside me.

He could still be outside my window, right now, watching me. Keeping an eye on me and our baby.

Strangely, that last thought is what lulls me to sleep.

The next day I don’t wake until nearly noon, and I’m groggy when I finally get up. It’s only Boomer’s whines that pull me out of bed because he needs to go outside.

Wearing my bathrobe, I go down the steps with him to the greenway and he relieves himself. I peer around to see if Russ is there, but he must have done a good job of hiding if I didn’t see him before now.

“Let me get cleaned up and we’ll go out,” I tell Boomer as we head back to the apartment .

I need to make some calls, too, but not right away. I should take time to think about what happened last night, and what I’m going to do about it.

Unfortunately, the first thing to cross my mind when I head out with Boomer on a leash is that I have to tell Robbie. That’s going to be an ugly conversation that I don’t want to have. Should I admit to him that I fucked someone else before I dump him? Or is that just twisting a knife that doesn’t need to be twisted?

Man. I’m an asshole.

I text Robbie asking to see him, trying not to make it sound ominous. It’s not that I want to take him by surprise, but I also don’t want him dreading what I’ll have to say.

We don’t usually go out to eat, but I suggest a Greek restaurant.

I didn’t know you liked Greek food.

The text message makes me laugh because there’s so, so much that Robbie doesn’t know about me.

Then I call up Liesel. I need to decide if I’m in danger, if I have to start thinking about reporting Russ to DreamTogether.

Would they keep his baby from him? I can’t do that.

Liesel’s at work, but she answers on the first ring anyway.

“I have to talk to you,” I say before she can even get out a greeting.

“What about?” Liesel asks, without skipping a beat. “Do you need me to come over?”

“Now? I mean, that would be great, but aren’t you at work?”

I can almost hear her shrug on the other end. “They won’t miss me for an hour.”

So I agree, and heat some hot water in the kettle for herbal tea, which is all I can really drink. Then I pour it over ice, because it’s fucking hot out, and wait at the table until Liesel knocks at the door.

For a second I’m afraid to answer it, in case it’s Russ on the other side. Would he come back after last night, even though I made myself clear that I don’t want to see him again?

But when I peer through the peephole, I find Liesel standing on the other side. I open the door with a sigh of relief—but maybe also disappointment.

“What’s going on?” Liesel asks, helping herself to one of the two glasses of iced tea on the table. She surveys me up and down. “You look... tired.”

I suppose that’s one way to describe it. It’s more like a bone-deep exhaustion. Everything changed in one night and now I’m adrift, even more than before.

“Remember Russ?” I ask, and Liesel blinks at me.

“Russ?”

“The wolfman who saved Boomer.”

She nods and sips her tea. “Right.”

I launch into the whole sordid story of how he gave me the cream, how he was becoming my friend. How I found out last night he’d been following me—and that he’s also Bill.

As usual, Liesel’s face doesn’t give away much. “So that’s who that wolfman at my office was,” she says, with a hmm .

My heart skips. “What wolfman at your office?”

“When I was leaving work one day, this wolfman came up to me asking about someone with a ridiculous fake name. I bet that was him trying to pick up your scent.”

My very skin shivers. He even used Liesel to get to me?

“What did you do when you found out?” my friend asks, but the tone of her voice makes it sound like she already knows the answer. Still, her eyebrows rise a little higher when I confess that we fucked in the park.

“I feel like I lost my mind out there,” I say, giving Boomer a guilty look because he had to witness it all. “I just... I couldn’t help it.”

“So you went feral?” Liesel asks.

“I mean, that’s one word you could use,” I say uncertainly. Though feral is a pretty accurate description of what Russ did to me with his cock.

“No, as in, the medical term.”

“What?”

She sighs. “When mate-bond species find their mates, they go ‘feral.’ It’s an out-of-control state. Basically, all you want to do is have sex.”

That sounds like last night, for sure. I was absolutely wild for him, even when I knew it was a bad idea.

“But that can’t happen to humans, right?” I ask, frowning.

“Of course it can happen to us. We’re animals, too.”

“Humans don’t form mate-bonds, though.” That’s the problem—or one of them. What Russ feels for me, that instinct-level attachment, I won’t ever feel it the way he does.

Liesel quirks an eyebrow. “How do you know that?” she asks. “His pheromones are designed to bond the two of you. His body is probably sending yours all sorts of messages, if you’re really his mate.”

I hate all this science-y mumbo jumbo.

“So what?” I ask. “So we had sex. So I was out of my mind. That doesn’t mean I can’t see the whole picture for what it really is, which is super fucked up. Russ has been stalking me!” I throw back a bunch of iced tea like it’s a strong cocktail. “He said all this crap about how he wants to protect us , and demanded I move in, and?—”

“That’s coming on a little strong,” Liesel remarks .

“No shit.”

She leans back in her chair and pulls out her phone. “You know, I think I watched something about this on an episode of Wild World .” She pulls out her phone and types something in. “A-ha.” She scrolls a page on the phone, reading. “Just what I thought.”

She hands the phone over to me, and I glance over the headline of the page: AGGRESSION IN MATED WOLFMEN. It’s a scientific article, with a short brief right below it.

I snatch the phone away from her and start reading.

“This study followed two dozen wolfmen throughout the stages of mating. Not all wolfpeople meet a mate in their lifetime, but when they do, mating triggers a powerful rush of chemicals and hormones designed to help the wolfman protect his mate and offspring from rivals, predators, and other dangers. In modern civilization, this can manifest in acts of aggression, fierce rutting, territorial fighting, and in the event of conception, even more dangerous behaviors. Wolfmen were ten times as likely during the onset of mating to display aggression until the bond was secured. In the event of pregnancy, they all insisted on keeping their mates close for the duration. Some couples in the study sought counseling, while others weathered the storm.”

I hand the phone back to her, silent. Damn. So Russ’s crazy isn’t limited just to him.

Still, though, that doesn’t excuse what he did. Lying to me? Following me? Watching me?

“Are you saying I should give him a pass?” I ask Liesel. “Just because he thinks I’m his mate?”

“He doesn’t think you’re his mate,” she says. “He knows you are. You wouldn’t have gone feral last night unless your body and hormones were feeling it, too. ”

I shudder all over. “It’s not a choice?” I ask. “I’m human. It should be a choice for me.”

Liesel tilts her head. “Well, you don’t have to accept it. It’s not driving you to do stupid things like follow a pregnant woman around at night and try to out-nice guy her boyfriend. You just don’t have to see him again, and it won’t go any further. Not for you, anyway. You’ll be able to move on with your life.”

I ask a question, even though I’m dreading the answer. “But for him?”

“Well, he’s mated now,” Liesel says with a shrug. “Even if the bond is never secured.”

“And... that’s it?” I wonder what that means, that it will never secure .

She goes back to her phone and does some more research. “This says that in the event the mate bond never secures—in the event of death or rejection—the wolfman will typically live his life out alone. Some found temporary partners, but it never lasted. And they often returned to the homes of their mates, sometimes in their sleep.”

“That’s fucked up,” I whisper, mostly to myself, and I shudder all over. “Really? That’s... that’s it for Russ? Me? ” That’s not fair to him—not at all.

And it’s not fair to me, either. It means that unless I want Russ to be alone forever, then I’m all he has.

And our cub , I can almost hear him say. I shudder. Why does that sound so good ? While Robbie tries to pretend my belly doesn’t exist, Russ worshipped it.

Liesel pockets her phone. “What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, frowning. “He’s crazy. He was hiding in the fucking trees when I was walking alone in a park at night.”

“Which was kind of stupid of you,” says Liesel .

“So what?” I want to stomp my feet. “I should be allowed to do it without being afraid someone’s following me.”

“But you know Russ would never hurt you.”

I’m surprised that she’s taking his side. But I know she’s right, too. Russ would never put me in harm’s way, not the kind, gentle friend who brought me cream from the hospital, who told me not to be angry at myself for things I can’t control, who was there for me when no one else could be in the way I needed. He delivers babies, for fuck’s sake.

But then I remember. “He bit me, Liesel.” I pull down the collar of my shirt to show her the angry red scabs on my shoulder. “He said he was marking me.”

“That was one of the symptoms on the list, so I’m not surprised,” she says. “He didn’t ask you first?”

I frown. “No! We were in the middle of, well, you know.”

She nods sagely. “Heat of the moment.”

I squint at Liesel. “You think I should forgive him,” I say, as a statement and not a question.

Her neutral expression finally gives way to something that looks almost like pity. “I think you should do what you want to do,” she says, more fervently. “Not what you have to do.”

“What I have to do,” I say, “is break up with Robbie tonight. And then maybe I can decide what to do about Russ.”

Liesel nods. “I believe that is a smart course of action.” She gets to her feet, and offers me the slightest smile. “You’ll be okay, Dee. You know how to take care of yourself. But think hard about what will actually make you happy.”

When Liesel’s finally gone, I sit down at the table and my hand drops to my belly. Little guy, it’s a tricky world out here , I think. What will become of this baby once it’s all over?

It belongs to Russ, I suppose. Not me .

Let me watch over you and our cub. We’ll raise it together.

That’s what he wants. He wants a wife and a child, a mate and a cub, like every wolfman before him. But this was supposed to be simple. I was supposed to have the baby and then be done, wipe my hands of it and walk away free. I never agreed to start a family with him. That wasn’t what I wanted out of this, not at all.

Then why does it sound so good ?

After I’ve watered the plants—which have multiplied in great numbers, and I’ve had to separate out a few into new pots—my phone buzzes. It’s Robbie, letting me know he’s on the way to the restaurant.

Fuck. None of that other stuff matters until I resolve this.