23. Tanner

Snow had been falling for days. Deep drifts obscured the trails I usually followed through the forest, and high above, thick white blankets of snow draped the pine trees. Some branches were so heavily laden they brushed the ground.

The air was crisp and cold and every warm exhale turned into a cloud of steam. My wolf loped along and I let my mind roam. Being in wolf form allowed me to switch off from my tangled emotions. I could take a backseat and lose myself in the physical rather than the emotional.

My wolf was a simple creature. He mostly only felt baser emotions like hunger, rage, and lust. But with Eva, everything was hopelessly confused.

She confused me.

The damn human drove me insane.

The way she flinched if I moved too quickly, shivered if I stood too close or looked at her for a moment too long.

What pissed me off more than anything was the way those expressive blue eyes of hers had melted with what looked a lot like sympathy.

I didn't want her fucking sympathy.

I didn't deserve anyone's sympathy. Not when I was entirely to blame for what had happened to Jessie-Lynn.

The memory of that fateful night would stay with me forever.

"It's freezing, I need another drink!" Jessie whined, her words slurred.

"You're such a lightweight, Jessie." I handed her another bottle of beer and she sucked it down like she always did. With zero thought of the consequences. It was one of the many reasons I loved her - she didn't care about anything, least of all the fact I was a wolf shifter.

I'd told her the year before and she just shrugged and said, "And?". The revelation barely made a wrinkle in her day.

Lights twinkled across the valley. It was so pretty, festive and colorful. High above us, the night sky glittered with stars. Christmas was three days away, and this was the last time I'd see Jessie before her family whisked her away to her grandma's ranch in Wyoming. She wouldn't be back until after the new year, and by then, school would be starting once again.

We got hardly any time together as it was. My parents didn't approve of our relationship because she was human, and hers hated me because I wasn't rich enough, clever enough, or from a good enough family.

They had no clue who I really was. They just judged me based on my appearance and lack of social connections.

I didn't care. I loved Jessie. Regardless of the barriers in our path, we'd be together forever. She wasn't my mate, but as far as I was concerned, fated mates were a bullshit concept.

Nobody in our pack, or any other pack that I knew of, had met their fated mate. The elders said it was becoming rarer these days and most couples settled down with each other for more prosaic reasons, such as the benefits of a shared income, family connections, and forging pack alliances.

As the eldest son of one of our Alpha's most trusted betas, I was being pushed to mate with the daughter of a rival pack's beta. We'd met a few times, but while she was pretty enough and her wolf had flirted with mine, she wasn't Jessie.

Jessie hiccuped and then giggled. "We should probably get back before I freeze my tits off."

I laughed. She was drunk, but I was stone-cold sober. Beer had no effect on me. The alcohol burned off almost immediately thanks to my shifter metabolism. Only hard liquor had any impact, and I wasn't dumb enough to get drunk while driving Jessie around. She was too precious to me.

"Come here, I can't have that happening. Let me warm you up, baby." She giggled some more and slid across the seat into my arms. Fuck, she was freezing. I wrapped her in my warm embrace and inhaled the soft scent of the coconut shampoo she liked.

"Jessie," I murmured into her hair.

"Mmm?" The bottle of beer chinked against her teeth as she swallowed the rest down and tossed it in the footwell.

"I love you."

She went still in my arms. This was the first time I'd said those three-little-words, although I'd known how I felt about her for months. Silence stretched out between us, long moments where she said nothing in return.

The giddy excitement I'd felt when I picked her up earlier vanished, replaced by something cold that settled in my chest as my heart froze and then splintered into tiny shards of ice.

"Tanner," she began, pulling away. "You know how you said your parents wanted you to, like mate, with that girl…" She said the word mate like it was the bitterest, nastiest thing she'd ever tasted.

I'd explained what it meant, but she got annoyed at what she perceived as patriarchal bullshit. I mean, she wasn't far wrong, but it had still rankled at the time that she refused to accept we did things differently and mating wasn't necessarily a negative outcome for a couple. We could still marry for love, after all.

"I told you it wasn't going to happen, Jessie."

"But maybe it should, Tanner. I can't be with you like that." She pulled her jacket tighter around her slim body and stared unhappily through the windscreen. "I'll be going to college soon, and then I plan to have fun for a few years. And also…" She paused, and I waited for it; waited for the last bullet to hit me right in the chest.

"And what, Jessie?"

"Well, you know my parents are not exactly…fans…well, Dad said I needed to stop seeing you. He says he's sending me to a fancy prep school in the new year, somewhere in California."

"You could refuse to go?" Hope flared briefly in my chest. Maybe this was all a misunderstanding. Jessie could stay here with me. I'd take care of her.

"But I want to go, Tanner. It sounds fun, and California is warm all year round! I can learn to surf!"

The excitement in her voice killed me. Destroyed the last vestiges of hope I'd had that maybe, just maybe, Jessie could be mine.

It was clear now she'd only ever seen me as a stop-gap. A guy to have fun with, someone edgy to piss off her parents. I wasn't enough for her and I never would be.

"That sounds fucking awesome. I'm sure you'll meet some Chad or Brad, go to parties with other rich kids, and live an amazing life."

My voice was dark, coated in venom so thick I could almost taste it. Jessie flinched, but didn't argue. I could feel anger and hurt bubbling up from the deep well inside me as I pictured her living a life I'd never have. A life that didn't include me.

My wolf itched to escape. He was angry and hurt, just like me. This wasn't going the way either of us thought it would. I'd pictured Jessie telling me she loved me too, crying tears of joy when I placed the small diamond ring I'd saved up for months to buy on her finger and asked her to be mine forever.

Nothing was happening the way I envisioned. I needed to get out of here before my wolf broke free and everything got a whole lot worse.

"Can you take me home, please?" Jessie said when the silence stretched out between us once more. She curled in on herself and moved as far away as she could physically get without falling out of the door.

"Yeah." I switched the engine on and slammed my boot on the gas. The truck fishtailed around, tires screeching on the loose gravel. Jessie shrieked in alarm, but I ignored her. I was too fucking angry.

Rage clouded my vision as I pushed the truck hard down the winding road back into the valley. There was never any traffic up here this late and the road would be empty. It was an opportunity to burn off some of my rage before I lost my shit completely.

The speedometer climbed as I pressed harder on the gas. We were going much too fast, but I didn't care. I just wanted to escape my pain for a few moments.

Jessie's screaming brought me back to the here and now as a horn blared ahead. I looked up to see bright headlights heading straight for us. A flatbed truck, heavily laden with logs. It was so close I could see the furry toy tied to the front bumper, a cute little bandana around its neck.

Too late, I realized, blinded by anger and pain, I'd veered on to the wrong side of the road. I tried to swerve but my wheels lost traction on black ice.

We spun around, time slowed down, and then BOOM, the truck clipped the tail end of my cargo bed and we went straight over the side of the embankment.

When I came to, Jessie wasn't screaming anymore.