9. Caleb

NINE

Caleb

I didn’t hide the smirk as Willow met my gaze fearlessly. She was so slight, so frail, and yet here she was, ready to challenge me.

“You doubt that I’m a man?”

Willow flushed, her gaze automatically dipping down, and I knew she remembered checking me out the other day. She thought I didn’t notice. I noticed everything.

“I know you’re a man,” she grumbled. “Your pig-headed arrogance goes hand in hand with the levels of your testosterone.”

I laughed. She was funny even when she meant to insult me. She kept me entertained at least. “Ouch, you wound me,” I teased.

“I’d like to wound you,” she muttered as she got to her feet. “Come inside. I feel exposed sitting out here.”

I could have told her there was nothing to worry about. I could have told her there was no one listening that shouldn’t be. I could have told her many things, but instead, I stood and followed her inside.

“Tea?”

“No.”

She hesitated, then she set about making herself tea. We didn’t talk as she went through her routine, and this time instead of tea leaves, she settled on a bag in a cup instead. When she had her beverage, she walked past me, taking a seat on the couch.

“Where do you want to start?”

The fact that Willow was taking control of this conversation shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. Her calm steady look was deceiving, or maybe she was genuinely more in control than I was. As my life had turned into a shitshow I wasn’t expecting, maybe she had picked up on that.

I stayed low on the radar of the packs. I avoided alphas. Now I had an alpha, his beta, and a fucking human on my ass. And Willow.

Another human.

I no longer wanted to be here, but I knew I couldn’t run. I couldn’t walk away while she was bringing attention to herself.

I couldn’t leave while she was a danger to herself. Or my kind.

“How long have you been drawing people you’ve never met?”

“A month or two.” She held my gaze as she sipped her tea. “You’re the first.” Her lips twitched. “Hopefully my last?”

It was framed as a question. A question…as if I had the answer.

“Lucky me.” I sat opposite her. “Why me? ”

“Your charm?”

Her eyes were dancing with amusement. “This isn’t funny,” I snapped at her, and I watched as her mirth dispersed. “Do you have any seers, witches, or psychics in your lineage?”

Willow shrugged. “No idea.”

Maybe if I snapped her neck, then we wouldn’t have a problem anymore? The ferocity of my anger surprised me, and I pushed it down, along with the surge of panic I felt at the feralness of my anger.

“Can you ask?” I strived for calm.

“No.” She carried on, cutting off any protest I may give. “I’m an orphan. Or more correctly, I don’t know who my parents are. I was left at a children’s home.”

She was abandoned? I studied her once more. Could she be a shifter after all? She didn’t smell like my kind, but then if she didn’t know how to shift, she may never have done so. But she was weak. Was it a side effect of her never having shifted?

Willow froze when I stood and crossed the room, dropping to a crouch in front of her. “Wh-what are you doing?”

She didn’t resist me when I picked up her hand, turning it over in my hold until her palm was facing up. Her sharp inhale was the only sound as I ran my nose along the faint veins that showed at her wrist. My tongue flicked out and tasted her skin.

I could hear her racing heart and the shallowness of her breath, but I tasted nothing other than the vanilla body wash she used.

“Caleb?” Willow’s voice held no strength now, and I ignored her as I let my fangs out and bit into her soft flesh. “Ow!” Willow scrambled away from me, clutching her wrist to her chest protectively. “What the fuck , Caleb? You bit me? ”

My head was bowed as I tasted her blood. The heady scent of fresh blood caused my body to react, and desire pulsed through my veins as the coppery tang of Willow’s blood danced across my tongue. I knew she was talking to me, but I was fighting for control from my wolf.

Desire scorched my veins as I fought the impulse to grab her and fuck her. Shaking my head, I struggled to regain control. My control was slipping. I knew my eyes had changed color. Fuck, I couldn’t let her see me like this, and I couldn’t leave. She would have more questions if I left than she did now.

Questions I was forbidden to answer.

“Give me a minute,” I growled as I pulled my wolf and my lust back under my control.

“Give you a minute? Give you a minute?” She was angry, and she had a right to be. “You bit me like you were some kind of wild animal!”

She sounded further away, and I guessed she’d climbed over the back of the couch to get away from me. “I didn’t mean it.”

It hung between us like the lie it was.

“You didn’t mean it.” Her scoff was loud. “Get out. I don’t want you here anymore.”

I stood, and a quick glance at the mirror confirmed my eye color was back to normal. “Did you ever want me here?”

Willow had a cloth pressed to her wrist. Her eyes watched me warily as I approached her. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she told me carefully, “but this is no longer funny. I want you to leave. Now.”

I ignored her, reaching for her arm. She resisted, even going so far as to hit out at me, but she was no match for my strength. Taking the cloth off her, I inspected the two puncture marks I’d left on her wrist. “It won’t scar.” Pulling her to the cabinet in her bathroom, I got a large Band-Aid and wrapped it over her wrist. “You’ll be fine.”

Willow was struggling to accept my calmness. Her scent was scared, confused, and…something that was dangerously close to arousal. Or maybe it was anger.

“We still need to talk,” I told her.

“Get out of my house.”

Sucking my teeth, I cocked my head as I considered her. “I said sorry.”

“You didn’t say sorry!” Anger overrode all her other scents. “You don’t even sound sorry. You bit me. You made me bleed , and you stand there as calm as you like.”

“I said I didn’t mean it.” She was right, I hadn’t said sorry. “It was a moment of weakness.”

“A moment of weakness?” Her skepticism was warranted. “How often are you weak ?”

“You’re acting like a scared virgin.” I looked at her more closely. “You’re not, are you?” That would explain my reaction to her blood.

“No, I’m not a virgin!” Her face was scarlet. “Jesus Christ, Caleb, what is wrong with you?”

“If you’re not a virgin, then why the fuck are you clutching your pearls at a little blood?” Her eyes were as wide as saucers. “Okay, so you like vanilla sex. Got it. Can we get back to the point?”

Willow barged past me and stormed back to the kitchen. I followed, fully prepared for her to attack me with a knife or something. Instead, she was facing the window, her back to me. “ Why do I see you?” Her voice was tight with fury. She watched me in the reflection of the window, and I could see the unshed tears.

“That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me.”

“I don’t have any answers for you, I told you that.”

“You’ve never had any visions before me?” She shook her head. “Do you see anything else?” She almost turned but shook her head. “So you don’t see, like, a scene or a vision?” Her head shook quickly. “Do you actually see me, or do you just wake up with my face or something in your mind?” She did turn at that, and I half shrugged. “It’s new to me too,” I reminded her.

“But biting people isn’t.”

“You’re the first human I’ve bitten,” I answered without thought. Her eyes were wide again, and I inwardly cursed my stupidity.

“You bite animals?”

“What the hell, Willow! Of course I don’t bite animals!” I thought about it. “Not live ones. I have no problem biting into them when they’re cooked and on my plate.” It was an effort at lightheartedness that fell flat. “Okay, I think we need to revisit this tomorrow or something.”

“I don’t want to see you again.” She wasn’t looking at me, but I could see the determined set of her jaw as she glared outside. “That means I don’t want you hanging about the woods either. I want you gone. I don’t know why you’re here, I don’t know why I see you when I sleep, but I know I don’t want to see you again.”

“If I leave, do you think the visions will stop?”

It was her turn to shrug. “This is fucked up. You are…” She made eye contact before turning her back to me. “You’re too mu ch. You think you make me weak. It sounds preposterous, but it feels right. Those men from earlier, they weren’t a coincidence, were they?” I shook my head, and she nodded, her shoulders slumping. “Just leave me alone. Leave town. Please. I don’t have what you’re looking for.”

How did I tell her that she was the answer, and she just didn’t know it? But she was right. From the sound of it, she had been fine before. No paintings of men she’d never seen.

“I’ll be gone by morning.”

“Thank you.”

She was looking at me from the reflection in the window. We held each other’s stare for a moment, and then I turned and let myself out of her house. I was at the gate at the edge of her small garden when I heard the lock turn and a deadbolt slide home.

“I’d lock me out too,” I mumbled as I headed up the sidewalk, away from her house. I didn’t want her to see me enter the woods; she already thought I was peeping on her. I entered the woods and made my way to the small area where I’d made my base these last few weeks.

Cannon rose to his feet as I joined him and his beta. The wiry human was nowhere to be seen.

“She knows nothing. We agreed it was better if I leave here.”

“Why?” Cannon looked me over. “What did you do?”

I huffed out a laugh. “You assume it was me?”

“Your scent is guilty,” Royce confirmed. “Plus, I get the impression she may like you.”

“Trust me, she doesn’t.” Tipping my head back, I looked at the darkening sky as I tried to sort my jumbled thoughts. “I bit her.”

Cannon’s cough of surprise made me look at him. He was fighting a grin. “What the hell would you bite her for?”

“She was abandoned as a child,” I explained. “I wondered if she was a shifter and just didn’t know it.”

Royce and Cannon exchanged a look before the alpha spoke. “That’s stupid.”

I tended to agree. This wasn’t the first time I hadn’t been thinking straight when it came to Willow Harper. “So we agreed if I leave, she is unlikely to have any desire to draw me.”

“But it’s not just you she’s drawing,” Royce reminded me, exchanging a look with his alpha. “As long as you’re here, you can watch her.”

“I can’t.” I avoided looking at either of them. “She has an illness, it’s?—”

“ME.” Royce’s voice was gruff. “Explains the scent of her, but that’s not your fault.”

Blowing out my cheeks, I rocked back on my heels, shoving my hands into my back pockets. “Well…”

“Caleb.” Cannon’s low commanding voice made me raise my head. “Explain.”

“When I’m with her, her energy depletes. She gets sicker when I’m near.”

“You drain her?” Cannon was watching me thoughtfully. “I’ve never heard of our kind having that effect on humans.”

I said nothing.

“Has she noticed?” Royce asked me. When I nodded, he scratched his jaw. “Bonded?” he asked Cannon, who was watching me steadily. “What affects one may affect the other.”

“Bonded to a human?” Cannon mused. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“They’re linked in some way,” Royce spoke, looking me over curiously. “Do you feel anything when you’re near her?”

“Agitation.” They both grinned, and I cursed my loose tongue. “But physically, nothing like that.”

“I’m curious as to why you bit her.” Cannon tilted his head to the side. “Scenting her skin would have been enough.” He looked to Royce. “You smell anything other than human on her?” His beta shook his head.

“I figured if she was even part shifter, with her age, it could have been suppressed, and I needed to make sure.”

“Fair point,” Cannon conceded. “Next time, I recommend asking.” His lips twitched and I flipped him the finger. “Well, you can’t leave,” he declared. “We can’t take her. Too many people would notice.”

A stab of alarm twisted my gut. “Take her?”

Cannon nodded. “Doc wants to run tests on her, but we can’t exactly do that here. We need her back on Blackridge Peak.”

My wolf prowled too close to my skin. “She isn’t going anywhere near your Peak,” I burst out angrily. “Stay the fuck away from her.”

Cannon’s eyes shifted to turquoise. “You seem to forget your place, rogue . If she’s a threat to me or mine, she gets dealt with.”

“She can barely function!” I snarled back. “She’s no threat to anyone!”

Cannon gestured to his beta who turned and picked up paintings that had been lying behind him. He handed them to his alpha, who took them easily despite them being different sizes. Cannon picked up the first one and showed it to me.

“This is the clearing above my packlands,” he told me. “This is the view from the top of the peak that shadows the next highest mountain.” His gaze pierced mine. “You’re familiar with that mountain.” He showed me the next painting. “This is the place of the Luna Ball last year.” He tossed it to the ground. “This is the abandoned mine at the base of the mountain.” He held up the final piece. “And that is where your parents were murdered. Am I right?”

When I said nothing, Royce took a step towards me. “You haven’t seen these in her art store?” I shook my head. “She was wrapping a package up when we were there—the post office ‘lost’ it.” He turned and showed me the piece, and my heart stuttered. “It’s not just you she paints,” he told me softly. “It’s places where you lived when you were pack.”

Swallowing down the pain, I tried to appear as though I wasn’t affected as they showed me paintings of my past. A past that I had left behind, but here it was, following me. Painted by a woman who didn’t have a fucking clue that she was ripping my heart out with each brush stroke.

“How much longer before she sees more than you?” Cannon spoke quietly. “She’s seen where you come from; she’s seen you ; how much longer before she sees you shift?”

“She won’t.”

“Caleb, you aren’t stupid.” Cannon’s reprimand was warranted. “I don’t think distance will make a difference,” he told me bluntly. “Either you stay here and figure it out, quickly, or we take her to the Pack Council and damn the consequences. ”

“I say we put her in front of a shaman anyway,” Royce muttered.

“I say, you put one hand on her, and I will cut it off.” They both looked at me, neither of them surprised by my outburst.

“Fine. You have two weeks.”

I looked at the alpha as he pulled his shirt over his head. “Two weeks?”

“Two weeks. You have no answers by the time I return, then she comes with us.” Royce was already undressed and ready to shift.

“I’ll have answers.” Cannon nodded and then the black wolf was in front of me, his beta at his side. I stepped aside as they moved past me, a lone wolf giving due respect to an alpha and his beta. When they were gone, I sat on the ground, my eyes on the paintings.

How the fuck was I going to unravel the mystery of Willow Harper in two weeks when she never wanted to see me again? I had no idea.

I should have kept moving. The first time I saw her, the first time her scent called to me, I should have kept moving.

“Luna guide me,” I pleaded to the Goddess in the heavens above. “I need a little help, and a lot of luck.” The wind whistled through the trees, but no answer came. Standing, I gathered the discarded paintings, intending to break and burn them like I had done before.

My thumb grazed over the rocks of the mountain I used to call home. “What are you, Willow? What do you want with me?”

Placing the paintings gently against an overturned log, I turned them so they were facing away from me. I didn’t need to look at them to know what I’d lost.