13. Willow

THIRTEEN

Willow

We were in a motel, in adjoining rooms. Doc was in one, I was in the other, and Ned was “patrolling.” I assumed, though no one confirmed, that he had shifted into a wolf. Which they seemed to think was better, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they had ever considered who it was better for. I knew if it was me— and not just because it was me —seeing a wolf lurking around the edge of my motel would freak me the hell out. It wouldn’t make me feel safe or protected even if there was a solid wall between me and it. I would scream, lock myself in the room, and call Animal Control or something, to bring their attention to it.

And I was a pretty level-headed person. I could already see Lily’s reaction. She would have things pushed up against doors and be demanding boards over the window just in case. How they could think a wolf wouldn’t draw more attention than a guy, was perhaps a demonstration of how out of touch they were with actual humans. A wolf, especially in a place like this, would only stand out, not blend in. People noticed that kind of thing. “Oh, did you see the wolf?” From there, it would escalate, and if they wanted to stay under the radar, this was the complete opposite of doing that.

Or maybe I was overthinking it and the people using this motel were weary, blurry-eyed travelers who only saw the bed waiting for them.

Doc currently had the interconnecting door open, not open fully in an inviting manner but in an “if you want to come in, you can” manner. He knew I had questions, and I did want to ask all of them, but I didn’t want to ask him . I knew it was to my detriment, but the only person I wanted to tell me all about shifters was the one man I wanted to track down.

My fingers brushed along the cover of my sketchbook. Biting my lip, I looked between the door and the book. I wanted to draw, and I had a strong desire to do so, but I wasn’t sure if it was rude to sit down and lose myself in a sketch. I didn’t feel any other compulsion like I sometimes did when I drew Caleb. I just wanted to unwind and lose myself in some pretty landscapes inspired by my bus journey here.

“You want anything to eat?” Doc asked, startling me. I hadn’t noticed him come into view from his room. His eyes dropped to my hand and the sketch pad, but he said nothing as he waited for me to answer.

“Um…” I didn’t know. Was I hungry? “Maybe?”

He nodded, walking further into my room but not far. I think he was trying to let me know there were boundaries. A fact I appreciated.

“Same. I could eat, but do I want to is pretty much how I’m feeling.”

“Exactly.” He was a relaxing guy. He would have been perfect in a hospital or a GP’s practice. He just had a smooth manner. “Why aren’t you a doctor somewhere?” I blurted without thinking.

Doc chuckled at my embarrassment when I stumbled over an apology for my rudeness. “It’s fine, Willow. I am a doctor somewhere,” he reminded me. “My patients are just more specialized than others.”

“So…what kind of ailments do you treat them for?” I asked as I sat on the bed, and Doc took the unspoken invitation to come into the room. He looked at the one chair in the corner, and I nodded. “Please, sit.”

“Well, to be honest,” he began, “they don’t really need me for day-to-day things. If they get a bruise or a cut, they can shift, and the magic of the shift heals them.”

“Magic?” I could hear the skepticism in my voice, even though I knew they had to have something supernatural about them to be able to turn into wolves to start with.

Doc watched me with understanding. “I get it, I do,” he assured me. “There are words and terms in our vocabulary that we’re so familiar with we don’t even question them anymore. Words like magic or shifter. They roll off the tongue so easily, but when you think of the actual definition in reality? That’s a lot harder to accept in our general day-to-day. It’s all very well to read about magic in books or see it in a TV show or movie, but when you’re faced with it, in your reality, in your own life, then it stops being a concept and becomes truth, and it’s a truth that you can’t ignore. That’s when the veil between reality and make-believe comes down and the real challenge begins. How do you adjust to that? How do you accept something into your every day that was once nothing more than fantasy? ”

“I’m ready to be given the walkthrough,” I joked lightly, holding my hand out. “Cheat sheet please?”

Doc laughed, shaking his head. “I don’t have one, but I can let you know how I coped when I found out I was…different.”

“If you don’t mind sharing?” I asked, getting comfortable on the bed.

“My mother is human,” he told me with no preamble. “My father is not.” He didn’t let me ask questions, moving on swiftly. “I don’t know who he is, but my mom assures me that their relationship was consensual, and he took off when she learned she was pregnant.”

His words were sure, well-practiced, and I wondered how many times he had told this story and how many times he had practiced it to remove the emotion from the retelling. “Sorry,” I murmured.

“Nothing for you to be sorry for. I wasn’t the first guy to have a deadbeat dad, and I won’t be the last.” This time, there was a hint of anger, but he recovered quickly. “Mom never knew Dad had something more in his DNA, and it wasn’t until I met Cannon that I knew I was different. I was twenty-eight.”

My eyes widened in shock, and his lips twitched with a smile.

“Yeah, I pretty much had that look too. Cannon knew I was more than human but not enough to be a shifter. From my understanding, it’s not something that happens a lot. Shifters like to keep to themselves, and for most, a relationship with a human is frowned upon. It risks exposure. So the more they populate the world with half-breeds—” He held up his hand at my reaction to the term. “It’s not a slur in this context; it’s an accepted term in our society. And it’s a truth. I am half of one type of species and half of another completely different.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” I grumbled.

“True.” He gave a quick smile and continued. “I didn’t take the news well. I was an educated man—I was a doctor for God’s sake—but it’s very hard to deny the facts when the guy in front of you strips down and shifts into a big black wolf.”

“I can imagine.”

“Scared the shit out of me. I ran every test possible for where I was.” He saw my look of confusion. “I was a medic in the army. Cannon was a soldier. We served together.”

“The army army?”

“From adolescence to early twenties, male wolves have anger issues,” he told me easily. “They need to expel all that pent-up energy, and many of them join one form of armed service or another. They learn discipline and training, and since they can’t be too badly harmed because of the ability to shift, they do well in the military.”

“I’m thinking scary super soldiers,” I admitted with a shudder.

“No, they don’t abuse it. They don’t draw unnecessary attention to themselves. The whole existence of shifters is to stay under the radar. They don’t want human attention. At all.”

“Because?”

“Because we’re human, Willow. And we’re the most destructive, vile species that ever lived. We’d swoop into their packlands and take them and experiment on them, cut them open, try to breed them. It would be a horror story.”

It was a horrible picture he painted, but I also couldn’t defend it. “So, what did you do when you accepted it? ”

Doc rubbed his cheek, reddening slightly. “Exactly what I just shamed humanity for. I experimented.” He winced at my reaction. “Yeah, I’m a hypocrite, but I wanted to know what my limitations were. I knew I couldn’t shift, but could I heal? Would I stop aging? Was I as susceptible to illness as my fellow man?”

“And?”

“I can’t heal, not completely, not like them. I can heal faster. A broken leg on my body takes maybe two weeks to be as good as new instead of the four to six weeks for the rest of us. I definitely age,” he added ruefully, “but slower. Like them, but not as slow as they do. Illness, it depends. I wasn’t really sick as a child, and it wasn’t until I met Cannon that I knew why. But I can still get sick. I test the pack regularly with diseases and always test myself too.” He grimaced. “Had some pretty bad experiences, I have to say.”

“And the terminal illnesses? How can you test for that?” I was completely caught up in his story.

“I can’t and shifters aren’t immune to all diseases. The big C is as much a curse word to them as it is to us, but rarer in them. I’ve come across only one case of leukemia. No MS, no Parkinsons, but I haven’t met them all yet.”

“You like this research,” I realized aloud, “don’t you?”

“Love it,” he told me truthfully. “I have near-perfect specimens to compare against”—he pointed at himself—“and me.”

“Sounds dangerous,” I cautioned him. “So, where do I come into this? I don’t have mixed DNA. What makes me different?”

Doc sat back in his seat. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I know there is magic in the world. I live with it, so I can’t rule out it’s just one of those things, but I am also a doctor, and science rules my life,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh. “But I also know the shaman, and I’ve seen the gift of Luna in his workings.”

“Like what?” I wanted to learn everything.

“Well, when he licked your blood, remember?” Seeing me nod, he continued. “The analysis he did with a simple taste, I would need a petri dish, a microscope, and several machines.”

“Bummer.”

Doc grinned widely. “Thank you, you truly appreciate how frustrating that is for me.” He smoothed his palm over his jeans. “I tried to explain that to my friends, and they did not get it at all.”

“I guess their reality is that some doctor can replicate what their shaman can do.”

Doc looked thoughtful. “I don’t think I ever thought of it that way.”

“So, the new reality for me is that I have to accept they can heal themselves, they are ageless, and they are all really big and strong?”

“Yup.”

“And I can see them?”

“Both physically and non-physically.”

“And if I was to guess, the latter freaks them out as much as it freaks me out?”

“Pretty much,” he confirmed.

“And how do we stop it?”

Doc’s look was assessing. “Do you want it stopped?”

“Yes.”

“So quick to answer. ”

Puffing my cheeks out, I blew out a breath. “Yes.” I broke eye contact with him. “I can feel his pain,” I admitted softly. “When I draw or paint him, I can feel him. It’s not my place to do that. I hardly know Caleb, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even like me.” Doc cleared his throat but said nothing. “Even the guy from the platform, I can feel his frustration from me evading him. And I spent the better part of my journey trying to convince myself that I didn’t, but this is our safe space,” I joked. “We can share here without judgment, right?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I can feel it all ,” I admitted, saying it out loud for the first time and accepting it as my reality. “The emotion, the… weirdness of knowing that they’re real-life…people?”

“Still people,” Doc confirmed.

“The places I paint, I can feel the difference. I know something, um, what’s the word, otherworldly?” It felt right. “Yeah, otherworldly is happening there. I don’t mean aliens and shit, just, more?—”

“Magic.”

We looked at each other, and I slowly shook my head. “It seems so contradictory for a man of science to say that word so easily.”

“Oh, trust me, it didn’t come easily, not until very recently.”

“What changed?” I asked curiously.

“Cannon’s wife is very persuasive.”

The emphasis on wife piqued my curiosity. “You didn’t want to say wife ? Why?”

“They’re mates,” he told me after a moment of consideration. “It’s a magical pull. They are mated to each other. ”

“Like fated?” I thought about it. “That usually has negative connotations in books and things.”

“It’s a good thing,” he assured me. “They share a bond that only Luna can give them.”

I thought about it. “Is this what…”

“No,” Doc corrected me. “You’re human. You aren’t his mate. You couldn’t be.” I didn’t know what he saw in my face, but he looked sympathetic. “I’m sorry.”

I was already riding the train to denial as I waved his comment off, brushing it aside with a forced laugh. “No, no need to be sorry. I don’t want to be anyone’s fated mate. Especially Caleb’s.”

The words felt too flippant, too casual, like saying them out loud would make me feel as if they were true. But as I spoke them, there was that nagging part of me that knew the truth. Denying it didn’t make it any less real—it just made it easier to pretend that I wasn’t disappointed.

Because maybe I was .

And I wasn’t ready to explore that. Not yet.

“I wonder…” I began hesitantly. “I get what you’re saying, I do, and you know better, I get that too. But if Luna, your Goddess, is hands-off humans and that, then why is she sending me visions? A human?”

Doc grimaced. “I don’t know.” His look was assessing. “The shaman has a theory.”

“I’m listening.”

“He believes that with Caleb being distant from his home, his pack, and the way of pack life, that he would have been more open to a human than a shifter.”

“Open?” I gave him a dubious look. “Caleb?” Doc nodded once. “I don’t think that man knows what it means to be open,” I added skeptically.

Doc sighed, leaning back in his chair. “I admit, I think that may be the truth, but…” He paused, his look one of consideration, judging what to say next. “But, he has responded to you better than with others.”

“Has he?” I grunted, looking down at my hands, which were clasped in my lap.

“Caleb’s spent ten years away from his packlands. He’s lived among humans, hiding his nature, suppressing it. He’s been a loner for a long time. And that’s dangerous.”

“Why?”

“Lone wolves don’t survive for long.”

“He’s been alone for ten years.” I heard the defensive tone in my voice and cursed myself for sticking up for him when he hadn’t stuck up for me.

“Wolves are pack animals,” Doc said smoothly. “They thrive in a family environment. They are social animals.”

Social? Caleb? The thought was funny. “Someone needs to tell him,” I cracked the joke, expecting a laugh, a smile at least.

“I think that’s what you’re doing,” Doc said casually, his eyes watchful. “We think, well, the shaman thinks, that your visions, sketches, they’re a reminder of what he’s lost.” He sucked his teeth. “And that your artwork is reminding him of what he needs to survive.”

“Why can’t he be left alone?” I felt like I was too demanding when I said that.

“Because a lone wolf turns.”

“Turns?”

“We call them rogues.” Doc was watching me with an intensity that made me realize how important this was, and I paid closer attention. “No pack, no accountability, no anchor to pack life.” He considered his next words carefully. “They spend more time as their wolf, and as they do, they lose their humanity. Turning wild. Dangerous.”

“Caleb isn’t like that.”

“Not yet.” The empathy he’d displayed earlier was gone. The look was hard. The belief he was right was evident in the set of his shoulders, the focus of his stare. “He’s an alpha, Willow. His destiny isn’t to be living alone, it’s to provide for a pack. It’s to keep the bloodline alive.”

The stab of jealousy I felt was unexpected, but what did I expect? I may care for Caleb, but I never thought of him as my future. Christ, we didn’t have a present, never mind anything else. I was being silly.

But hearing that Caleb’s destiny, his fate , was to be head of some extended family and impregnate a mate to produce babies for his bloodline to continue, made me sad.

“If his Goddess only wants for him to be a domesticated man, she chose the wrong shifter.” Pushing myself to my feet, I tugged my sweater down. “I don’t know him well, and I never knew what he was like before, but I can tell you that she’s gonna need a helluva lot more than me and a sketchbook to convince that man to be sociable or conform to anything that he doesn’t want to.”

“The shaman could be wrong,” Doc conceded after a moment’s silence.

I don’t think he believed that though, and I didn’t like that a part of me didn’t believe it either.

“Why me?” It was the fundamental question after all. “I’m not his mate. I’m not his pack. I’m not a shifter. Why has Luna picked me? You don’t believe that explanation of me showing him what he’s missing out on any more than I do.”

“We don’t know.”

“Shouldn’t you?” I challenged, causing Doc to smile.

“We’re trying.”

Well, try harder.

Being told so emphatically that I had no future in his life cut deeper than I wanted to admit. It was like a punch to the gut I hadn’t seen coming or ever expected. The sharp sting of reality gnawed at me, taking root under my skin, and it didn’t make it easier to accept.

Denial had its limits, and I was already way past the city line. Every word, every dismissal, only pushed me closer to having to confront the mess of my emotions that I’d been avoiding looking too closely at.

But pretending that this didn’t hurt didn’t make it any less real, and I was running out of places to hide from the truth.