The Wolf’s Whisper: The Complete Series

22. Emily

A gainst all odds, I woke up in the morning genuinely refreshed. That was particularly insane, considering I wasn’t even in my own bed. I typically had the worst time sleeping anywhere foreign. It didn’t smell like me, wasn’t worn in all the places I liked. Usually, I managed to slumber after a lot of tossing and turning, but no, the moment I’d slipped beneath the sheets and was fully enveloped by Caleb’s scent, I was out like a light.

It was like every knotted muscle in my body untied at once, allowing me to slip into the deepest slumber.

Hell to the fucking yes. Whatever Caleb’s cologne, I wanted to bottle it. Maybe I could spray it on my pillows when anxiety about tests made it impossible to sleep. I’d be the most well- rested student on campus, and nobody would know it was because I had werewolf perfume at the ready.

It was a pretty convenient wolf trait, unless it was just a Caleb thing. But I didn’t really want to think about that.

My mind was already so chock-full that it felt fit to burst. I’d gotten a reprieve once I’d slept, but as I woke up, the thoughts trickled in, reminding me of everything that had happened the night before, both good and bad. I wasn’t ready to face that onslaught, however, so I rolled over and went to check my phone, grateful I’d shoved one of my chargers into my bag.

When I lit up my screen, though, I was surprised to see dozens of missed calls from Gavin and even more messages. Holy fuck, Batman, give me some time to breathe. I thumbed through them quickly, not ready to be deluged in whatever shit had flown from my soon-to-be-ex’s fingers, but curious about the general gist of things.

There was lots of groveling. Claims that he had no idea what came over him. Begging for forgiveness. A little bit of subtle blame shifting onto me. All fun stuff. A small slice of my brain wanted to meticulously go through every message and tell him what I really thought, but I was still contented and warm in my bubble of early morning sleepiness, and I didn’t want it to pop yet from the brutal reality resting just beyond. It could wait an hour.

Or two.

Or three.

Maybe four? Five? Who knew, maybe I’d never talk to him again.

But first, before everything else, was breakfast.

That was the right motivation to actually start my day... in five minutes or so.

Snuggling further under the covers, I opened a message from my mother. It looked like Gavin had called her late in the night. Was that ballsy or outright deluded? I swiftly typed out that I was perfectly fine and staying with a friend. That Gavin and I had a row, and I’d be back at the dorm later.

Satisfied that it was all handled, I set my phone back down and tried wiggling out from under the covers. It took longer than it should’ve, but I figured why hurry? It was a Saturday, and there was no way I’d be able to cram any academics in my head after everything I’d gone through. For once, I was just going to let myself poke around and simply exist. It was nice not to be rushing from one crisis, lab report, or test to another.

However, my stomach rumbled, and that urged me to hurry it up. Peeking out the bedroom door, I carefully snuck through the passageway opening up into the living room and kitchen, not wanting to disturb my host if he was asleep.

He was lying on the couch flat on his back, one leg hooked over the back of it with one arm over his head. It was so... cute? He reminded me of a dog who’d gotten too large without realizing it, just sprawled out and utterly relaxed.

I thought of the impression I’d had of him at first and how I felt now. It was a stark difference. Not that long ago, I dreaded seeing him, unsure if he meant me harm or even wanted to murder me. The situation now was an entirely different story.

My mind played back our long conversation from the night before as I crept into the kitchen. I’d never expected it, yet I was touched that he’d trusted me with what was obviously a very vulnerable story for him. It was still so overwhelming to think I’d inadvertently ruined his entire life, but he didn’t seem to blame me one lick.

It was just so insane that I had no memory of what had happened. I was just a baby, but still, I’d have thought I’d at least have had flashes. But no. Nothing.

What the hell had happened? Who’d taken me? How had I ended up in an orphanage to be found by my parents? None of it made any sense.

I have the rest of my life to figure it out. Neither of us were going anywhere.

My stomach rumbled more insistently. I abandoned my pondering about the difficult road Caleb had taken to focus on finding some grub, maybe some cereal or even bread. Something I could prepare, then squirrel away in the bedroom without waking my host. If I’d needed a lot of rest, he did, too. It couldn’t have been easy chasing after me all the time, trying to save me from myself.

Normally, I’d try to eat something with more protein and fat to start my day, as carbs were an easy way to end up in an early morning slump, but my diet was out the window since that night at the club. Going by what Caleb had said, that’d continue until my metabolism figured itself out. It was going to be challenging, considering that routine was what had helped my ED recovery, but that was all a part of the journey. Bodies and needs changed, as did our circumstances, and I had to roll with them instead of fighting them. To adhere to old rules that no longer served me would just be another type of disordered eating.

“Good morning.”

I screamed and nearly jumped out of my skin, whirling around with my fists raised, but of course it was just Caleb. Who else could it be?

“Holy shit, man!” I cried, hand over my heart. “You scared the hell outta me!”

Caleb laughed, a nice, rumbling sound. “Sorry. Wasn’t my intention.”

Of course it wasn’t. Although his bulk was certainly intimidating, Caleb wasn’t.

“I’m sorry for waking you,” he said. “I also didn’t mean to.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it. I’ve always been a light sleeper.” He looked me over, and while it didn’t feel lecherous, there was something... intense about it.

I just couldn’t decide if I liked it or not.

“My apologies either way,” I said. “I was just looking for something to eat.” I self-consciously pulled my shirt away from my body, then crossed my arms over my chest, realizing I wasn’t wearing a bra. It went to show how comfortable I was that I hadn’t realized my relative state of undress until then. “I’m not too picky. Do you have anything I could snatch?”

“If you’re not in a rush, I can rustle up some grub. Got some groceries I’ve been needing to cook.”

I blushed furiously, even though it was a relatively simple suggestion with nothing salacious about it. “N-no, that’s okay. I wouldn’t want to put you out or make myself too comfortable, ya know?” I added a laugh, but it ended up sounding more awkward than easygoing.

“You’re not putting me out. I’m offering. There’s no such thing as being too comfortable around your guardian. It’s literally my job.”

“Well, if it wouldn’t be an inconvenience…”

“Not at all.” He moved past me, and it was only then that I noticed he’d changed out of his dark jeans and into a pair of plaid sleeping shorts. It was so... so normal, and banal, that it made me feel strangely happy.

And also interested .

It’s too early for that .

“So I’m guessing you haven’t been a guardian to anyone else, have you?” I asked, padding after him before sitting on one of the few stools beside the battered butcher block masquerading as a kitchen island.

Caleb shook his head, and I tried to judge whether I should stop asking questions for a while. Talking about everything that had happened clearly took a toll on the older man, and I didn’t want to demand too much of his energy on top of everything else.

“Guardianship is a one-and-done deal,” he said. “It’s meant to be a lifelong position, and you can only really be dedicated to one person in that way. The only exception I’ve heard about is twins. Even then, most of them will have two separate guardians, though every now and then, it works out that they both bond to the same person.”

“Ah,” I said. “So when I was gone?—”

“That was the end of it.” He opened the large fridge and rooted around. “Yes. Permanently. Or at least it was supposed to be.” He paused long enough to straighten up and give me the loveliest smile. “Yet, here you are.”

“Here I am,” I echoed in all of my complicated, anxiety-ridden glory. “Despite everything, as astronomical as the chances were, I’m right here.”

Caleb paused again, and his expression still had that intensity to it. Sometimes I wanted to crack open his mind and read everything going on there. I was sure that it was fascinating as well as heartbreaking. Caleb wanted to present himself as a simple kind of guy, but he had a lot of depth and a lot of pain hidden behind those dark eyes. It was strange to think I’d have never known that if he hadn’t tackled me. I still didn’t exactly agree with how he’d gone about it, but at least we were on far better footing now.

I knew I shouldn’t trust him completely—take away the wolves and everything else, and he was practically a stranger to me. But he didn’t feel like one, and that was what mattered.

I didn’t know what possessed me to blurt out what I said next. “It’s not your fault, you know.”

An inscrutable expression crossed his features, and once more, I couldn’t decipher it. He returned to what he was doing without a word.

Not the best way for our conversation to grind to a halt, but I gave him some time. I got the feeling he wasn’t exactly used to emoting or speaking his mind, much less talking about past tragedies in his life. The least I could do was be a little patient.

Eventually, he bumped the fridge door closed with his hip, arms full of food. He was still silent as he walked over the counter and dumped his goods there. For a moment, I thought he was rather forcefully ending our conversation, but then he spoke again.

“You don’t know that.”

“But I do!” I protested. “You were sixteen. It’s ridiculous that anyone could blame you.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You’re only saying that because you’ve got decades’ worth of guilt built up in you after way too many adults put a frankly ridiculous amount of pressure on your shoulders.”

“No, I’m saying it because you were taken while I was guarding you. I was the one who was chosen to watch out for you, and I couldn’t even do that. So yes, it is my fault.”

I was taken while he was watching me? Thousands of questions popped up in my mind, one after the other, all crowding to get out at the same time. Thankfully, I had enough of my wits about me not to pepper my guardian with a deluge of queries. Had he fallen asleep? Had he ditched me? Honestly, I couldn’t imagine the latter. No matter what had happened, I knew it was an accident, and it killed me that Caleb was still tormented over a mistake from his childhood.

The pain layering his voice was too much, so I decided to change tactics. “They have to give you your guardianship back now, right? I mean, I’m here, I’m safe, and you’ve been doing a great job of taking care of me so far.”

“Oh, yes,” he said caustically. “I’m a real credit to the designation. I scared you off so you’d run into the city alone at night, stalked you to your home and your campus department, not to mention assaulted your boyfriend.”

“I mean, my boyfriend was assaulting me first,” I pointed out. “If anything, you were stopping it. That’s gotta count for something, right?” Caleb didn’t say anything, which just made me swallow. All the confidence I’d just had was quickly fading into an awkward energy. “Right?”

We fell into another round of silence, but this one wasn’t nearly as comfortable as it was the previous night. The flow that’d been so easy then was now rocky and full of pitfalls. What happened? I’d come on too strong. I was being flippant with a man who basically owed his entire downfall to the fact that I’d been absconded. Everything was so complicated. I wished I could go back to when I was twenty-one, trying to get through med school and handle my eating disorder.

But life so rarely worked like that. There were so few do-overs, so few second chances. The fact that Caleb and I had gotten one at all must mean something. The odds were astronomical that we’d ever run into each other again. Of all the clubs, and all the cities, and all the nights when he was actually in town, that time happened to have been when I’d first displayed my first shifter symptoms? It couldn’t just be a coincidence.

I was whipping myself into a mental frenzy, but Caleb spoke again, breaking the increasing divide growing between us in the small kitchen. “He did deserve it,” he said with the same finality as stating we needed oxygen to breathe. “He was hurting you.”

That last part was almost a question, like he wanted reassurance about how he’d interpreted last night and that he’d done the correct thing. I figured it was the absolute least I could do.

“Yes, he was hurting me, and scaring me,” I said. “You did the right thing by saving me, and I’ll be forever grateful.”

That seemed to loosen some of the tension that’d built up around his shoulders, and I finally got one of those smiles of his: shaky, but there, nonetheless.

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he said hurriedly.

But strangely enough, I found myself not entirely minding. Did I want to do an entire play-by-play of the night, from our dinner to what had happened in the hotel room? No. I didn’t mind talking about it. Enough time had passed for me to process at least a little of it.

“It’s fine,” I said, scooting my stool a little closer to him. “But I guess...”

“What is it?”

“I have a question, and I’m worried about it being ignorant or stupid. I don’t wanna offend you, but I can’t really shake it unless I ask.”

“What is it?”

I chewed on my lip a moment more before answering. “With all that you said about pheromones, and my biology, could I have been somehow responsible... for how Gavin reacted to me?”

At that, Caleb stopped washing the vegetables he’d placed into the sink and stared me dead in the eyes. “Are you asking if something about being a shifter forced Gavin to attack you?”

“Well, not forced, per se,” I considered. “More like coerced. Influenced? It basically took the control out of his hands, is what I’m saying… like borderline inebriated him?”

“Like spiking his drink at a club?”

“Something like that.”

When Caleb spoke again, his tone wasn’t unkind, just told me that there was absolutely not a modicum of doubt within his mind. “No, Emily. While some humans are sensitive enough to our pheromones to feel like there’s something wrong about us, it’s an uncomfortable feeling of the uncanny valley. You can’t influence other humans with your pheromones, and you can’t cause someone to violently attack you. Please, please , Emily, don’t you dare take any of this out on yourself. Gavin was fully in the wrong. Whether you’re a wolf or a human, you didn’t deserve that. Nobody does.”

I breathed a long, long sigh of relief. Thank God. I’d been so worried that somehow I’d lured Gavin into this. Now that I knew it wasn’t possible, the idea seemed ridiculous. How would that even work? That was like a dog’s rut being able to affect a cat. In the end, we were two different species.

“Okay,” I said. “Thank you, Caleb. I needed that.”

“No problem,” he said. “Just remember, no question is too stupid. You’ve basically been shoved into a world most of us have had our entire lives to catch up with. It’s not easy.”

With that, he returned to his cooking, and I was grateful for the change in attention. I was glad we’d talked, but I needed a break from all the heavy lifting. God, I’d woken up so refreshed, and now I already felt mentally exhausted. Was that the price of becoming a shifter? Or just recovering from a partner betraying my trust?

“What’re you making?” I asked, watching as he diced up peppers on a cheap cutting board. When was his birthday, even? I could get him one of the polished wooden ones that my father favored. That’d be something useful. Caleb struck me as a guy who didn’t go for flimflam and finery.

“I thought some nice omelets would be a good way to start the day. Lots of protein. You’re going to want a lot of that leading up to your shift, and even after. It demands energy.”

“Yeah, I figured as much.”

“Do you want to join in? I never mind a sous chef in the kitchen.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “I think I’d just like to watch for now, if that’s okay. Keep you company?”

“That’s perfectly fine.”

We slipped into another comfortable silence as he worked. I did my best to keep the conversation flowing when we did speak, letting it drop naturally when needed. Once more, it was strangely easy. I constantly felt uncomfortable in my own skin, yet Caleb’s kitchen felt like a natural place for me, like I was always meant to be here.

Watching him cook was fun. It reminded me of cooking with my parents, but still different. It was nice to watch the colored vegetables get added to the eggs he was gently heating in their pan. It certainly smelled a lot better than the few times I made an omelet on my own as a teenager. Somehow, I’d always managed to burn the outside while the inside was still runny and tasteless.

I could tell before the omelets even got onto our plates that they’d be delicious. The smell in the air was heavenly. Now that I thought about it, Caleb had said my senses would enhance after I shifted. Would that mean I’d be a better cook? Perhaps I’d be able to guess when it wasn’t flavorful enough or when it was about to burn.

Definitely something I could look into, but not now. I was primarily concerned with eating this delicious breakfast.

“Sorry, I don’t have a lot in the way of drinks,” Caleb said as he carried both our plates back into the living room. I was perfectly capable of transporting my own meal, but I didn’t argue. It was flattering that he was pulling out so many stops for me. “Unless you want to start your day with an ice-cold beer, it’s water or orange juice.”

“No milk?” I asked curiously. Since I knew Caleb drank coffee, I assumed he’d add plain milk to it rather than any fancy creamer. Then again, I was suddenly immensely curious about exactly how he took his morning drink. God, I still had so much to learn about him.

“I actually drank it all before I left for Keller’s,” he said. “I didn’t want it to go bad in the fridge, given I didn’t know how long I’d be away.”

“That makes sense.”

“Also finished off all my hazelnut creamer, too. It’s a shame. I love that stuff.”

I was wrong. I could practically feel my brain squirreling away that little factoid like it was something precious. “Really? I never envisioned you as the type.”

He scowled playfully. “What, I can’t love a good creamer?”

I laughed at his affronted tone. For several days, I’d assumed so many things about Caleb, often in the worst way. But really, I had no idea what he was actually like. What I’d found was a funny, charming, and considerate person with plenty of insecurities, plus a lot of trauma. He was a person, after all.

“I’ll just take a glass of cold water, if that’s alright,” I said.

“No problem. Coming right up.”

Caleb sat my still-steaming plate on the coffee table right where I’d been the night before. It was already amusingly clear that he was a creature of habit, but I could get behind that. A routine always helped me stay oriented and feel more productive.

I sat cross-legged on his wide couch and waited for him to return. Once he set my water down, I arranged my plate in my lap but waited until he was ready to eat. I knew he wouldn’t care, but it seemed rude to start without him. This was a meal shared between friends that should be enjoyed from start to finish.

Wait, no, not friends. A guardian and his charge.

I liked the sound of that, and I was surprised by the rush of warmth that went through me. The very idea of having a guardian was so new that it should’ve been foreign, even a little ill-fitting, but no. It felt like slipping on a glove I’d always meant to buy, something I’d always needed even if I wasn’t aware of its absence.

I was likely in an emotionally heightened state, considering everything that had happened since that first fateful night at BLX, but I had to admit I felt drawn to Caleb. Now that I knew what he was really about, I felt safer with him than I did with anyone else outside of my family. I trusted him, and that was such a crazy thought. Hell, I wasn’t even wearing a bra in front of him, but it barely even registered that I could be in a state of undress.

Caleb still looked at me with that oceanic intensity, but it was never lecherous, and it never felt like his eyes were trying to tear away chunks of my body and keep them for himself. Once he’d figured out how not to terrorize me in dark alleys, he’d been nothing but respectful.

“Either the food is really good or really bad,” he said, watching me intently. “I can’t tell.”

“This is amazing, seriously!” I exclaimed. “I’m not used to eating so well in the morning unless I go to the café on campus.”

“I don’t know how well I measure up to a café, but I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

“Honestly, this tastes fresher. I can’t say why. I know most of these vegetables are from a supermarket, judging from the containers, but there’s a difference.”

“Ah, it’s that shifter palette coming in,” he said. “The café you go to likely uses pre-scrambled egg liquid that comes from a carton, and mine are farm-fresh eggs from down the road. That’s why they sit on my counter instead of being in the fridge. Their bloom protects them from rotting or becoming dangerous.”

“Their bloom?”

“It’s a thin, natural membrane that allows eggs to sit out for a couple of weeks at a time. Think of it as nature’s natural protection. If you wash the eggs, the bloom comes off, and you need to refrigerate them. Otherwise, they’re not safe.”

“Wow! That’s so fascinating. How do you know all this? Did you grow up on a farm?”

“Hardly, but my mother had a little garden on the rez, and Henry came from a large family that worked on a farm. He taught me a lot. I always got the impression that he’d have liked to have a small homestead in his old age and have me take over it, but…” He trailed off before swallowing hard. “It didn’t work out that way.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, not sure of what else to say.

“Don’t be. You didn’t do anything wrong. Sometimes life is just like that. We get on these paths and don’t realize how far we’ve strayed from what we wanted until we look up and realize we’re somewhere we never planned to be.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I feel that.”

Caleb laughed. “I bet you do.”

The conversation ebbed after that, but once more, it didn’t feel stilted or forced. It was just the natural quiet that came with enjoying a nice breakfast on a cool, crisp winter morning. The closer I got to the end of my omelet, the slower I went. I didn’t really want to disrupt whatever moment we were having between us. It was nice, and simple, which was what I desperately needed in a life growing more and more complicated by the minute.

I knew the bubble couldn’t last forever. I’d have to go home and deal with Gavin, decide what I wanted to tell all our friends and my mother. But for the moment, none of that mattered. There was just me, Caleb, and the tasty food we were munching on.

This time, I didn’t let myself slip completely into my thoughts, so when Caleb spoke again, I wasn’t startled.

“May I ask you a somewhat sensitive question?”

I thought for a moment. “I think it’d be only fair, considering everything I’ve asked you.”

“Nah, it doesn’t work like that. If you’re not comfortable, you’re not comfortable. It doesn’t matter how much I’ve answered about myself.”

“Feel free,” I urged. “What’s on your mind?”

“I…”

Nerves churned in my belly when he didn’t elaborate right away, as if he were trying to think of the perfect way to phrase whatever his question was. Usually, that was never a good sign.

Finally, he said, “I realize there’s so much I need to learn about you, and I’m no expert in what makes you tick, but I have to say, every time I interacted with Gavin was unpleasant. I know it’s none of my business, but I can’t help but wonder: did he ever hurt you before?”

Ah, now that was a loaded question. No wonder he was reticent to tell me. At the same time, I was grateful that he cared, and that he didn’t want to upset me.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I swear, that behavior was completely out of nowhere.” Well, Gavin was pretty pissed the last time I had made out with him, just to turn him down. I’d felt like I deserved his ire at the time. Now I was beginning to think he was always full of shit. “In fact, he’d always been patient with the fact that I wasn’t ready for sex,” I continued. “I don’t know many boyfriends in this day and age who’d be fine waiting more than a year.”

Caleb choked in the middle of whatever he was swallowing, and I watched in concern as he pounded on his chest a few times. I felt my stomach twist, wondering if he was making fun of me. That would really suck when we were still building trust.

“Sorry,” he sputtered before straightening up. “I just want to make sure I understand. You’re a virgin, and you decided that now, when you’ve already got so much on your plate, was the best time for you to take such a big personal step?” He paused, as if he were thinking better of what he was saying. “I mean, unless it wasn’t. I know virginity’s not, like, a real thing, not really, so if, uh…”

He wasn’t making fun of me, so that was a relief. Although he was clearly flustered, Caleb’s earnestness was cute.

“Relax, it’s okay, Caleb,” I said. “Yeah, my virginity was important to me, not because I believe in purity or any of that shit, but because to me, having sex with someone is a really fun, important event two people can share. I wanted it to be a special memory that I could cherish forever.”

Caleb nodded along, though I still noticed the pink gracing his cheeks. Goodness, had I made the big, bad wolf blush ? Why was I so pleased about that?

“That’s a really good attitude,” he said. “I’ll admit, I rushed into it when I was younger. I had some screwed-up ideas in my head about what made me a man or not, and I was looking for love and affection in really unhealthy ways, compensating for the exile and revulsion I felt from my own pack. We wolves were never meant to be solitary species. Goes against the grain.”

It was strange. Although I’d talked to Caleb all night and discovered I had so much to admire him for, I was surprised again by just how self-aware he was. He came across like a guy who’d been dealt an unfair hand and put in the work so he could change. I knew plenty of adults who had never gotten to be that mature.

“Why do you look so surprised?” he asked ruefully, wiggling his eyebrows at me. Ah, we were back to teasing. I was fine with it, though. I liked that we could slide from serious topics to frivolous ones. It felt... freeing.

“Not surprised,” I said. “Just appreciative. You’ve come a long way.”

“I like to think I have.” Caleb sat back and set his empty plate in front of him. I knew he didn’t realize it, but the way he spread his legs in the chair and rested his strong, thick arms on each side was impossible to ignore. He really was a specimen and a half. “But yes, point being, I think it’s cool that you’ve stuck to your guns. And I may be out of pocket for saying this, but I’m glad it ended up not working out for you.”

“Oh?” I braced myself. I hated how the conversation was clearly going well, but I was still waiting for the punchline, like Caleb was putting in the work just to get me into a vulnerable position.

Ugh, I hated that my anxiety was like that. It made it harder to trust myself or any of my choices. Too bad being a shifter wasn’t going to magically fix whatever made me catastrophize so much.

“Yeah,” Caleb said. “I know it’s not really my place, but I just feel like maybe taking a big leap like that when you’ve already got so much on your mind isn’t always the best. You should have sex because you want to, not because you feel pressured.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “But it wasn’t like I was having sex because of pressure.” He gave me a look, so I hurried to explain. “Okay, so maybe there was pressure, but it wasn’t from anyone in particular, believe it or not. Not even Gavin. Trust me, he’d been wanting sex for a while, but that’d never prodded me along.”

“Then what was it, then?”

“It’s my shift. You said that everything was going to change, that my entire perception would be different. If I’m going to enter an entirely new era of my life, I want to be able to experience sex as a human at least one time. A goodbye to a chapter in my life, the ending of an era. I thought of it as a full celebration of my journey as Emily the college student.” I sighed. “I spent a lot of time being scared of my own shadow, or detesting my body for not being what society told me it should be. I thought what better way to wrap up the journey that’s gotten me to this point than to be intimate and vulnerable, to share my naked body with someone I thought I loved?”

Caleb was quiet for a long, long moment, and once again, I couldn’t decipher his thoughts. But I watched his face as his jaw moved, like his tongue was tracing out the words before he dared utter them.

“That’s... deeper than I expected.”

“Is it?”

“I’m sorry, I never stopped to consider any of that, what you could be losing. When you explain it like that, I can totally understand why you took that step. I gotta admit, it’s pretty fucking brave.”

“I dunno about brave. ”

“I do. It takes guts to face something you’re afraid of and take a leap. I can respect that, and as your guardian, I hope you don’t mind my saying I’m proud of you.”

There I went again, flushing from his praise. It was alarming how he had such an effect on me, but I was finding I minded it less and less.

“Aw, thanks.” I’d been so in my own thoughts ever since I decided to take the plunge and sleep with Gavin that I didn’t realize how good it felt to share what I was thinking with someone else. With perhaps the only person I knew who could possibly understand my situation. After all, he’d once been a human and had to face becoming something else entirely—something other. “That means a lot,” I added.

“Just know I mean every word. You’re an incredible woman, Emily. I’m just sorry things didn’t go your way. It was a good plan. An admirable one.”

“Yeah, such is the way,” I said, sighing as I replayed the entire situation over, searching for some other solution, but there really wasn’t one. I wasn’t the type to go on a dating app and find a hookup. No, my anxiety would never allow for that.

“It’s too bad you can’t help me.”

I said it jokingly, even laughing at the end, and when it felt like the entire room froze, my brain repeated the stupid phrase that’d just escaped me.

Wait…

What the fuck had I just said?!