Chapter 18 - Joshua
The next day, Rafael and Michael showed up at Joshua’s house, looking very uncomfortable.
Joshua welcomed them in and glanced past them at the moving van that they had come in.
He and Kira had texted a bit that morning, and they both agreed that it was best for Kira to move back to her own house for the time being.
“Are you doing okay?” Rafael asked, swiping his dark hair from his face.
“Not really. But I’m going to go run patrols with the special ops. Alpha Bael says they may have had a demon occurrence, and we’re going to check it out,” Joshua said, passing Rafael a set of keys to the place.
Rafael sighed. “Anything we can do for you?”
Joshua shook his head. They couldn’t fix his mess for him. “Kira was going to stop by with Chelsey and Gwen to pack up her things. Lock up when you’re done?”
“Anything you want us to keep an eye on?” Michael folded his arms over his chest.
Joshua shook his head. Kira wasn’t going to take anything that she wasn’t sure she could keep.
He trusted her with that. “Just… tell them that they’re free to take anything in the potions room.
Whatever they want, they can have. Chelsey and Gwen, too.
I won’t need it, and it’d be a shame to let it go to waste. ”
His two best friends nodded. He could see on their faces that they wanted to ask, wanted to know what was going on. He didn’t have the stomach to tell them. Not now. Maybe not ever.
So he spent the day with the special ops. They found strong traces of demons in Bael’s territory, but the trail went cold quickly. After a whole day trying to make some forward progress, Joshua was finally forced to admit defeat.
When he came back to his empty house, he stared at the front room. He’d grown used to the little touches Kira left behind. Her books on the coffee table. Her shoes by the door. It looked so hollow and empty without her.
The next morning, when he went to make coffee, he found her favorite mug at the front of the cupboard and decided to go get breakfast at the café instead.
He spent the day out again, and that night, he went to his parents’ house instead of his own.
They didn’t ask, only welcomed him in and talked about their renovation plans.
They were always renovating something. It felt almost normal.
Until it was time to go home, and he returned once more to the cold, empty house.
Only this time, he forced himself to sit in Kira’s favorite chair.
She had left a DVD of her favorite series in the DVD player. It popped up as soon as he turned on the TV.
He didn’t sleep that night. Every sound in the creaking old house made him think about how she’d pad to the bathroom in the morning, her hair mussed, her eyes heavy with sleep.
The way she grunted at him if she hadn’t had her coffee yet, only to turn into a completely different person as soon as she smelled it.
Dammit! He’d gotten so used to having her in his life. It was impossible to adjust to her absence. He’d sworn to himself that he wasn’t going to push, for fear of pushing her away, but the silence felt like a different sort of pushing her away. He snatched up his phone and sent her a message.
Can I come by and talk?
The three dots that indicated she was writing lit up, faded, and lit up again. Tomorrow at ten?
Relief washed through him. I’ll be there. Thank you.
He waited for a response, but none came, despite several more of those dots appearing and disappearing. No matter. She had agreed to see him. And he only had… Fourteen hours to wait and worry about how it would go. He let out a heavy breath.
Please help me not to screw this up, he prayed.
***
“These are for you,” Joshua said, handing Kira the prettiest bouquet he’d been able to find this morning. They were a generic bunch of flowers, given the short notice, but they were still nice to look at.
Kira accepted the flowers, but her expression was troubled as she turned them in her hands.
Joshua took a deep breath. “You know that I’m an asshole. There’s a reason for that, even though therapists have tried to help.”
“Oh. That’s not where I thought you were going to start.” Kira chewed her lip, then stepped back. “Come in. Chelsey went with Gwen and Rafael to bully the council into giving up all books that contain information on witch hunters.”
It raised his hopes to hear that. Maybe she was still looking for a solution?
He tried not to latch onto it. They’d talked before about this incessant push and pull between them.
The cycle had to break, one way or another.
And until he could change his own patterns, he wasn’t going to think Kira would just spontaneously forgive him.
“Did she find anything?” he asked cautiously.
“Not yet. There’s a lot of books to sort through, and we don’t really know where to look. I’m hoping that the Elders have more information that they’re holding out on.” She paused and looked over her shoulder. “Not that it will change anything between us if we do find information.”
He followed her inside to the living room. Kira put the flowers on the coffee table. She spent some time arranging them before she turned toward him.
“So you’re an asshole?” she prompted.
Joshua shifted in his seat, hoping that his words would come out right.
“I am. I’ve gone to therapy, but whenever I…
I start feeling too deeply, I put up walls.
It’s difficult for me to express myself.
I don’t mean to be an asshole, but I am one.
And I make mistakes all the time. Things get stuck in my head, and I can’t see other ways of doing them.
I’ve nearly ruined my friendship with Rafael more than once because of it. ”
Kira hugged herself and nodded to show she was listening.
“The first time we slept together, I rejected you because I was panicking. I was young, immature, and I thought I was going to kill you.” The words tasted bitter on his tongue.
His wolf growled lightly, as though the admission was a threat.
“I thought that my witch hunter blood would infect you and you’d die because I wasn’t strong enough to stay away from you.
I thought I was being selfless by rejecting you.
I see now that I was just putting the onus on you without even telling you.
And I made the same mistake when I didn’t tell you the truth about why I can’t give you children. ”
Kira leaned back, blinking rapidly. “Do you understand why it hurts so much?”
“Because I lied.” It was the wrong thing to see. Her eyes shuttered, and she leaned her head back, as though she was disappointed but not surprised.
Fuck, it hurt.
“Tell me,” he begged.
“I already have. But if you didn’t hear it… I can’t trust you to listen to me. Not about this, not about other things.” She grabbed the flowers and handed them back to him. “I don’t want gifts. I want you to listen to me.”
His instinct was to say she wasn’t telling him anything, but he bit it back. He did have a tendency not to listen. He knew that about himself. So he’d listen now. She was telling him to do more self-reflection. Right?
Slowly, he stood. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to wait for you to reach out first?”
Kira’s eyes widened at his question. She stared at him for a long moment before she nodded once. “I think that will be best. But I can’t promise how long that will be.”
Joshua’s wolf whimpered. It didn’t want to leave her.
Would it help if he told her that she was his mate?
No. Because that was telling her things, not listening to what she had to say.
He nodded and slunk toward the door, hating the sight of the flowers she didn’t want.
Maybe he’d drop them off at the clinic. Brighten the place up.
At the doorway, he stopped and looked back. “Kira?”
“Yeah?”
“I hope you find more than I could. About the witch hunters.”
Kira bit her lip. “And I hope…” she trailed off as though she was uncertain what to say—or how to say it.
Joshua slipped away, heart heavy. He wanted to go back and demand more, to hear precisely what he needed to do to fix this. She said she had already told him. But when?
You took that choice away from me.
The thought was like a spear going straight through his heart.
He came to a stop, his hands clenched around the flower stems. That was it.
The trust between them hadn’t broken just because he kept secrets from her.
It was because he’d made decisions for her, too.
He’d decided to break up with her for her good.
He decided they would obey the council and marry for her good.
He decided he’d never give her children for her good.
He always ’decided for her good’ and never told her so she could make the choice herself. How would he react if someone did the same thing to him?
He wouldn’t even give him another chance.
The revelation made his chest lighten. He turned, wanting to run back and tell her that he understood now—only to stop after a few steps.
She told him to wait until she reached out.
How could he say that he could listen to her now, only for his actions to show that he wasn’t listening?
He hovered there, caught between going back to explain his revelation and respecting her wishes.
He let out a heavy breath. Respect. That’s where he’d fallen short before, not respecting her to make her own choices.
So he turned away again. He wasn’t going to force himself into her life. If there was space for him, she would let him know.
And if not?
Then it was her choice.
***
A few days went by before Kira messaged him again, asking to meet up.
Joshua was eager to agree, and they arranged to meet at his office.
As he waited for her arrival, he sorted through his tangle of thoughts and jotted things down to make sure he’d be able to tell her everything that he wanted to say.
Kira arrived looking like a goddess. She wore simple clothes, her hair braided with frizzy strands escaping. Dark circles ringed under her eyes, but when she smiled, it was genuine.
They stared awkwardly at one another for a moment, uncertain.
“How have you been?” Joshua finally asked.
Kira made a strangled noise in her throat. “Let’s skip the small talk, okay? It just makes everything else more difficult. Gwen heard from Rafael that you’ve been wanting to talk to me.”
Joshua’s heart sank. Was that the only reason she’d come?
Because she was getting pressured? He tried not to dwell on the unsettled thought.
“I do. I understand why you’re upset with me.
I shouldn’t have been making all these choices, keeping you in the dark, and acting as though you weren’t capable of making your own decisions.
And I’m sorry for it. All of it. Especially for not hearing when you told me the first time. ”
Kira chewed her thumb, as though she hadn’t expected him to react this way. “Oh. Thank you.”
“There is more, if I may?” Joshua leaned forward and tapped his notebook, smiling wryly. “I’ve written a few things down to try to find the right words.”
Kira nodded at him.
He opened the notebook and glanced over his notes.
“Mark and Susan have tried to be supportive. They have tried to reassure me that it’s not my fault that my first parents died.
But ever since I learned about witch hunters, I’ve known it’s because of the curse that activated with my birth.
I don’t know if that curse is still active.
My parents have gotten into serious accidents.
I think it’s my fault. I have no proof, but maybe it’s even my fault the demons have returned. ”
“That’s ridiculous!” Kira spluttered. “The magic keeping them locked away is degrading.”
“But it’s all happened since I was born.”
Kira shook her head firmly. “No. It happened before that. There’s been demon sightings for hundreds of years. So unless you’re a lot older than you look, it can’t be you.”
Joshua stared at his notes. Her words didn’t dent his own convictions, but he didn’t argue.
Like he said, he didn’t have any proof. “At the graveyard, when I talked about risk, I didn’t mean the risk that you weren’t going to have what you wanted.
I meant… I meant that I might be putting you at risk just by being near you, due to my heritage. ”
There was a muffled scraping noise as Kira pushed back her chair. She started to move around the desk, slowly.
“I knew there was a risk you’d hate me when you found out.
But I thought that risk was worth it because we know that demons target the people they see as threats.
I thought… I thought if the demons saw the witch with the son of a witch hunter, whose curse had already killed his parents, they’d assume that we would try to have children as soon as possible, but they’d know that it would kill you if we did,” he said in a rush, glaring at his notes now.
“I hoped that they’d turn their attentions elsewhere while we were married.
That it would make you less of a target. ”
Kira’s fingers brushed against his chin. He let her guide him, tilting his face up to hers. Her blue eyes glimmered with tears as she leaned in. Her lips brushed against his. Joshua held himself still, wanting to hold her but also knowing she needed to set the pace.
She pulled away, her hand lingering on his face. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
“Think about,” he repeated.
“I’m still hurt, Joshua. I still wish you’d told me everything. But… but call me after you go patrol,” she murmured. “I worry about you.”
***
I worry about you. The words still lingered in his mind when he and the special ops were out in the forest later that day, tracking down a missing woman.
He was distracted, wanting to get back to town and call Kira.
It felt like they might be at a turning point.
Maybe he had turned, maybe they had a chance now.
The scent of blood hit his nose.
He slowed, flicking his tail to tell the special ops to spread out. His focus returned to the scene, razor-sharp as he crept forward, searching for the source of the blood.
He saw a pale hand lying beneath a bunch of ferns. Then a terrible scream filled the forest, and dozens of shadowy snakes dropped from the trees onto the wolves’ backs.