Chapter Forty
KIT
I’d told members of my pack enough times that they could lay off drenching each other in their scents, so it was nothing other than hugely hypocritical to wake up smiling because my bedroom was saturated with Lucas’s earthy warmth.
I wanted to wear his scent around like an extra scarf, dip my nose into it a thousand times a day.
Falling asleep with him tucked behind me had been perfect.
His declaration rang in my head, bringing a sense of peace I hadn’t realised I’d been missing.
My mother hadn’t been unaffectionate, but she’d worked hard to provide for us.
As an adult, I’d had a string of partners who didn’t fulfil my need to be chosen and cherished.
Lucas would fulfil it. I’d not found the words last night to tell him how committed to this I was, but I’d search out the right ones today. I wanted him to feel this too. I wanted Lucas to know he was chosen even as he was choosing.
I hoped he’d return from the bathroom soon. It was Sunday, so we could enjoy a lazy morning in bed before we headed over to Joshua and Bonnie’s for the mandatory weekly pack lunch.
Stretching my foot back, I frowned when it met cold blankets. If Lucas had vacated the bed recently, they would have been warm.
I sat up, blankets falling from my bare chest. I concentrated on each room of the cottage. Only one heartbeat joined my own, far too small and rapid to be human. Or werewolf. Kat apparently hadn’t ditched us completely.
‘No.’
I hauled blankets out of my way and carelessly threw on a jumper, pyjama bottoms, and yesterday’s scarf before rushing from my bedroom. My hearing couldn’t be working properly. Lucas had to be somewhere in the cottage. Maybe he was having a shower or had gotten up to make breakfast.
I dashed into the bathroom. Empty. Threw open his bedroom door. Empty. Ran downstairs. Empty.
As one last act of faith, I descended to the ground floor and searched the bookshop. It would have been strange for Lucas to come down here, but maybe he’d wanted something to read while we cosied up in bed together.
The foolish hope that my ears were malfunctioning and Lucas was somewhere close faded.
I dashed back upstairs. If Lucas wasn’t here, he would have left a note. Like he always did. I searched the kitchen counters and the table tucked under the back window. Scrabbling through our assorted clutter on the coffee table, I didn’t find anything.
I made myself stop checking under the thick pillar candles and think logically.
Lucas would be back soon. Maybe he’d thought the bakery would be open today or maybe he’d needed to burn off the new energy that came with being a wolf.
He would crash through the door downstairs and everything would be fine.
In a daze, I tidied the kitchen from our dinner yesterday.
Kat yowled at me, so I filled her food bowl with disgusting jellified meat.
I drifted upstairs and found only my clothes littering the bathroom floor.
Confirmation that Lucas had left, rather than being carried off by aliens sometime in the night.
Mechanically, I carried them to the wash basket in my room.
The thick fog cleared as I tripped downstairs into the living room. I’d filled enough time that if Lucas had tried to get us steaming pastries for breakfast before realising the bakery was closed on Sundays or if he’d gone out for a quick run, he should have been back.
Cold realisation washed through me, leaving me shivering and numb. I stumbled to the sofa and collapsed onto the cushion unoccupied by a glaring Kat.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and hid my face in my folded arms.
I had been so monumentally stupid.
Despite my best efforts yesterday to hold onto the truth, I’d let Lucas’s sweet words worm into my brain. I knew I was too demanding, wanted too much, but I’d let myself believe that Lucas was different. That maybe he liked me enough to overlook how moody I could be.
His final words before we drifted off to sleep last night had cracked open the cage around my heart. It had burst out, wild and free.
I wanted so badly to believe I could be chosen, that Lucas would want me in the same way I wanted him.
But it wasn’t true.
He must have woken this morning and realised he couldn’t bear to live with me.
He must have fled to a member of our pack, had probably escaped back into the mountains, rather than try to extract himself from my clutches when I was awake.
Aster would appear at my door soon, demanding Lucas’s stuff be packed up so that he didn’t have to spend another moment in my presence.
My tears soaked through my pyjama bottoms to my knees. I’d been so buoyed by Lucas’s enjoyment of our time together that I’d forgotten that people didn’t choose me. They enjoyed my body for a short while, but all the baggage that came with it was too much.
Lucas was my friend. I’d expected different from him. I thought he meant it when he said I was it for him.
Everything everyone said during sex was a lie. Horrible lies that battered and bruised my heart.
I jolted at a soft touch to my elbow. Lifting my head, I stared at Kat. She nudged her way under my arm and demanded via a combination of biting, scratching, and firm head nudges that I fold my legs and make a space for her to curl up. Her purring vibrated through my thighs.
‘I must be pathetic if you’re willing to cuddle to me,’ I murmured.
Kat opened one eye to glare at me, apparently annoyed I was putting energy into anything other than being a seat warmer.
I wrapped my arms around myself and hid my face in my scarf. I couldn’t believe I’d taken it off around Lucas, that I’d made myself so vulnerable. I’d shown him all my soft parts, and he’d left them naked and exposed like it was nothing.
‘Never again,’ I promised myself.
I didn’t want to be alone, but that felt a whole lot better than this. And this was the only outcome I could expect after having sex with someone. If I couldn’t have something that lasted with Lucas, I wouldn’t be able to manage it with anyone else.
I needed to stop hoping for an outcome that again and again had been proven to be something I couldn’t have.
No one wanted me. No one chose me. I needed to stop dreaming of that and live my life as it was. I had good friends, a good pack. Maybe Lucas could even be my friend after I’d proven I wouldn’t chase after him like a lovesick puppy.
I had a bookshop I loved. I would put all my energy into that from now on. With Hamish gone, there would be more than enough work to distract me.
I would make my life about work and friends, and nothing more. I would be fine without someone special in my life.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I whispered.
Tears soaked into my scarf. My pitiful status was confirmed when I stroked a shaking hand along Kat’s back and she didn’t immediately attack me.