Chapter 2
THORNE
I closed my condo door and pressed my forehead against the cool wood, breathing through the leftover adrenaline still buzzing under my skin. I needed a moment—or maybe a couple thousand—to collect my thoughts without hundreds of locals or my brothers watching me unravel.
Isadora and I had survived opening night. And I hadn’t murdered my estranged husband in front of half the town. Two very solid wins in my opinion. Excellent restraint, really.
What I hadn’t done was let Calder stick around the bar.
No, sir. No, thank you.
That was my place of Zen. Most days. When I wasn’t having a meltdown or slapping loathed husbands.
The last thing I needed was him standing around, analyzing me, and scheming up new ways to destroy me all over again.
Even my wolf bristled at the thought of him invading my personal life—and she was more forgiving than I was. Usually.
So, yes. After peeling myself out of his arms, I’d all but thrown him out.
Told him we weren’t doing this here. Not tonight.
Not in front of my family, friends, and a bar full of supernatural rubberneckers.
He’d barely had time to dust off his jacket before I told him I’d call him once we closed up.
I wanted to slam the door in his face then, but he’d quickly informed me I didn’t know his phone number.
A stark reminder of our current situation.
Cue the most awkward moment ever, where he pulled out a pen, took my hand, and scrawled his number across my palm.
Then he’d vanished into the night like Batman himself.
The second he’d disappeared, regret had already sunk in.
I shouldn’t have agreed to talk to him. Truthfully, I never wanted to see him again.
But that wasn’t possible in a small town like Eternity Falls.
Everyone knew everyone. You couldn’t walk into a restaurant without everyone recognizing you.
We would inevitably run into each other again, so best to get this conversation over and done with as soon as possible. If only for the sake of my sanity.
Sighing, I peeled myself away from the door, kicked off my shoes, then took two steps into the condo.
That was as far as I got when my phone chimed.
I exhaled, already reaching for it. Probably Isadora, making sure I made it home safely. Or my brothers pretending they weren’t checking in on me.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I muttered under my breath as I glanced down at the screen.
Unknown number. But two words. Words that made my stomach drop.
I’m here.
For a heartbeat, I just stared at it. Then my gaze slid, slow and unwilling, to my palm.
The ink had smeared from a night of sweat, booze, and constant motion, but the numbers were still there. And they matched.
A sharp, ugly laugh ripped out of me before anger flared, hot and immediate, burning through the last of my adrenaline. Because this meant Calder had always had my number. He hadn’t lost it. He hadn’t deleted it. He’d just decided to never call me again.
My hand curled into a fist, phone pressed tight against my skin.
“Asshole,” I hissed.
As though mocking me, light glinted off a nearby picture frame, catching my attention. The photo had always been one of my favorites. Him and me at an archaeological dig we’d done together. Dirty, exhausted, and beaming with happiness that felt almost cruel now.
No matter how much time passed, I’d never been able to remove that picture.
Now?
I crossed the space in two strides and slammed the frame facedown so hard the glass cracked.
Great. Yet another mess in my life that I had to clean up.
Quietly growling, I stomped toward the kitchen in search of a broom and dustpan when I noticed the state of my counters, my dining room table, the sink.
I turned and scanned my entryway and the living room. The shoes by the door. The jacket thrown haphazardly over the chair. The throw blanket half-draped across the couch. The coffee mug on the side table. The mail scattered about on the living room table.
Everything was a mess.
I spun in a tight circle, seeing everything all at once. Too lived-in. Too honest. Too much proof that I existed here alone.
Snatching my phone, I sent back a quick text telling him to hold his damn horses, accompanied by a middle finger. Then I jumped into action.
The coffee mug first, though I had no room for it in the sink.
My wolf growled in my head, annoyed at the state of things. The disorder. The vulnerability. I growled back. I’d been a little busy opening a brand new business to worry about something as trivial as dishes.
After a moment of flustered reorganization, I decided it best to just toss a towel over it all. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Next were the shoes, unceremoniously kicked into the closet. Then I straightened the blanket, fluffed the pillows, grabbed a stack of mail and dumped it into a drawer I absolutely would clean out later. Mm-hmm. No doubt about it.
My heart hammered harder with every movement, the anger bleeding into anxiety, then panic.
By the time I made it back to my phone, a string of texts awaited me. Isadora, Cassian, Felix, and Ricky had all checked in. Even Lucien had reached out, offering to make Calder disappear permanently. Honestly? My heart melted when I saw his offer.
Lucien and I had never been friends. More like hated rivals. But Isadora had changed things. And I couldn’t imagine him not in my life now.
I sent him back a heart emoji, which I knew would make him laugh, then I reopened Calder’s text box and fired off a thumbs up. Because that was all I could emotionally give him right now. He didn’t deserve my words, considering he hadn’t even bothered to reach out to me once since he’d left.
Does that mean I can come in?
I scoffed at his reply and sent back a meme of someone rolling their eyes. If he didn’t get it, well, he could just go home. It was after two in the morning. I wanted to sleep more than I wanted to have this conversation with him.
A knock soon sounded at my door, and disappointment washed over me. Sleep truly did seem more appealing right now. I could wrap myself in my blankets, snuggle deep into my pillow, and forget all about Calder.
I reached for the door anyway. Because, of course, I did.
The second I opened it, every thought of sleep vanished.
Calder stood on my porch, framed by my house light and the surrounding shadows, looking so unfairly handsome and painfully familiar that my pulse tripped.
He’d already shed his leather jacket and pushed those Henley sleeves up just enough to bare his muscular forearms. And why was he still wearing that stupid necklace I’d given him years ago?
Had he done that purposely to win me over?
Some deliberate, underhanded move to knock me off balance before he even opened his mouth?
Heat slammed into me, coiling low in my belly before I could stop it. I silently thanked the gods the door was open and prayed the cool night air would dilute the scent of my sudden lust. I really, really didn’t need him knowing about that.
Unfortunately for me, it seemed nothing had changed in the time Calder had been gone. One look at him and my body reacted like a newlywed, while my brain scrambled to catch up and remind me how disastrously he’d wrecked my life.
I tightened my grip on the doorframe, then forced myself to release it before I snapped it in two.
“Come in,” I said, gesturing him inside.
He smiled as he brushed past me and headed straight toward the living room. Like he’d never left in the first place.
Oh, did that piss me off.
I stomped after him, teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached.
The sheer audacity of this man to smile at me while entering the place we’d worked so hard to make into a home only for him to walk away from without a second glance.
But that was who Calder was. I should have realized that before marrying him.
He never stayed still for long. All part of being a supernatural acquisitions specialist—the title he slapped on his business cards. He preferred retrieval expert.
Personally, I preferred thief.
He showed up, stole something, then bailed.
Last time, it just happened to be my heart.
Sighing, I made my way into the living room, where he waited.
He leaned against the back of my couch like he belonged there, legs crossed. “You’ve redecorated,” he said, as if we were simply old friends catching up.
“Yeah,” was all I said. I wanted to rage, tell him that of course I’d redecorated. Why would I want to live in a condo we’d built together, surrounded by all those painful memories?
He stared at me, then slowly nodded as though he could hear my thoughts. “Right.”
I stood there for a moment, trying to figure out exactly what I was supposed to do with all this. Even my wolf seemed unsure. She paced in tight, irritated circles, restless and unhappy with how this was unfolding.
Once upon a time, I’d believed in true love, fated mates, and all that paranormal nonsense. We werewolves and vampires love to wax poetic about mates. About how we could do no wrong by each other. How it was a guaranteed happily ever after.
But that just wasn’t true, was it?
First Calder—the one person who was supposed to love me more than anything—abandoned me.
Then, more recently, Isadora’s first mate, Trystan, turned into a raving psycho who’d tortured me and stalked her.
Between the two of them, they’d taught me true love didn’t exist. At least, not like how we were taught to believe it did.
No, there was no such thing as happily ever after.
“You know,” I said, voice tight, “most people leave a note before they vanish. Hell, I would have appreciated any form of communication. A text message, voicemail, fuck, even a carrier pigeon.”
His jaw flexed. Just once. “I thought it would be better if you didn’t know where I was.”
“Better,” I echoed flatly. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“It’s the truth.”