CHAPTER SIXTEEN || REED
The bar was quiet. It was late morning but before we opened for the day, and I stood behind the counter, clipboard in hand, staring at the same line of inventory I’d been trying to count for the past twenty minutes.
Whiskey. We had twelve bottles of Jack Daniel’s.
Or was it thirteen? I’d lost track three times already.
I set the clipboard down and rubbed my eyes, hard enough to see stars.
Focus. I needed to focus.
But my mind kept circling back to the same image, playing on loop: Harris’s back, those four deep gashes bleeding and turning black at the edges. The way he’d collapsed the moment he crossed the threshold of the portal. The horrible, endless second when I thought he was gone.
Another memory tore through me. Crawling to Jeremy, already knowing I was too late—I was always too late—Jeremy’s body covered in so much blood.
My hands curled into fists around the clipboard, the plastic creaking.
He’d almost died. Right in front of me. And I’d been helpless to stop it.
Just like with Jeremy.
The paralysis from the Algea’s venom had locked me down and made me useless when it mattered most. I’d watched the creature’s claws tear into Harris and I couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it except lie there and feel his agony tear through me as if it was my own.
And the worst part? Harris didn’t even seem to register how close he’d come to dying. I’d be willing to bet he hadn’t considered it even once. Instead, he’d shrugged the whole thing off, seeming more concerned about me.
Because that’s who Harris was. Brave. Maybe even reckless. And completely unwilling to back down when someone needed help.
I loved him for all of it. But it was also exactly the thing most likely to get him killed.
Sucking in a deep breath, I looked down at the clipboard again, trying to focus on the numbers. Fourteen bottles of Jack. No—twelve. Definitely twelve.
My wolf whined in my chest, low and plaintive in way that made my teeth clench.
We can protect him, it insisted. We’re strong. We’re alpha.
But we weren’t strong enough. Last night proved that. The Algea had cut through me like I was nothing. If Simone hadn’t been there to heal his injuries, Harris would be dead.
And next time, we might not get that lucky.
I set the clipboard down and braced my hands on the counter, head bowed.
Was there any way through this?
If Harris became a wolf, he’d have better odds of staying alive.
He’d be stronger, his reflexes sharper, that much harder to kill.
But I couldn’t—wouldn’t—ask him to do that.
He’d be giving up everything for me. I couldn’t demand that from him.
But he wasn’t the kind of man who’d ever stand back and let others fight while he stayed safe.
Which meant for every battle, for every monster that crawled out of the Otherworld, Harris would be there. Right in the middle of it. Fragile and mortal and so easy to kill.
My chest tightened until I couldn’t breathe.
I’d told him we could figure it out. That we’d find a way. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? There was no way to make this work. No compromise that didn’t end with Harris dead and me standing over his body, wrecked and useless.
I had no choice.
I couldn’t choose my own happiness over his life. It was better if he hated me, so long as he did it from a safe distance.
The door to the bar creaked open.
I looked up, ready to tell whoever it was that we weren’t open yet.
Harris stood in the doorway.
My stomach plummeted. Not yet. I knew what had to be done, but I wasn’t ready to do it. I needed more time.
The late-morning sunlight caught the lines of his face.
He was dressed in jeans and a flannel I’d loaned him days ago, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
He was broader built than me, so the fabric was snug against him, hugging every curve of his physique.
But there was something hesitant in the way he stood there, like he wasn’t quite sure of his welcome.
He was so handsome it hurt to look at him.
And he was smiling like he had good news.
I swallowed hard. But it was better this way, wasn’t it? If I waited, I might lose my nerve. I might selfishly choose the life we could have together—however brief—over his safety.
“Hey,” Harris said, stepping inside and letting the door swing shut behind him. “It looks like you’re busy and I know you said you’d be here all day, but I wanted to talk to you about something for a few. Uh—is that okay?”
Then he seemed to take in my expression, which must have been ghastly. I’ve never been good at hiding my emotions, despite my best efforts. And that’s even without being mate-bonded.
“Reed?” He crossed the room, his footsteps loud on the wooden floor, his dark eyes filled with concern. “You okay?”
I forced myself to straighten up and meet his gaze directly. “I’m fine,” I lied.
He didn’t look convinced. “You left this morning without waking me up.”
“You needed the rest.”
“I know, but…” He hesitated. “Never mind. That’s not what I came here to say.”
“Harris—”
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, talking over me. His voice was steady, sure. “About what you said. About us figuring this out. And I think—or, actually, I know—I want to stay here. In Crescent Springs. With you. With the pack.”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut.
He went on, seemingly oblivious to the catastrophic effect his words were having on me.
How much harder they made all of this. “I’ve been thinking about my life in LA, and it doesn’t fit anymore.
This place feels real in a way my life before never did.
The pack feels real. And You feel real.” He flashed me a tentative smile.
“So I want to stay. Officially, I mean. That’s my decision. I want—”
“No.”
The word came out flat and harder than I meant it to.
Harris stopped mid-sentence, his smile faltering. “What?”
I couldn’t do this drawn out and slow. If I tried that, I’d cave. I’d let him stay and then I’d watch him die and I wouldn’t survive that.
Better to rip the Band-Aid off now. Better for this to be quick and clean.
“You can’t stay,” I said.
He blinked. “What are you talking about? I just told you—”
“Last night proved it,” I cut him off, forcing the words out even as my wolf snarled and clawed at me from the inside, trying to stop me.
“You almost died last night. You charged into the Otherworld without backup, without a plan, and you almost didn’t come back.
And I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. ”
His face went carefully blank. “But I saved Sally’s life.”
“You got lucky,” I shot back. “If Simone hadn’t been there, you’d be dead. You know that, right? You’d be dead, and it would’ve been your own damn fault for being so reckless.”
Harris’s expression betrayed his hurt and confusion. “Reed, what the hell is this?”
I made myself keep going. I had to say the words to drive him away, even though they were like bile in my throat, every syllable burning and awful.
“When you’re in danger, I can’t think straight.
I can’t lead. I can’t protect anyone, because all I can think about is you.
And that’s going to get someone killed—people in my pack. ”
“Your pack,” he repeated dully, like he was testing the words, turning them over and trying to make them make sense.
“Yes.” I willed myself to meet his gaze and hold it. “I’m the alpha. I have to put my pack first.”
The hurt in his eyes deepened, sharpened into something rawer. It was worse than if he’d gotten angry. “You said we could figure it out.”
“I was wrong.”
“Reed—”
“This was a mistake. All of it. I never should have let you stay.”
The words came out sounding harsher than I’d intended. But I couldn’t take them back now. No matter how much I wanted to. I was doing the right thing, no matter how much it hurt both of us.
“You need to go back to Los Angeles. Back to your real life. You can’t stay here.”
Harris stared at me, stunned and disbelieving. And then through the bond—that awful, merciless bond between us—I felt the exact moment his heart broke.
Mine broke too. Like someone had reached into my chest and crushed everything vital and good inside me into jagged, painful shards.
“Stop it,” he said, his voice thick. “We can figure this out. I know you’re scared, but—”
“I’m not scared,” I lied. “I’m being realistic. This was always temporary.”
“That’s not true—”
“Go home, Harris.” I turned away from him, unable to look at his face anymore. Unable to watch what I was doing to him. “There’s nothing for you here.”
Total silence followed my words, a yawning chasm between us.
Then, in a voice gone thick and strange, Harris said, “Fuck you, Reed. You finally got what you wanted.”
I flinched. But I deserved way worse.
And then I got it. Because the floorboards creaked behind me as he turned around and walked to the door. Each footstep fell in the empty bar, loud as the crack of a gunshot.
With everything inside me, I wanted to turn back around and tell him I didn’t mean it, that I was terrified and being stupid and that I loved him so much it was killing me. But I didn’t. I stood there, frozen, staring at the bottles of liquor on the wall as he left my life for good.
The door slammed shut behind him. And then he was gone. I was alone again. And that was the way things had to be.
Although I wasn’t sure, deep down, if I really believed that anymore.
* * *
Moving on autopilot, I found a piece of paper and scrawled Closed for the day on it and taped it to the front door. Then I locked the deadbolt and pulled all the shades.
I went back behind the bar, grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the shelf—Jack Daniel’s, because of course it was, one less to count later—and poured myself a glass. I downed it.
Then another.
After my fourth shot in a row, I gave up on the glass entirely and drank straight from the bottle.
The burn of the alcohol was good. It gave me something to focus on besides the look on Harris’s face. The way his voice had gone strange and awful when he said you finally got what you wanted.
I took another swig.
My wolf was still howling, clawing at me from the inside, but I ignored it. It didn’t have the capacity to understand why I’d sent our mate away. It didn’t care about logic or safety or even the good of the pack. It only knew that Harris was ours and we’d driven him off for good.
I drank more.
The bar was too quiet. Too empty.
I considered going back to the commune, but I couldn’t face any of them. Not yet.
The bottle was half-empty by the time I finally let myself think the thought I’d been avoiding: He’ll never forgive me.
And why should he? I had told him we could make it work, that I wanted him to stay, and then I’d turned around and gutted him without warning, saying the cruelest words I could find.
He’d never trust me again.
I took another drink.
But he’ll live, I told myself firmly. He’ll go back to LA. He’ll be safe. That’s what matters.
It didn’t feel like it mattered.
It felt like I’d just made the worst mistake of my life.
I was almost all the way through the bottle when the room started to finally blur at the edges. I staggered into the back office. I had a cot set up in there for when I either crashed out at work or one of the patrons was too drunk to get home safely.
I collapsed onto it.
Tears wouldn’t come, even though I would’ve welcomed them. Instead, everything felt numb. Though, maybe I ought to appreciate that. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t feel numb later. I wouldn’t feel numb about this at all.
The alcohol worked its way through my system. An entire bottle of whiskey in less than half an hour is enough to get anyone drunk, even a foolish, self-destructive werewolf with the metabolism of an alpha.
I closed my eyes and passed out.
Mercifully, I didn’t dream at all.