Chapter 2 #2
Hearing that every day had got wearing. I’d hoped maybe I’d become immune to the words, the same way I had the punches. Or that maybe he’d start ignoring me the way Ma did, but neither of those things had happened. Even now, his cruel taunts haunted me, ringing in my ears at the oddest times.
So, no, I wouldn’t have pursued Finn. Shifters and I didn’t mix.
I was too weak. Too pitiful. More than that, clan life wasn’t something I ever wanted to return to.
And why would I? Being at the beck and call of everyone else.
Pretending not to hear the derogatory slurs they’d throw in my direction.
Reminded constantly about my place in the pack.
It was at the very bottom. Just in case there was any confusion. Even the chickens they kept were treated better than I was.
I wouldn’t touch a shifter male with a barge pole. Every single one I’d come across had failed me in one way or another. Seeing Finlay in the shop was a reminder of the biggest failure. The shattering of a childish dream that maybe I’d be saved.
A foolish fucking dream, born of the innocence and hope of youth.
I’d heard wolf shifters were more protective than jaguars. That, like me, they couldn’t walk away from someone who was hurting. Who needed to be kept safe.
All of that had been wrong. Well, where Evan was concerned, at least. Finn’s reputation suggested he actually lived up to the standards wolf shifters were meant to abide by. Chester couldn’t have hoped for a better male to be interested in him than the leader of the McCarthy Clan.
Seeing Finlay in the shop had been a surprise, but not a big one. I’d known I’d cross paths with a shifter or two at some point. So long as I kept my mouth shut, they’d have no idea that I was privy to their world.
Unfortunately, keeping my mouth shut had never been my forte. As soon as I’d realised that Finn was interested in Chester, I hadn’t been able to help myself. I’d appealed to his supposed protective nature, asking him to look out for my boss.
That was when it had slipped out.
“That’s what I’m asking you for, Finn. Keep showing up. Let Chester get to know you. Show him that he can trust you. That you can keep him safe.”
Finn’s eyes narrowed. “What makes ye think those things are true?”
I hadn’t been able to stop myself. “Because I know who you are, Finlay McCarthy, leader of the McCarthy Clan.”
I shouldn’t have said it. I knew that. It’d just invite unwanted attention from the clan. They wouldn’t like that there was a human walking around with knowledge he wasn’t supposed to have. I didn’t doubt that Finn would be back at some point, demanding answers.
Or maybe just to compel me. To make me forget supes existed. Part of me hoped that was what would happen. To not remember what I went through would be a blessing.
But it’d also be a curse. Without the memories, I might be tempted to leave the safety of the McCarthy borders.
I might wander too close to the Clarkson lands and find myself back under my father’s thumb once again.
He’d probably celebrated my leaving before realising just how much I did for the clan.
I was basically Cinderella, just without a prince on the horizon, waiting to save me.
Instead, I’d had to save myself.
The bell rang out front, signalling a customer’s arrival. I vaguely heard a voice calling out.
Chester cursed quietly before capping his pen. “Be right with you!”
I looked up from where I was elbow deep in feeding solution. “Want me to go?”
“No it’s okay.” Chester got to his feet. “You’re doing a cracking job with that, keep going.”
I hid the glow I had from the praise. “Okay but if he’s hot I call dibs.”
Chester rolled his eyes, but I knew he wasn’t mad. I’d kept my voice low so the customer wouldn’t hear. “Don’t you have enough visitors in your bed to keep you busy?”
“Exactly, they’re visitors.” I waggled my rear and smirked. “They’re just passing through while I wait for Mr. Right.”
I might have been a fuckboi, but only because I was searching for the one. I hadn’t needed a prince to save me, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want one. And if I enjoyed kissing lots of frogs while I searched for my prince? Well, I wasn’t going to feel ashamed about it.
Chester disappeared to help the customer, and I continued with my work while keeping half an ear on the conversation out front in case my boss needed me.
The customer’s voice was oddly familiar. Like a nagging memory I’d forgotten but knew was there. I shrugged it off. I was probably imagining things.
I froze as Chester gave a choking cough. Was he okay? I strained to hear, wondering if I should rush out there or not.
“Sorry about that,” Chester wheezed. I relaxed, but immediately tensed up again at his next words. “You know Finn?”
The stranger spoke. “Yep. He’s basically family to me.”
Fuck. Fuck. The customer was a shifter. He had to be. I inhaled deeply, trying to stay calm. So long as it wasn’t him, everything would be fine.
“Anyway, I’m after a bouquet and you came highly recommended,” the shifter continued. “My name’s Evan, by the way. Evan McCarthy.”
My blood turned cold. I jerked back so swiftly that the bucket with the feed solution crashed to the floor. I didn’t stop to clean it up. Didn’t even think to wipe off my hands. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t see past the red haze filling my vision. Couldn’t hear past the thundering in my ears.
I barrelled out to the front of the shop, and sure enough, there he stood. Evan fucking McCarthy. The shifter I’d thought would be my saviour, but who’d instead condemned me. “You.”
The years hadn’t aged Evan—of course they hadn’t—but it was still a shock seeing him without the cloud of memory covering him.
It didn’t help that I was seeing him with adult eyes now, noticing details that a child wouldn’t have.
Aspects that, on any other man, would’ve had me drooling.
The wide expanse of his chest. Hands so big they’d span half my back.
A dimple flashing under the dark stubble.
Bulging muscles that his clothing did nothing to disguise.
I hated that I noticed them now.
I shoved between Chester and the counter, instinctively trying to protect him. Evan wasn’t like the others. He didn’t hold any of the qualities wolf shifters were known for. I knew that now. “How fucking dare you come in here?”
I was vibrating with fury. Chester said something behind me, but I couldn’t hear him. Not when Evan was looking at me with…amusement.
He thinks this is funny?
“Leave, now,” I ordered, forcing my shaking hands into fists. I wouldn’t show weakness in front of Evan. Not now, not ever again. I’d done so once before and paid dearly for it. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but get out.”
And what did the fucker do? He grinned. As though my reaction to him was amusing, somehow. “So you’re fine with Finn, but ye draw the line at me.”
Was he for fucking real? “I don’t have a history with Finn.”
Evan stiffened, confusion crossing his unfairly handsome face. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ve met before. I would’ve remembered.”
The fury combined with a new emotion. The crushing weight of sorrow. What’d happened had sent my entire world crumbling to the ground, all because of Evan.
And he didn’t even remember it. It was so insignificant that his brain hadn’t bothered to file it away.
But it wasn’t insignificant to me. How could it be, given everything that had followed? I remembered everything. Every. Fucking. Detail.
I was going to make Evan remember too.
I gripped the edge of the counter to stop myself leaping over it and thumping him.
I’d need a step stool to reach his face, and I’d likely break my knuckles, but it’d be worth it.
Anything so that he could feel an ounce of the pain his actions had caused me.
“Clearly your memory is faulty then. Let me remind you.”
Chester stirred behind me. “Actually, Evan, I think you should leave. Now.”
It was sweet that Chester was speaking up for me, but nope. Evan had had his opportunity to leave and hadn’t taken it. Now he was going to face the consequences of his actions. “Nope. He had his chance. Now he’s going to be reminded exactly what kind of scum he is.”
Evan held up both his hands, like he was stupid enough to think that might placate me. “I’m telling you, man, I don’t know you.”
“Not this version of me, sure,” I said through gritted teeth. “But imagine me as a scrawny ten-year-old. Tattered shirt. A bruise around my wrist and a black eye that I told you I got from falling out of a tree. Ringing any bells now, hotshot?”
He frowned. “That was you?”
My temper was rolling beneath my skin now. I’d never been more furious in my entire life. Furious and terrified. What if Evan decided to go to my alpha father once again? What if he told them where I was? All I’d worked for, this life I’d built, I could lose it in an instant.
I shoved that fear away to deal with later. “So now you remember be. Do you remember what I asked you?”
Finally, Evan seemed to grasp the gravity of what I was saying.
The blood drained from his face and his arms started to tremble.
Unlike me, it wasn’t from fury, but the urge to shift.
If he did that, I’d fucking kill him. Well, I might not actually manage it, but I’d definitely park myself on Finn’s doorstep until someone there did it for me.
“I thought you were joking. Wait, ye really wanted to leave?”
Chester was glancing between us, obviously confused. “Can someone fill me in?”
Neither of us answered him, both too lost in the past to return.
“You know what I am, where I grew up,” I said coldly. “You’re telling me you saw a child who was covered in bruises and clearly underfed, and thought me asking you to take me away was a joke?”