Chapter 33
THIRTY THREE
Honey
I check in with Mom and Dad first thing in the morning to let them know I’m spending another day out here. Even though it’s still summer the morning air is cool, and I pull my sweater tight around me as I walk down to the lakeshore and stare out into the crystal-blue depths.
I wonder what Gryff is doing right now. If he’s OK.
I know Dad was worried he might try to do something to hurt himself, but I can’t bear to think about that. I clutch my arms around the ache inside me and pray he hasn’t. I never got a chance to say what I realized in the harpy’s tent. That he’s my fated mate. At least I think so.
Will he laugh at me? I sure don’t pretend to understand any of this monster business after spending my whole life fighting it, but if I know anything, I know I belong with him.
I just feel it.
To be honest, Gryff laughing at me would be a relief right now. I can’t stand the loneliness of not knowing.
I can’t sit around all day with my thoughts whirring in my head like churning butter, so I decide to hike the trail around the lake today and check out my surroundings.
I want to make sure Gryff knows exactly where to find me, though, if he does come to the campsite while I’m gone, so with flushed cheeks and a silly grin on my face, I slip off my used panties and hang them on the front of the tent like a little flag to greet him.
I mean it’s stupid, right, but I’ve seen how he reacts to scent, and even I can tell those panties are gonna smell pretty powerful after I’ve worn them all night.
The hike takes me up to the ridge on the other side of the lake, and from there I can look down into the crater valley beyond. The lake is beautiful, all sparkly in the sunlight, but the edges of the crater are bare and raw, kind of like how I feel inside.
I turn away, searching the woods for any signs of a big gray wolf, but of course I see nothing.
When I return to camp, my heart sinks into my boots when I spot my used panties still attached to the front of my tent and everything exactly where I left them.
Am I being ridiculous thinking he’ll come for me if he can just see how much I care?
I mean, I don’t even have any proof he came out this way, just a stupid hope. Nothing more than a wish.
I meant to masturbate when I came back to camp to keep myself on edge and heighten my scent, but though I’m wet as always when I slide my hands into my leggings, the pleasure I feel is only a shadow of what I’d normally experience.
Somehow everything feels dulled, like I’m watching from outside myself. I don’t cum. Not that I meant to, but I’m not even sure I could if I tried.
I feel so sad and sorry for myself that I just lay on my sleeping bag for a while and stare at the tent wall. What am I doing? Am I just prolonging my own misery?
I can’t stand the thought of giving up yet, though.
Eventually I get up, collect more firewood, and stoke the fire. The hours of the afternoon tick away slowly while I sit and brood, wondering if there was something I could have done differently at the festival or before that might have shown him how special he is.
Gryff
The acrid scent of her sadness eats a hole in my heart as I pace on the ridge, looking down over her campsite.
Another howl rises in my chest, and I squash it down.
I’m supposed to be cutting this off, saving her from a life of being shackled with me.
Is that what I’m doing, or am I just running from this like a coward like I run from everything else in my life that I can’t handle?
With a growl I stalk away, only to return minutes later. I can’t stay here, but I can’t leave either. I’m tethered to her as surely as if I really was collared and leashed.
I pace there until my paws are sore and the ground bears the scar of my restlessness. Until the sun sets and the moon rises.
My ears prick up at the sound of her voice in the darkness. “Gryff, are you out there?”
I freeze, tail tucked between my legs, head down. How can she have spotted me? I’ve been careful to keep downwind, to stay hidden.
There’s no way—
“I feel really stupid talking to myself, but I don’t have anyone else to talk to, so I’m going to talk to you and pretend you’re here somewhere, listening.”
I huff out a breath. Right, she’s not really talking to me at all.
Even so, I slink closer through the undergrowth to listen.
“I don’t know what you’re doing right now or what you’re thinking, but I need you to know that I’ll be waiting for you. Always. I’ll always be waiting for you.”
My gut twists with an awful guilt. She shouldn’t be waiting for me. She should be free, living her life, enjoying her youth.
A tear rolls down her cheek, and a helpless whine escapes me.
“I just hate the thought of you not knowing how I feel.”
How do you feel? Every muscle in my body strains toward her even though I know I don’t want to hear the answer.
There’s nothing she can say that will be good.
It’ll only tear open a new hole in my heart to hear her say she cares, and yet my wolf tail is wagging in the dirt just thinking about those words leaving her lips.
What she says next makes my tail come to an abrupt halt and my mouth fall open.
“I need you. I didn’t know what it was like to feel like I’ve felt when I’m around you, but I don’t want to go back to the way I was. I can’t do it. I can’t go on suppressing half of me and pretending it doesn’t matter because it does.”
By now tears are falling freely, and she brushes them aside with shaking fingers, staring out into the dark.
“You make me feel beautiful and so sexy and safe to be that person and not worry that I’m going to hurt someone.
You make me feel free. And I didn’t know how trapped I was until I knew what it felt like to be free with you. ”
I’m not a fucking troll made of stone. I’m not immune to her either, no matter how much I pretend.
The crescent moon comes out from behind a cloud and moonlight lights up the path between us, and before I know what I’m doing I stand and walk the steps to close the distance, lapping the salty tears from her cheek and sinking my head into her lap.
Honey stares at me in astonishment as I emerge from the bushes. Her eyes go wide as my tongue meets her delicate cheeks, and she holds perfectly still, as if she’s afraid I’ll run again.
Can I blame her?
I’ve been nothing but a coward when it comes to her. I’ve lied, I’ve hidden, I’ve refused to see the truth until it was spelled out for me like an oath beneath the moon.
I don’t deserve her, but what does that matter if she needs me?
Her hand settles cautiously on the back of my neck, and soft fingers pet my fur. My tail wants to wag, but I’m going to have to shift any moment and explain myself, and that feels scarier than facing a hundred enemy insurgents alone.
“Y-you’re here.” She strokes down my back so softly I can hardly feel it. I want her to grab my fur, to pull at it. To tell me I’m a goddam fool for not seeing it sooner. For not seeing her.
“Gryff, there’s something I have to tell you.” She sniffs.
Before she can run through that whole thing again and break my heart a second time, I shift, sitting and cupping her face with my hand.
“Wait. Before you say anything else, there’s some stuff I ought to tell you first. Stuff I should have said earlier, and I’m sorry you had to come all the way out here and suffer like this before I pulled my head out of my ass to do it. ”