CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE || JEREMY
“ I ’m not much of a city guy, but the view from here isn’t half bad,” I said less than an hour later.
I meant that mostly because Thierry was here with me, the shadows carving his face into mysterious, otherworldly shapes that made him even more alluring than usual.
Behind him, the city lights glittered like a hundred thousand jewels in a sea of steel and concrete, standing in defiance of the darkness.
Thierry snorted but watched me carefully. It might have been a trick of the light, but his eyes seemed wet. He let out a shaky breath and sat, joining me in gazing out over the lights.
We were on the rooftop of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, perched on the western edge of Capitol Hill.
It was a massive, blocky structure looking down over the city.
It was private enough to feel like we were the only ones here, seeing this—though I knew that wasn’t true.
This was Seattle. There were people within a stone’s throw if we looked hard enough.
Still, it felt like we were the only ones seeing the skyscrapers glitter below, the cars gliding past like toys, and the moonlight shimmering on Lake Union between patches of cloud.
“It feels like there’s no one else for miles,” I said when more than a minute had passed in silence.
I could sense Thierry’s mind—thoughts jumbled and confused, more emotion than coherence.
But I was making an effort not to read him.
Until he relented and sealed our bond, I wouldn’t.
Listening just to satisfy my own endless curiosity sat firmly in the wrong column.
Still, even without trying, I’d felt the storm of emotion from him in the basement earlier.
Something had changed in him. Something big.
“Yes,” he whispered, his voice rawer than I’d ever heard it. “It’s felt that way for years—” His lips curved into a rueful smile. “I suppose it’s been decades, really.”
Maybe with anyone else I would have made the moment about me. Wondered what I could possibly offer someone who’d seen so much. But not with Thierry. Not when he was showing me something rare and precious: vulnerability.
“How long have you come here?”
“Since it was built.” He hesitated, giving me a wary look, as if what he was about to say might upset me. “In the nineteen-thirties.”
“Nearly a century, then.” I couldn’t keep the awe from my voice. “I bet you’ve seen the city grow up.”
Thierry blinked rapidly and cocked his head. Even without reaching for the bond, I could tell I’d surprised him. He recovered quickly, pursing his lips. “Is that really what you wanted to say? Or are you just being on your best behavior right now?”
“Both.”
“I suppose I’m not surprised you can act like a gentleman occasionally. The universe wouldn’t have set me up with a total brute.”
“Not something I’ve ever been called before.” I paused. “A gentleman, I mean. I’ve been called a brute plenty of times.”
He chuckled and shook his head, but when his gaze met mine again, his expression was serious. “The hard part of having seen everything the world has to offer is that I’m usually right. About people, at least. Almost always.” He paused. “I was wrong about you.”
“Me too,” I breathed, searching his eyes. There was something there—a depth I hadn’t seen before. Or maybe I had, every time, but now he wasn’t hiding it from me.
“It feels like a long time ago, but it’s not. It’s only been a few days.”
“I know,” I said. It wasn’t adequate, but I figured he’d understand. I’d been wrong about him, too. “You’re still here, so I must’ve done something right.”
“I’d be here either way,” Thierry said, still not looking at me.
He drew his knees to his chest and looped his arms around them.
“I come here whenever I need to think. I don’t have to be anything in particular here.
No one else is around.” Another pause. “You’re the only one who knows about this place.
The only one I’ve brought here. If you were wondering. ”
I hadn’t been. Somehow I’d already known.
“Thank you.”
Even without access to my thoughts, he seemed to understand I was thanking him for letting me in. He inclined his head, then said, “You stopped me from killing Quinn.”
When I didn’t answer immediately, he added, “I would have, too. I’d have ended him then and there for hurting you.”
“I know.”
“Why did you stop me?”
“You know why.”
“I think I need to hear you say it. He had just attacked you. You were raised to think vampires are evil. Your pack hunts monsters. To you, he must have looked like any other monster.” His eyes held that strange intensity, emotions pressing through the bond like a flood straining a fragile dam. “So why did you stop me?”
I started to say it was because I knew Poppy’s spell had worked—but that was only half the truth.
“Because I want you to be happy. And everything I know about you told me that if you’d killed him—if you had lost your chance to redeem him, to give him himself back—you would have been miserable. And I couldn’t let that happen.”
“Damn you,” he whispered, his voice breaking. Tears welled again, his shoulders trembling in silence, as if afraid to make a sound that might give him away.
I reached for him slowly, my fingertips brushing his shoulder so he could pull away if he wanted.
Instead, he melted into me, his head resting on my chest. I wrapped my arm around him and held him until the tears were spent, the skyscrapers in the distance our only witnesses.
Whatever had made him feel he couldn’t trust anyone had hurt him in a way that had never truly healed.
The pain had changed him. If he had been holding it all inside for centuries—because yes, I believed he could absolutely be that stubborn—then it was no wonder his emotions demanded release the moment he finally felt safe.
Could I be that for him? His safe harbor? Could I be the person equivalent of this rooftop? A place where he could drop his guard and be himself without fear of what it might cost him?
I wanted to be that for him. I wanted it more than I could remember wanting anything in a very long time.
Even if I wasn’t good enough for him. Even if my days were ultimately numbered.
“Why did you go after James?” he asked when his tears had ebbed. The words were muffled in my shirt, but I heard them just fine. “You’re not that man. You’re not someone who would do something like that. I know you’re not. And yet, you did.”
He pushed himself up, watching me closely.
I nodded, unsurprised he’d ask. “If I’m answering questions like that, would you mind giving me some answers in return?”
Even if he refused, I would’ve answered him. But fairness worked both ways.
“Tit for tat, then?” He managed a smile, and relief flooded me at seeing it. The pain in his eyes was fading. “I didn’t think you had that in you, wolf.”
“I might surprise you.”
He sighed, appraising me. “You already have.” Then his mouth twisted into a rueful half-smile. “Well, I suppose it’s only fair that I answer your questions as well. Tit for tat it is.”
On some level, I hadn’t expected him to agree. Shame tightened in my chest as I considered his question, searching for the right words.
It was something I’d been turning over in my mind for a long time: why had I given in to the darkest parts of myself when I never had before?
“You saw what happened to Ian. When he died, it was like all of me died with him.”
“I know that much.”
I inclined my head. “I stopped seeing any beauty in the world. Only its horror. And I was angry. All the time.” My voice stayed mostly steady—though not as steady as I wanted.
“And when I saw James at the lakeside that day, grieving for his father, I saw someone in the same kind of pain. I knew we were the same.”
Thierry stayed still and silent. His thoughts were right there, but I turned away from them. I owed him answers, even if they weren’t good ones. If I knew what he was thinking, I might not give him what he needed. And that wasn’t acceptable.
“So I followed him. Back to his campsite.” I paused, guilt clawing through me. “I saw him grieving, so completely alone. And then, when I was watching him, it was like seeing Ian again.”
Thierry’s gaze snapped to me sharply but he said nothing. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
“It wasn’t the way he appeared physically,” I added, forcing the words out. “It was the way he moved. His expressions. His mannerisms. The way he spoke, the words he chose. He was just like Ian. It felt like I could have my mate back.”
A shudder escaped me. The memory of that twisted hope felt ugly now. The fury at a world that stole Ian from me, mingled with the fantasy of getting him back—it had been overwhelming. But sitting here with Thierry, all those justifications fell away, leaving only the naked guilt.
“My wolf wanted him. Desperately.” A humorless laugh slipped out, wrong in the silence. “Turns out I was right—just not the way I thought. He was never meant to be my mate. He was meant to lead me to you.”
Thierry’s expression stayed unreadable. “How?”
“If I’d never crossed paths with James, he wouldn’t have met Pierce.
Nathaniel Bailey wouldn’t have had a reason to notice the wolves in the mountains.
He wouldn’t have invited me here. He probably didn’t even know we were there.
We used to spread rumors we were much farther north, near the Canadian border.
We even let the locals catch glimpses of us in wolf form. ”
“That doesn’t excuse anything.”
“I know.” I exhaled. “If I’d turned James—if Pierce hadn’t healed him, if James himself hadn’t stopped me—I would have despised myself. We don’t rip people from their lives without choice. The ones who join the pack do it with their eyes open. That’s who we are. It’s who we’ve always been.”
“Why was that different for James?”
“Have you ever felt so much pain you’d do anything to make it stop?”