Chapter Twenty-Two
Hilton Head was beautiful. At Lydia’s insistence, we left Ileen Stovell’s house behind, albeit with great reluctance, taking four bikes from the garage and setting off to explore the island.
The ocean still pulled at me, tugging at my arm like a persistent child, but things had changed since the last time it tried to steal me away.
That was before my Becoming. Now, although it was still dizzying when we got too close to the rippling waves, I was able to resist its tempting call.
Grand homes hidden behind stately oaks gave way to wide, white-sand beaches as we rolled through the town, dotted with navy-blue umbrellas and swarms of people, all of them radiating joy and contentment.
Wyn held back, letting Lydia and I ride side by side, her effervescent commentary running at its usual mile-a-minute pace.
Jackson rode out ahead of the rest of us, burning off energy I couldn’t summon for myself.
This place positively demanded a lazy pace and my cute pink bike with its little wicker basket and streamers flying from the handlebars wasn’t exactly built for speed.
‘And she was in a foul temper for the rest of the day,’ Lydia said, sticking her legs out to the side as we coasted down the slightest of hills. ‘I asked if there was something wrong with her food but she said it was fine. Probably something Jeremy did.’
‘Did to who?’
A crack in the bike path jolted me back into the conversation. I couldn’t see Jackson anymore but his black mood hung over me like a raincloud.
‘My mom. I just said, she was acting so strange yesterday after we left the park. Did the food upset your stomach at all? Can’t think what else it could’ve been.’
‘I was fine.’
I chose not to consider how her mom’s bad mood might be related to anything I’d said or done. If Alex was upset with me too, that made three out of four members of the Powell family I’d pissed off without trying. Pretty impressive by anyone’s standards.
‘Probably coming down with a case of the Virginias,’ Lydia said gloomily. ‘It was only a matter of time.’
I gave her a sideways grin. ‘Does that mean you’ll eventually turn into your grandmother too?’
‘Wash your mouth out before I feed you to an alligator,’ she replied with the greatest indignance.
‘Alligators?’ I repeated, almost wobbling off the bike path and into the creek that ran alongside us as my best friend cackled. ‘Not funny.’
‘Not joking. Better watch where you’re going.’
‘Hey, Em, Lydia!’
Wyn cycled up in between us, his tanned skin glistening, muscles moving under his skin as he turned the pedals.
‘I missed a call from my gramps,’ he said. ‘Y’all go on ahead, I’ll catch you up.’
Lydia gave a salute. ‘Roger that. We’ll be at the Salty Dog, ’bout ten minutes dead ahead.’
He nodded and slowed to a standstill. As Lydia and I rolled on, leaving him behind, I glanced over my shoulder to see him resting his bike against a tree, phone pressed to his ear. I knew it was about the lone wolf. A chill tiptoed down my sun-warmed back.
‘You know I would never objectify another human being,’ Lydia said, well before we were out of earshot. ‘But damn, girl. Was he always so …’ She scrunched up her face as she searched for the right descriptor. ‘Big?’
‘No,’ I replied, eyes fixed on the path in front. ‘No, he was not.’
The last time I’d seen Wyn shirtless, he was recovering from his first phase, bloody and broken in my bed.
This was a very different experience. It wasn’t like he was skinny or anything a month ago, he’d always had the body of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors, but when he walked into the Stovells’ kitchen shirtless, I’d almost tripped over my own feet.
While Jackson’s muscles were gym-honed, designed for sports and speed, Wyn looked like he could run through a brick wall and smash it into pieces.
A set of strong-looking shoulders sat atop a broad chest, his torso tapering into a slender waist that disappeared into a pair of khaki cargo shorts that strained around the top of his tree trunk-sized legs.
‘Not that he was a twig or anything, but whatever he’s doing, I’m into it. Wish I could get my ass to pop like that.’
‘I don’t think you’d like the workout regimen,’ I said, almost swerving off the path when a cat skipped out from behind a patch of ferns. ‘It mostly involves turning into a wolf once every twenty-eight days.’
‘Then I’ll skip. Waxing is already a chore and I’m enough of a bitch once every twenty-eight days as is – just ask my brother. For real though, you shouldn’t let him wear another shirt, like, ever.’
‘Not that you would ever objectify another human being.’
‘I would rather die,’ she declared. ‘Except in this one very specific instance.’
‘If I see you anywhere near his closet, I will kill you,’ I said, her peals of laughter smothered by the tall palmettos that grew up on either side of us.
We cycled on for a half mile without him, me searching for alligators in the undergrowth and Lydia intermittently releasing her handlebars to hold her hands up in the air, just to see if she still could.
Slowing her pace as the trees began to thin out, giving way to homes with big, manicured lawns, a sports field and some tennis courts, Lydia cycled a little closer.
‘So,’ she said. ‘Y’all decided not to share a room?’
‘Uh-huh,’ I replied. ‘It’s not a big deal.’
‘Sure.’
‘It isn’t.’
‘Didn’t say it was.’
‘Only …’
She pushed her heart-shaped sunglasses onto the top of her head, all eager eyes.
‘He was the one who suggested we take separate rooms. Is that weird?’
‘Before I make a sweeping statement about boy-kind,’ she replied, expertly turning her handlebars to dodge a spilled ice cream cone in the middle of the bike path. ‘I have one question.’
‘Shoot.’
‘Do you want to share a room with Wyn?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied, somehow riding directly through the slimy mess she had so effortlessly avoided. ‘Part of me really wants to and part of me is still a little anxious.’
‘Then don’t sweat it,’ Lydia said. ‘This ain’t jail, they don’t lock you in after lights out. You have free will, Em, you have the power to do this crazy thing I like to call changing your mind.’
‘But what if he isn’t being polite? What if I ask him to stay and he doesn’t want to?’
‘Then he will have no choice but to report you to the southern commission for ladylike behaviour and you’ll be rapped across the knuckles for your deeply unladylike behaviour.’
She stopped her bike, scuffed-up Converse scraping along the ground on either side of the frame, and I pulled up alongside her. ‘Em, aren’t you supposed to be busy worrying about the end of the world? Or did I black out and miss the part where you solved that itty-bitty problem?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Wasting your energy on wondering whether or not a man who is so obsessed with you he tolerates me, Ashley, and Savannah’s 900 per cent humidity, will laugh in your face if you ask him to spend the night in your room makes about as much sense as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. Apocalypse or not, he’s still a seventeen-year-old guy, is he not? ’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ I muttered.
‘That is the correct answer,’ she replied.
‘And if by some kind of miracle he isn’t interested in taking things further, first we put the flags out, and second we commission a statue in his honour.
That boy is already one of a kind; the possibility that he might be thinking with his head and his heart instead of his hormones makes me want to cry.
We should be throwing a parade and charging every other man alive a thousand dollars a pop to study his forgotten ways. ’
Lydia stomped her left foot on the pedal then popped her sunglasses down over her eyes. ‘Now get your skinny little butt back on that bike. I should be snout deep into an Oreo-cake batter-cookie dough triple cone by now and stupid questions like these aren’t helping none.’
‘Thanks for the advice,’ I said, pushing off from the ground and catching the pedals under my feet. ‘Super helpful as always.’
‘You don’t need my advice, you need your head looking at,’ she replied. ‘What do I know? I’m a queer sixteen-year-old virgin, pining after a fictional shadow daddy and his fated fae mate. If you want sensible advice, go to a sensible source.’
‘And who exactly should a witch go to for sensible advice about dating her Were boyfriend?’
She considered the question for a moment then gave up, pushing out a sigh of surrender.
‘Maybe we start with the ice cream and go from there.’
‘I’ve certainly heard worse plans,’ I agreed as she picked up her pace and rode on ahead.
When I walked over to the picnic bench where Wyn was waiting, the twins were both at the counter, still sampling flavours though the server had lost patience with them at least six wooden sporks ago. I sat down across from him, knee to knee, nursing a cup of chocolate mint chip.
‘How is it?’ I asked.
‘It’s good,’ he replied after taking a lick of his strawberry cone. ‘But it’s no Leopold’s.’
‘Hard to beat the best.’ I nodded in agreement then tasted my ice cream. ‘But they’re in the game.’
His eyes flicked over my shoulder but I could still hear Lydia and Jackson bickering. There was no need for a visual check on their location.
‘None of the other packs in our region have reported a lone wolf,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Mom might not have believed me but Gramps thought it was worth calling around, just in case.’
‘But no one knows anything?’
He shook his head and I frowned.
‘Is that good or bad?’
‘I don’t know. Could be a Were from some other part of the country, up north or out west. If they were exiled by their family, it’s possible they’ll try to join ours.’
‘There are only three packs in the whole country?’ I asked, dividing up a map of America in my mind. ‘North, south and west?’
‘It’s a little more complicated than that.
’ He looked off in the opposite direction, leaving his answer vague.
‘Gramps said he’d reach out, find out what he can.
He’ll call if he has news, but there are still three and a half weeks until the next full moon.
At least we don’t have to worry about a wolf attack, even if they’re tracking you the regular way. ’
The thought hadn’t occurred to me. Outside of the full moon, I had no way of telling if someone was or wasn’t a Were. At least, not as far as I knew.
‘They could be anyone,’ I said, suddenly on high alert. ‘You really think they’re following me?’
‘I would.’
It was not a reassuring answer.
‘Every pack has connections, however loose. It’s possible someone heard about Cole and came down to Savannah looking for an explanation.’
‘And found one.’ I pushed away my dessert, barely touched. ‘But how?’
‘That’s what I can’t figure out,’ Wyn said grimly. ‘There’s no way they happened to run into you by chance. No wolf would risk a public confrontation like that unless they were completely sure.’
‘But no one knows it was me,’ I replied in a small voice. ‘No one except you.’
‘And I haven’t told a soul.’
He rested his ice cream cone in my cup and took my hands in his, his skin warm and sticky.
‘My mom felt your grandmother’s power rising and sent Cole to hunt it down, we can’t have been the only ones who knew something was happening down here.
If they were inside the city limits when they phased, any Were would be drawn to your magic.
Could be they figured out the rest for themselves.
It’s almost impossible to kill a Were if you don’t know how.
Even if they couldn’t confirm you as Cole’s killer, the heart of a witch would be considered a nice gift to certain packs. ’
‘Your pack?’
He flinched but didn’t let go of my hand.
‘They don’t know you,’ he said. ‘They think all witches are alike.’
It cut deeper than he meant it to. Another reminder that all the important people in his life didn’t even know I existed.
In the back of my mind, I heard Jackson’s words from the dance.
Someone who could be with me all the time, someone who yelled about me from the rooftops and didn’t have to hide the truth from his family.
I could have all those things with almost anyone else in the world but the only one I wanted was Wyn.