Chapter 38
“Hey.” How could one word weigh so much? Ray had stopped just outside the woods, but still a few feet away from me, as if inviting me to come to him. I was absolutely not going to do that.
“Is everything okay?” I circled my finger in the air. “It rained.”
“Yeah. It’s been a strange day. A few hours ago, there was a man in his underwear running around town.” He walked forward. “I don’t suppose you want to explain that to me?”
“I’m … not sure I can.” Though technically Cupid was no longer my client, at least I was pretty sure he was done with me, I couldn’t say more about him. What’s more, I didn’t know what to say.
“Okay.” He shrugged, accepting my answer as if it was normal. Well, I suppose for Treater’s Way, it kind of was.
Nothing was making sense. Why would Ethan tell me to get Ray? According to Psyche, he’d never been affected by the arrow, so the rain shouldn’t have changed anything. And if I wasn’t his fated mate, like he’d said, then his behavior had no explanation.
“Want to take a walk with me?”
I stared at the hand he’d extended for me. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” He lifted my chin with his finger, smiling. “You told him to trust you. He does.”
“I told who to trust me?” Ray didn’t answer. He merely waited, patiently, while I searched his face for answers. Arrow or no, something had changed. Ray was not only calm, his energy was different. Settled.
As if he was no longer in a battle with his wolf. His wolf, who I’d told to trust me when we were questioning Nina.
“I’m glad your wolf trusts me, Ray.” A fresh knot formed in my throat. Was I telling a half-truth? That usually tripped up my magic. I ran through the words in my head. It was true. But there was more I’d wanted to say. Stuff that felt off-limits.
“Simone, please take a walk with me.” He interlaced our fingers. “I have a story I’d like to tell you.”
I looked at our hands. How right it felt for him to be holding mine. How much it hurt that the future I wanted wasn’t in the cards. And it made me angry. I pulled away.
“Ray Chase, you know I have feelings for you. It’s not right for you to hold my hand and smile at me like we have a chance.” This time when I swallowed, my throat was clear. “In fact, it hurts. And we’ve come too far for you to stand here and hurt me.”
He flinched, as if I’d slapped him physically, and the wolf rose for a second. A sad, desperate second. Then he fought it down. “You’re right. I apologize. I’m not trying to tease you.”
He kicked at the ground, swearing under his breath. “I need to tell you a story. Whether we walk or sit or stand on one leg doesn’t matter to me. I, and he, we need you to understand.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Can I ask for that?”
“Fine,” I said, because my curiosity was a morbid bitch. “But I’m not walking in those woods right now, and I haven’t slept in days. So if you want to tell me a story, you can do it at the Magnolia.”
I turned and walked, not bothering to see if he followed. Soon, my adrenaline would wear off. And while Valentine’s Day was going to work out for Treater’s Way, I was already planning a weekend with Ben & Jerry.
He fell into line, remaining silent the entire walk. I rounded the side of the Magnolia, not wanting to go in and face anyone. I stomped up my stairs. Cecelia had the door open for me. She slammed it in Ray’s face.
God, I loved my house.
“No, hon.” I laughed, but I opened the door. “I promised him one story.”
Cecelia’s radio appeared on the table. Static played, then the 60 Minutes theme song began.
Ray chuckled. “I get it, Cecelia. I’m on thin ice.”
I retreated to the bedroom to change into something more comfortable, having the worst sense of deja vu. He’d come over before for us to talk. I’d changed then, too. No way was I going to wear his high school T-shirt this time. But I needed to get out of my work clothes.
Cecelia, of course, had clothes waiting for me. Buttery-soft lounge pants and a complementary top that I slid into after a quick shower. Maybe it was petty to make him wait, but I’d earned the right to be a little petty.
When I came out to the living room, he was sitting at the breakfast area table. Cecelia had given him a plate of pastries and a mug of coffee. The traitor. I sat opposite him, nursing the Bayou Bliss that appeared. “Okay. Story time.”
Ray took a steadying breath. Odd, as he hadn’t appeared nervous this entire time. I planted my chin on my hand and waited.
“I met my fated mate when I was six years old.”
I reeled back, my entire body reacting to what he’d said. All this time he never could have loved me? “Six,” I whispered.
“My mother and I were at the library, and she struck up a conversation with another mom she hadn’t met before. You know how it was.”
I nodded. It was a small town in the South. There were no strangers.
“While they chatted, her daughter and I played at one of the stations. You remember those?”
“I do.” The memory of them was as clear as if I’d visited yesterday. “They had those knock-off LEGO. The ones that never actually fit together.”
“Those are the ones,” Ray said with a laugh. “She was trying to build a tree but couldn’t get it to stand upright. So I sat with her, and together, we managed to get it together.”
Something about his story stirred me, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. But it made me restless, so I rose and moved to the living room. Ray followed me, sitting on the opposite end of the couch, as if that spot had always been his.
“When we’d finished, she looked right at me, and she had these really pretty, wide eyes. They were like honey. Clear and sweet. The moment my wolf saw them, he howled.”
“I thought.” I paused to swallow. My mouth was dry. “I thought you didn’t know you were a shifter until your teens.”
“I didn’t know I was an alpha until my teens.” He picked at the edge of the couch. “I’ve always known about my wolf. We haven’t always had a … positive relationship.”
Well, that was an understatement. But it explained a lot.
“The codex says finding a fated mate is instant for the wolf, but often the human will fight it. Is that true?”
“Yeah.” Ray huffed out a breath. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“So what happened? Where did she go?” I asked. Then a horrific thought occurred to me. “Oh, Ray, did something happen to her?”
A cloud of depression was forming in my head. He’d found his fated mate so young. And lost her. I’d always been a replacement. He’d never loved me the way I loved him. Even if he’d wanted to.
He was looking at me, steady as could be, the intensity of his gaze making me fidget in that way he always did. I twisted the curls of my hair. I couldn’t stand not knowing. “What happened to the girl?”
Ray gave me a sad smile. “For a long time, she kept her distance. I did, too. At six, it’s hard to understand that level of devotion. When we got older, I thought we might have something. But she left town, and though my wolf urged me to follow her, I couldn’t.”
“Why not?” My body was screaming in a way it hadn’t done since I first returned. Like something buried deep inside me was bursting through walls to get to the surface. Like I was listening to a memory, not a story.
This was not going the way I’d expected it to. But I had to know the answer to that question, because it was the one I’d never been able to ask him. “Why didn’t you follow… her?”
“Because, Simone, she told me not to.” His fingers curled into fists. “I was fighting Ethan, like an idiot, while you screamed at me. And you said—”
“I said ‘do not follow me, Ray.’” I sighed. The ward. The fucking ward and the power I hadn’t understood. I’d hexed him away. I’d hexed my entire life away.
He moved closer to the center of the couch. Closer to me. “I always wondered if you remembered us meeting at the library.”
“I thought it was a dream.” The memory had been there, hazy, as memories from our youth often are. I’d gone to the library nearly every day most of my life. It had all run together, one long memory of a space, but not the details of who I met or what I did.
But as he described it, I could pull out the details from the fog. I’d been wearing a dress with pretty flowers on it. My hair was a mess, wild because I wouldn’t let my mother comb it. Chocolate was smeared on my face. I remember getting it on the blocks.
“When we were finished, I told you that I loved you.” I laughed at the memory, and how my mother had mentioned it every time I had a faux crush. Did you find your library fella? “And you said—”
“I said okay.” Ray pulled me forward, our knees touching. “It’s always been you, Simone.”
I placed a hand to his chest, creating space between us. “But you told me I wasn’t your fated mate.”
“Yeah, about that.” He placed his hand over mine, holding it to his heart. “I lied.”