CHAPTER 12
BLANCHETTE
Even the beautiful sheen and shimmer of the lake wasn’t enough to distract me from the endless, maddening loop of my thoughts the next morning.
Is he…?
Or isn’t he…?
I sighed, idly stirring the ice in my coffee, the clink comforting. It was already heating up, the condensation rolling water droplets over the back of my palm.
Jonathan Wolfe wasn’t human. I thought that much was clear, especially after last night. But if he was a shifter, or a Lycan, which I strongly suspected he might be…that posed a different problem entirely.
Then I felt a strum of guilt, coupled with frustration at myself. He might’ve been a Lycan, but that didn’t mean he was anything like Erik or the Lycans I’d had to work with at Skoll all these years. It was preposterous to think so.
But this was also, simply, nature. Lycans shared their soul with a beast, descended from a wolven goddess.
The myth was that long ago, a forgotten celestial goddess, Lycana, divine in both moonlight and war and bound to the earth, had breathed life into the first wolven-kind.
She’d gifted them strength, cunning, and the fire of ambition.
But they had been beastly, wild and unruly, and they’d twisted their legacy into savage conquest.
Ashamed, she’d wiped them out, then wept.
Her tears had fallen as silver into the soil, birthing a second bloodline…a line who would carry her spirit more purely.
Warriors that were part man and beast.
Flesh and fang.
The new Lycans had been born.
Forged from divine regret and wild grace, they were doomed to struggle between two worlds—civilization and the call of the woods.
It was largely recognized that Lycans were more prone to giving into their animal instincts.
Their tempers ran hot. If their territory was threatened—be it their physical home or their workplace or their pack—they were known to ruthlessly and mercilessly defend it.
They were notorious for latching onto an idea or a person or an argument…
and never letting go until they got what they wanted.
Everyone else was prey—and they were, more times than not, at the top of the food chain.
Unless, of course, vampires were involved.
Then I thought of Billy, the vampire Meg had dated, remembering his sheepish smile, though a little fang-y, and the thick-rimmed glasses that he always had to push up the bridge of his nose.
Incredibly handsome, befitting his race, but he couldn’t frighten a pixie, much less an arrogant, egotistical Lycan.
Nothing was ever black and white. And I was being close-minded, I chided silently.
And yet…the worry that Jonathan was a Lycan lingered.
Because I’d felt something stir in me last night, carefully being stoked to life.
While I hadn’t liked someone in a long time, I still recognized what had fluttered in my chest, delicate and, perhaps, ephemeral like a gladelace butterfly.
I would be disappointed to squash the feeling before it could develop into something more.
Last night had been…magical. Most of it felt like a dream. Even the frightening bits.
And it had been entirely unexpected.
The ringing bell of the landline telephone startled me. I sloshed a bit of my iced coffee over the rim of the glass but set it aside, shaking off my hand when I stood from the rocking porch chair, hurrying back through the open door of my cabin.
I frowned when I picked up, wondering who it could be. “May?”
“You can’t be mad at me because this was for your own good. Remember—I spy because I care. You may want to sit down because you’ll never believe what I found out.”
Meg.
I nearly groaned at the tone in her voice. “What now?”
“I thought his name sounded familiar and, of course, my suspicions were right. He’s Jonathan Wolfe! The Jonathan Wolfe.”
“I know his name, Meg,” I said slowly, frowning. “But what’s your point?”
She groaned. “My gods, Blanche. This was a big scandal about five or six years ago…don’t you remember the Helix Trust case?”
Something wiggled into my mind. Flashes of headlines and coworkers gossiping over news articles in their cubicles. “Vaguely. Why?”
“It was a circus, Bee. Helix was dripping in fraud—embezzlement, extortion, blackmail, bribery—the works. Then the whistleblower ‘died mysteriously’ just before testifying. Officially? Suicide. Realistically? Please. Everyone knew he was silenced. The law firm was corrupt and the whole thing reeked of a cover-up. And guess what? No one went to prison. Not one of those bastards.”
A chill went down my spine. “What does this all have to do with Jonathan?”
“He was the lead defense on that case,” Meg told me, her voice strangely calm. I could hear her worry. I felt my stomach drop out, an empty gnawing pit taking its place.
“What?” I asked softly. “No, that…that doesn’t any sense.”
“He was the face of their defense. He was front and center the whole time and protected those corrupt bastards until the very end. I wouldn’t be shocked if he knew exactly what happened to that whistleblower. Hell, maybe he didn’t just defend it. Maybe he helped bury the whole thing.”
My mind flashed back to last night, to Jonathan’s warm, strong palm on my back, pulling me away from the cliff’s edge.
I thought of his greenhouse, the way his expression had shifted in the butterfly sanctuary.
One of peace, calm. Even wonderment. I thought of all the beauty he’d created…
and I wondered how he could be the monster Meg was describing.
“It was really dark stuff. This guy is bad news, Blanche. You need to steer clear. I’m serious. In fact, you need to come home. Today.”
“Maybe it was another Jonathan Wolfe,” I suggested, shaking my head. “I mean, come on, Wolfe is a common enough family name, even for Lycans…like Smith for humans.”
“I’ve got the right Wolfe. Bee, it’s him. I’m sorry.”
I thought about what Jonathan had told me last night at Cryer’s Point.
I used to live in my head. Tried to control every outcome. Tried to measure life like it was a case to win or lose, he’d said.
“I feel so stupid,” I said quietly before biting my lip in worry. The confession tumbled from me. “Last night, me and him—”
“Oh gods, you hooked up with him?” came Meg’s shriek.
“No!” I said. “But I had thought…I thought that maybe…”
I didn’t have to finish.
“You don’t need more Lycans in your life right now,” Meg continued, her voice softening with understanding. She tried to lighten the mood with “Besides, they’ll piss all over you to mark their territory.”
A delirious bubble of a laugh rose from my throat.
“Come home, please,” Meg pleaded, her voice turning concerned again. As worried as I’d ever heard her. “I officially give you permission to end your vacay early. Okay?”
I closed my eyes, letting my breath tumble out of me.
“I’ll figure it out,” I murmured, thinking about my car, which I still hadn’t gotten around to repairing.
I hung up the landline and gazed around the cabin.
“Time to pack up,” I whispered to myself, wondering why I felt such disappointment.
Even hurt. I didn’t know Jonathan, clearly.
But there had been something special last night, hadn’t there?
A moment where we’d connected, where it felt like there was a possibility of something more, something special.
But I just couldn’t reconcile the Jonathan that Meg was painting—cunning and calculating, the villain in the newspapers—compared with the man in worn blue jeans showing me the secret garden he was trying to restore.
You never really know someone, I supposed.
After my small suitcase was packed up, I decided to head to the reception cabin first to see what I could do about my car. On my way down the dusty gravel path, I kept my eyes peeled for a familiar male—though out of hope or wariness, I wasn’t certain.
The AC blasted me the second I stepped inside the cabin. I frowned, feeling a strange sense that the layout of it had changed in the daylight. I’d grown up hearing stories about these woods all my life. Old, wild magic ran deep here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was steeped in the land.
“May?” I called out, pressing my belly up against the tall wood desk. The stain was faded in some part, but I thought it added to its charm.
I heard commotion in the back before May appeared. “Mornin’, dear,” she greeted. “Hungry?”
“No, but thank you,” I said, eyeing the older woman, wondering what I should say. “Um, something came up in Graymore and I have to get back early. So I wanted to see if you could help me get that tow into Everwick for my car and—”
“No needin’ that anymore,” May replied, shaking her head. “Part came in yesterday, and Jon-boy fixed it this mornin.’ Just needed a new starter solenoid…which he covered.”
My chest squeezed. “He fixed it for me?”
She nodded. “But I’m sorry to hear ya have to be getting back to the city so soon. I thought we had ya for a couple more days.”
“Don’t worry about the reservation. I don’t need a refund—this is my own fault. I just can’t stay.”
“Hmm,” May grunted, waving her hand in the air as if to bat away my words. “I wasn’t worried about the money, dear. I was thinkin’ about Jon.”
“Why?”
She shrugged, then a soft smile crossed her face, one that struck me as a little sad. “Part of me knows he’s hidin’ away here in the woods. I just worry he’ll hide the rest of his life away.”
I didn’t know what to make of that—or what it had to do with me.
My brow furrowed as I thought of a reply, casting my gaze around the cozy interior of the reception cabin.
The ice jug had been freshly replaced, droplets rolling down the side.
Moonshade berries appeared to be flavoring it today, the color seeping into the water at the very top.
On the wall shelf next to the fireplace, I spied a dried bundle of roses and wildflowers, popped into a ceramic vase.
A little wooden box with carving etched into the sides.
A silver figurine of a wolf. A tiny framed oil painting of a—