CHAPTER 29
BLANCHETTE
Jonathan was the only bright thing in my week.
That realization hit me as I shoved my badge into my bag and power-walked through the corridor, heart light in a way it hadn’t been in days.
Work had been hell—meetings stacked on meetings, Erik’s shadow everywhere, the air at Skoll thick with tension and quiet fear—but the thought of seeing Jonathan again carried me through it.
I was running late.
Of course I was. When I reached the lobby and hurried out from the elevator bank, I rounded the corner too fast and only just caught myself before colliding with someone waiting.
“Oh—” I started, then froze.
Erik Skoll stood there, immaculately composed as always. Fang hovered behind him. His hand steadied my elbow, and I stepped away, hitching up my purse, when I realized it was him.
“Blanchette,” he said mildly. “Running off to the woods again, are we?”
My stomach tightened, and I tried to step around him. “I’m sorry—I’m in a hurry, Mr. Skoll. Have a good weekend.”
His gaze never left mine. “He arrived early. You might’ve missed him already.”
“What?” I asked, stilling as a frown spread.
“Jonathan,” Erik supplied. A faint, knowing smile curved his mouth. “I should thank you. For bringing him to me. We had a nice chat.”
An iciness slid down my spine.
“Excuse me,” I said hurriedly, already stepping around him. My pulse was too loud in my ears as I hurried past the security desk. When I happened to glance over my shoulder, worrying my bottom lip, Erik was already gone, back up to our main office floor.
What had he meant? And why did it make alarm bells go off in my head?
My eyes scanned the lobby instinctively. The security readers, the fountain, the wide glass entrance beyond—
Jonathan.
He was walking away, nearly halfway through the plaza.
But it was him. There was no mistaking the broad set of his shoulders or the richness of his dark hair. Plus, he was the only one not in a suit and tie.
Why was he leaving?
I raced from the lobby, my heels slipping once on the polished floor, but I didn’t slow. The moment I made it through the glass doors, I called out, “Jonathan!” I weaved through the after-work crowd. “Jonathan, wait!”
He didn’t hear me. Or pretended not to.
Panic spiked in my chest. I broke into a jog. He was passing the central fountain of the plaza, his hands shoved deep into his jean pockets.
“Jonathan!”
This time he turned. Waited. I was huffing and puffing by the time I reached him. But what I saw made any excitement and relief seize in my chest.
His expression was cold. Guarded. Closed.
“Hey,” I said, breathless. I reached out my hand to touch him. “I’m sorry—I was finishing up. I didn’t know that—”
“I got here early?” he said, cutting in, keeping an arm’s length between us, even when I tried to move closer. I frowned, trying to get a read on him.
I blinked. “Well…yes.”
“Erik seemed to know.”
The way he said Erik’s name made my throat tighten.
“Did he see you down in the lobby?” I asked. “I’m sorry. I was still busy upstairs—”
“Convenient,” he murmured, his blue eyes like chips of ice.
The word landed like a slap.
What in the world was going on? He was acting so strange.
All around us, people milled like a river, chattering on phones, making bar plans for that night, or smoking after the long day.
Someone bumped into my shoulder, but I was stuck in place like a boulder.
Unmovable. My belly filled with something that felt like dread as I stared at the man who only a week ago had made me feel so warm, so… happy.
“Jonathan.” I stepped closer. My heart was pounding in my chest. “Please. What’s going on? Did something happen?”
He looked past me, jaw tight, like the city itself was setting his teeth on edge. “Something felt off.”
My chest hurt. “Off how?”
“You lured me right into the wolf’s den,” he said quietly. “And I fell for it. Like a damn fool.”
“What?” I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
He turned back to me then, eyes sharp with both anger and distrust. It reminded me of how he’d once looked at me.
“Erik mentioned how valuable you’ve been as his little spy, reporting back to him. About Juniper Woods.”
“What are you talking about?” I breathed, my jaw slackening when the words registered. “He’s lying! Why…why would you ever believe that?”
“You work for him,” Jonathan said. “And suddenly you’re in my life. Then he knows details about me, my family, the land…things only an insider would know. But I suppose that’s all a coincidence, right?”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“It means I’ve been wrong before,” he snapped. Then caught himself, dragged a hand through his dark hair. “I ignored my instincts once. It cost someone their life, and it ruined mine. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”
The Helix Trust case. It still haunted him. But that had nothing to do with me.
“Do you really believe I’d use you?” I asked, my voice breaking despite my effort to hold it together. “That I’d fake everything—everything—just to get ahead at Skoll?” The last word sounded like a scoff.
“Not sure what to believe anymore. I know one thing though,” he said, pinning me in place with a cold glare. “Nothing good comes from Graymore.”
The words sliced deep, splitting me clean down the center. A quiet, surgical cut…leaving my softest parts exposed to a city made of knives.
“I’m not from here,” I barely managed, thin and splintered.
He looked so eerily similar to when I’d first met him at Juniper Hollow, when he’d been less than friendly. The same mistrust was in his eyes, the blank coldness on his handsome features. Only it hurt so much more now because he knew me.
And I’d liked to think that I knew him.
Now? I wasn’t so sure, especially if he thought me capable of this. This betrayal. This terrible lie. That I would spy on him for…Erik Skoll.
Maybe he’d never shaken his original assessment of me—that cutting opinion that he’d once held. That I was just a spoiled girl from Graymore, that I was only ever looking out for myself, trying to get a leg up, trying to get ahead.
“You know me, Jonathan.”
For a heartbeat, I thought he might soften. I saw the uncertainty in his eyes, as if logic was warring with the words I’d spoken. But then I watched his resolve harden, right before my very eyes. The moment closed.
He looked away, toward the street as if already leaving. “I need time,” Jonathan said. “To think. I can’t breathe in this place.”
“I never lied to you,” I insisted again as I felt my heart splintering in my chest. “And I never would. You have to believe me.”
I stepped forward, hoping proximity might fix what words couldn’t. His instinct was to step back, the space between us opening like a fault line. Left standing on the wrong side. My fault.
And I didn’t even know what I’d done wrong.
“Please,” I begged. “Let’s talk about this. Let’s—”
“It’s best you leave me alone, Blanche,” he said, his tone sharp. Suddenly I saw the color of his eyes change and shimmer. His wolf was close to the surface, his temper stoking it. I couldn’t help but hold my breath. “For a while.”
Then he turned and walked away. Just like that. He was gone as fast as he had come into my life.
I didn’t follow him. I stood there frozen by the fountain, the sound of water rushing loudly in my ears, watching his back disappear into the hazy city. I just stood there invisible to everything around me. So thin and transparent…I might as well have been a ghost.
Nothing good comes out of Graymore.
“I’m not from here,” I whispered again—this time not to him but to myself.
And for the first time, I wasn’t sure where I belonged at all.