Chapter 19 - Wilf #2
I don’t say anything for a long moment.
“That’s the warning, Wilf,” she says, more softly.
“I’m not telling you not to be with her.
That’s not for me to say. I’m telling you to be very clear with yourself before you take any further steps, because there is no map for this.
There hasn’t been a wolf with an open bowl and a human in the same room that I know of, and I’m old enough to have heard of most things.
That’s different from what happened with Fern and Connor. ”
“Okay,” I tell her.
“Have I made sense?” She asks gently.
“You have,” I say, trying not to let any of the tension I feel leak into my tone.
“Good.” She studies me a moment before turning to walk back inside. “All will be fine, Wilf. You’ll see.”
I stand there for a minute and watch as the door closes. Then I get into my truck, trying very hard not to let my wolf think too hard, though that is a losing battle.
It’s a long drive out through the main square, cutting across town, and then out onto the mountain road toward the ridge.
I don’t reply to the conversation so much as I walk through the steps of what she said.
The lottery I never wanted to be at, that pulled my name out and didn’t have anyone for me, has left this open magic just circling me ever since, and my wolf has probably latched onto the first woman who fell into my lap, quite literally.
My wolf doesn’t care what Amelia said, and he doesn’t think the attachment to Lara is random.
He wants her, wants to get back to her, and wants to mate her, regardless of what Elder Amelia said.
But I’m a man, and that balance between man and wolf feels particularly tenuous right now.
I get to the cabin just after twelve. The smoke’s up from the chimney. Fern’s truck isn’t on the drive anymore, which means she’s already left. The yard’s quiet, and the ridgeline looks peaceful.
Lara’s in the front room when I walk in, curled up in the corner of the deep sofa under one of the throws, her feet tucked under her, a paperback open on her knee with the fire going.
Her hair’s loose. She’s wearing a navy sweater I don’t recognize, probably one of the ones Luna brought up the other day.
She doesn’t see me for a second because she’s reading.
The firelight is on her face and on the page.
She’s got a mug in her hand on the arm of the sofa, and the picture of her sitting in my front room like she belongs there hits me harder than anything Amelia said in the courtyard.
I remind myself that she’s not sitting in my cabin because she chose it. She’s here because the rogues were hunting her down, and I insisted she come here; I wouldn’t have let her go. She had no choice. When this is over, she’ll go back to her humans and her life. I doubt she’ll look back.
She looks up and smiles when she sees me.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hey,” I reply.
“How was the meeting?”
“Fine. Nothing new on the rogues. I’m back on the ridge from Wednesday.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” she says. She watches me for a second. “You sure there’s nothing else?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Just a long meeting. You want some food?”
She nods and puts the book down as I head through to the kitchen. “I’ll give you a hand,” she says as we begin moving around the kitchen in a way that has become increasingly familiar over the last couple of days.
I can’t help mulling the whole thing over as I chop the vegetables I picked up before the meeting.
The damn lottery has a lot to answer for.
I never even wanted to go, never wanted to throw my name in the hat, and yet it selected me with nothing to offer, and now it’s left this thing hanging over me.
I glance at Lara, who seems oblivious as she sets the table, and wonder what she would think of it all—even the lottery itself would probably seem too much like a shifter thing for her to stomach.
As Amelia pointed out, Lara is a human, and they don’t suffer the bond as we do.
She can just leave, but if I’m honest, I can already feel the tendrils of something like a bond wrapping around my wolf.
If Lara leaves, she could really damage my wolf if I let this go further, and if she stays, my wolf could hurt her in mating if the lottery magic is unstable.
I put the stew on to simmer and tell Lara I’m going to bring in more wood from the store.
Really, I just need to get outside for a minute.
As soon as the door slams behind me, I lean against the rail of the porch and look out at the familiar treeline that has been the one constant in my life, feeling like I just want to go back to the steady consistency I’d built before the lottery, before Lara.
But my wolf laughs at the suggestion because he’s decided that he wants the burn of the magic and the woman.
I glance through the glass pane and spot Lara moving around my kitchen as though she belongs, and that feels like a visual of everything Amelia was warning me about.
Wanting what I can’t have and what my wolf might do if he doesn’t get it.