Chapter 2
The clock on Victor’s desk read six-fifteen. His receptionist Petal wouldn’t arrive for another hour, which gave him exactly sixty minutes to review the day’s schedule, complete his morning rituals, and pretend last night’s dream wasn’t still clinging to his skin like smoke.
He pulled the patient files across the desk, forcing his attention to the neatly typed names. Mrs. Clarkson at nine for a routine blood pressure check. Gerald Hoffmann at nine-thirty to follow-up on his medication. A gap at ten, and then…
Miss Chloe Bennington. His hand stilled on the file.
She was twenty-four weeks pregnant, and no partner was listed.
The records transferred from her previous provider indicated a healthy pregnancy, but why had she left the city at this point in her pregnancy?
He looked at her current address and groaned.
The old Thornhill cabin was in an isolated location outside of town and based on her file, she was alone there.
Alone.
The word echoed in his mind, triggering something deep in his chest, something that growled and shifted and wanted.
“No,” he said aloud to the empty office, and the growl subsided. Barely.
He set the file aside and pressed his fingers to his temples.
He’d barely slept. The dream had been too vivid, too real—running through the forest under a full moon, his muscles bunching and releasing with a power that made his human form feel like a cage.
The scent of pine and river water, the rush of wind against his skin, the pure, savage freedom of it.
The moment when his control slipped, and Hyde took over completely.
In the dream, he’d thrown back his head and roared, the sound echoing through the mountains as he claimed his territory…
His hands clenched on the desk before he forced himself to relax them.
It was just a dream. Hyde was contained.
He’d spent thirty-six years learning to keep his other side locked down, channeling that primal energy into discipline.
He ran every morning. He meditated every evening.
His schedule was rigidly controlled and he avoided strong emotions like a man avoiding a lit fuse.
It worked—or at least it had worked. Lately, the dreams had been getting worse, both more frequent and more intense. Last week he’d woken in his garden, with dirt under his fingernails and his shirt torn. He was certain that Hyde had been running, and he’d had no memory of letting him out.
The clock ticked forward. Six-twenty—time to run.
He needed to burn off the restless energy thrumming through his veins before the first patient arrived.
The basement held his treadmill, his weights, and the punching bag he’d replaced three times in the last year.
Physical exhaustion was the only thing that quieted the beast.
He stood, rolling his shoulders, and headed for the hallway.
The old Victorian house that was both his home and his office was silent around him, except for the floorboards creaking under his weight.
He’d inherited the house and the medical practice from his father, who’d inherited it from his father, all the way back to the original Dr. Jackson who’d arrived in Fairhaven Falls in 1847 with a leather medical bag and a secret. A curse, his father called it.
He took the stairs down to the basement two at a time. The air was cooler here, the scent of earth and stone replacing the lavender Petal insisted on using upstairs. He flipped the light switch and the bare bulb illuminated his makeshift gym—a spartan space designed for one purpose only.
He stripped off his shirt, tossed it on a bench, and stepped onto the treadmill. His reflection stared back at him from the darkened window—pale skin, lean muscle, blue eyes that flashed green when he wasn’t careful, when his control slipped.
He hit the start button and began to run.
The first mile was easy—his breathing steady, his muscles warming, and his heart rate slowly climbing.
He increased his speed on the second mile, and the restless energy began to bleed away, channeled into the rhythm of his feet hitting the belt.
By the third mile, his mind had quieted enough to think.
Chloe Bennington. Pregnant. Alone. Hyde stirred again at the thought, and he pushed harder, his speed increasing until his lungs burned. She was simply a new patient. Her living situation is not my concern, he told himself but the words felt hollow.
The Thornhill cabin was isolated, set back from the main road, and surrounded by dense forest. Beautiful, if you liked that sort of thing, but also potentially dangerous, if you were a woman on her own.
There were creatures in those woods—Others who lived by instinct rather than reason.
Most of them would never harm a female, but…
She was alone.
The treadmill beeped a warning, letting him know that he’d hit eight miles. He forced himself to slow, to bring his heart rate down, to breathe through the irrational urge to shift into Hyde and run to that cabin, to stand guard, to—
Stop.
He killed the treadmill and stepped off, his legs shaking. This was exactly the kind of thinking that got Hydes into trouble—that primal fixation that was impossible to reason with once it was fixed on someone. His father had warned him never to let Hyde get attached.
His father had failed his own advice. Victor had been twelve when he’d watched his mother pack her bags, her hands shaking, her face pale.
His father had stood silently in the doorway, as she’d walked out, his hands clenched so tightly on the doorframe that the wood had splintered.
She’d sent him letters for the first year. Then nothing.
I couldn’t live like that, she’d written in one letter. Always wondering when he’d lose control. Always afraid.
Even at twelve he’d understood, but it didn’t make it any easier to be left alone in a house with a father who slipped further and further into madness every day.
No. He would not become his father. He would not let Hyde dictate his choices and his future. He’d built a good practice here and regained most of the trust his father had lost. He helped people, and that would have to be enough.
He checked his watch. Seven-thirty. Petal would arrive any minute, and he still needed to shower.
He took the stairs back up to his private quarters on the second floor, then stood under the hot water longer than necessary, letting the heat work into his muscles.
He tried not to think about his eleven o’clock appointment. She was just another patient.
Alone.
“Shut up,” he muttered to Hyde.
The presence in his chest rumbled, amused. It knew. It always knew.
By the time he’d dressed—white shirt, charcoal trousers, shoes polished to a mirror shine—he heard Petal bustling around downstairs.
The scent of fresh coffee drifted up, followed by the sound of her humming something cheerful and off-key.
He descended the main staircase and found her in the kitchen, arranging files on the counter with the precision of a military general.
“Morning, Dr. Jackson,” she said without looking up. Flower petals—marigolds today—were woven into her bun, bright orange against her dark hair. “Coffee’s fresh. First appointment’s at nine, but Mrs. Clarkson always arrives early, so expect her at eight-forty-five.”
“Thank you, Petal.”
She glanced up, her sharp brown eyes taking him in. “You look tired.”
“I’m fine.”
“Hmm.” She didn’t sound convinced, but she didn’t push.
Petal had worked for his father before he’d been too far gone, and she knew better than most what the Jackson males dealt with.
“I’ve put the new patient file on your desk.
Miss Bennington is a lovely girl. I met her yesterday when she dropped off her paperwork. ”
He poured himself a coffee, keeping his expression neutral. “Is that so?”
“Pregnant and all alone, poor thing. And moving to Fairhaven Falls of all places.” Petal clicked her tongue. “Still, better here than the city, I suppose. At least here she’ll have people looking out for her.”
Hyde’s growl was so loud he nearly dropped his mug. Mine to protect. He gripped the counter, forcing the surge of possessive rage back down.
“Dr. Jackson?”
He blinked. Petal was watching him, concern creasing her forehead.
“Are you all right?”
“Fine.” He set the mug down carefully. “Just thinking about the day.”
She didn’t look convinced, but then the front door chimed, signaling Mrs. Clarkson’s early arrival. Petal sighed and bustled out of the kitchen, leaving him alone with his coffee and the slow, inexorable dread building in his chest.
Mrs. Clarkson’s blood pressure was elevated, but nothing concerning.
Gerald Hoffmann’s medication was working beautifully, his mood improved, his energy levels up.
The ten o’clock gap gave him time to update his notes, review the prenatal care protocols he hadn’t needed in months, and try very hard not to look at the clock.
At ten-fifty, Petal knocked on his office door.
“Dr. Jackson? Your eleven o’clock will be here any moment. I’m just going to tidy the exam room.”
“Thank you.”
She disappeared, and he forced himself to breathe.
Just another patient. He pulled Miss Bennington’s file across the desk and read through it again, even though he’d already committed the details to memory.
Her previous doctors hadn’t noted any significant risk factors.
Her blood type was O-positive and she had no known allergies. Her due date was in late January.
Reviewing the routine information didn’t help calm his uneasiness, and he finally stood and strode to the window.
A small figure was walking up the street, bundled in a plaid coat that didn’t quite close over the swell of her stomach.
Dark brown hair was pulled back from her face with a colorful scarf, and his breath caught in his throat.
She was lovely. Not in a polished, artificial manner, but something softer and more genuine.
Tiny freckles dusted her nose, and her eyes were a warm brown.
Her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink from either the cool air or the walk.
There was an air of vulnerability about her, but also a quiet resilience that intrigued him.
Hyde surged forward, and he had to grip the windowsill to keep himself steady. His eyes flashed green—he could feel it, the shift in his vision, the sharpening of his senses. As she walked up the front steps, her scent reached him, warm and sweet and infinitely compelling.
Mate.
“No,” he said through gritted teeth.
But Hyde didn’t care. Hyde knew. And the knowledge was absolute, undeniable, terrifying.
She was his.