Chapter Sixteen
Dominic wasn’t sure if it was the storm of feeling that pulsed through their mating bond, or if it was the difficult customer on the other side of the counter that made him want to drive his fist through the wall. Whichever it was, he knew he had to keep a cool head.
“How do I know you didn’t forge this authentication?” The wiry old man jabbed his finger at the document lying flat against the glass. Dominic had spent almost fifteen minutes looking for the letter in his files and he could handle someone wasting his time, but not his word being questioned.
He pointed out the seal at the top. “That’s from a notary.” Then he indicated the signature at the bottom of the page. “That’s the signature of a man whom my father personally knew and trusted from Boston, who is an authority on grandfather clocks from the forties. I assure you, this isn’t fake.”
The customer’s squinty eyes looked over the sheet of paper while Dominic tightened his jaw and willed himself to ignore the ebbing tide of anxiety, anger, and fear fed from Erica’s side of the mating bond.
He wished he had a moment to call her or Cole and ask how the meeting went.
By the way they walked out together and the rush of calm that preceded this tempest, he would have liked to think that it went well.
That all changed half an hour ago. If he didn’t have the customer in the store, he would have gone straight to Erica’s house to find out what was going on.
This explosion of feeling put him on edge.
One moment, the thread lay still, intact, and under no stress whatsoever.
The next, Dominic could sense it being pulled thin until he thought it would snap.
Then it relaxed again, and he could breathe.
If this was just a taste of what Erica was feeling, he couldn’t stay much longer.
It was a wonder his father could get anything done around this town with his own mating bond screaming at him that his wife was depressed and suicidal.
That only confirmed his father’s twisted priorities, if he could ignore his mate for the sake of Tolstone. Dominic couldn’t be his father.
The man, his wrinkled lips puckered with doubt, finally nodded. “All right.”
Dominic accepted his money and helped him load the clock into his SUV. As soon as he could get back inside, the lights were off, and he dashed out the back door to make his way to Crescent Lane.
His steps quickened when he felt that fragile chord of quiet finally stretch to its thinnest. Erica was a strong woman, but even she had her limits.
Dominic nearly stumbled when he realized that tears pushed at his eyelids, tears that were not his.
There must have been plenty more to learn about the mating bond, but this was something entirely new.
He didn’t bother knocking when he came onto her porch.
The shattering of glass and her choking sobs were invitation enough.
His wolf shivered at the overpowering fog into which they entered.
He rushed to the living room where Erica was in the process of yanking a picture from the wall, ready to dash it to the ground with all the other framed photographs of her and her mother.
He rushed up behind her, grabbed her about the waist, and pulled her away before she could do any more damage. Erica fought him and beat her heels against the shards on the floor as she tried to wriggle out of his hold.
What had caused this hysteria? What did Cole say to her? He had to get her to settle down or she was liable to tear the whole house down.
Like a desperate, wild thing, she screamed and wailed as if she were being dragged to her death.
Dominic, not sure how to calm her, let a whirlwind of dominance spin around them, encasing them both, containing this recklessness for both their sakes.
He was apt to fly into a panic just like her if he allowed any more of her madness to spill through the mating bond.
It took a solid minute for her to stop struggling long enough for him to spin her around and hold her tight against him.
Only then did her screams melt into quiet, suppressed whimpers.
He didn’t even care that her hot tears seeped through his shirt.
He refused to let go and rubbed up and down her heaving, quivering back until she could start to form sentences.
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” she began, the words almost garbled. “All this time, I thought my dad was the one who left. But my mom wanted him to leave. She wanted us to be broken.”
She proceeded to tell him everything that Cole had tried to explain to her, how the hunters pushed them out of Decatur, and how her mother told him to leave them behind. He knew all of that already, but he understood the cathartic release of speaking it into the open.
This is what he had been waiting for. It was the moment when she’d finally let him in without reserve, let him witness her brokenness, and relieve her of some of that baggage she had been carrying around all this time. He just wished it didn’t have to come at her expense.
Erica sniffled. “I feel like my whole life’s been a lie. I could have gone to the father-daughter dances at school. We could have been a family. We could have been so happy, and my mom didn’t want any of that, all because of what he was … All because he was a shifter.”
Dominic petted her long braid, loosened by her earlier fit. “Your mother did want you to be happy. That’s why she made the choices that she did.”
She shook her head, her nose rubbing against his shoulder. “But why would she want us to struggle? I don’t understand why she would want me to grow up without a father. Why couldn’t they just make it work?”
“I don’t know,” he replied softly. “Sometimes … people just fall out of love. I don’t know how it happens or why, but it happens every day.” He thought of his own parents, the silent dinner table, the separate bedrooms, and how his father seemed to move on from her so easily.
Erica weakly pushed against him, and he didn’t stop her from easing away from his shoulder. “What if we can’t make this work?”
He gave her a reassuring smile and hoped it would ease her troubled mind somehow. “I’m not your father. Didn’t I tell you that already? I’m not going anywhere.”
“But what if I push you away? What if I can’t stand you leaving all the time? What if what happened this morning happens so much that I get sick of it just like my mom did?”
He reached up to stroke her cheeks, still damp with tears. “You’re not your mother.”
“But …” She gulped for breath. “I hate it when you’re not here. It’s so weird, like half of myself leaves with you. It hurts so bad … What if I—”
Dominic’s brows snapped together. “What if the world stops turning and the sky falls, and the oceans turn to blood? What then? You can go on and on about what-ifs until you’re blue in the face, but it won’t change anything.
It’ll only drive you crazy to think of all the ways life could go wrong.
” He forced her to look at him, one finger beneath her chin.
“Right now, I’m here. That’s all you need to worry about. The future can take care of itself.”
Erica’s lips tugged, unsure whether to cry again or smile in spite of herself. “I don’t want to be like my mom, and I never thought I’d say something like that. I don’t want to make a mistake.”
“So, what will you do? Keep running away from relationships so you won’t get your heart broken?”
For a terrible moment, she looked as if she was ready to agree. She got that same torn-asunder look as she had when she told him that she hated the bond they shared. He held his breath, waiting for her response. Why couldn’t she stop fighting and just let him love her the way he needed to?
“No. I know I can’t … Not anymore … But I’m just so confused. Imagine if you had lived your entire life a certain way, with certain beliefs, and then one day it just all got flipped and now nothing’s the same.”
He smirked. “I know exactly how that feels. Every shifter does.”
Dominic could have gone on and on about how hard it had been to become a Prime Alpha, and how he still fumbled through this process, working against the tide while he tried to figure it all out and still earn everyone’s loyalty.
Last night had been a turning point, but there was a long road ahead of him.
“Do you know what I do when I feel like that?” By the desperation in her gaze, he knew she listened closely. “I get away from everything. Just to clear my head. It always helps.”
Erica looked around the house that must not have seemed so special anymore, to the memories that she crushed on the ground as if they meant nothing to her. She would come to regret her actions in a few hours.
She nodded to his unspoken offer, and he fished out his phone to make the call.
“What about the pack?” she asked as she rubbed the last of her tears away.
“They can do without me for a night or two. Right now, you’re more important.”
*
Dominic arranged everything and, within a few hours, Erica found herself with several appointments rescheduled and in the passenger seat of his truck.
When he mentioned going away, she thought of someplace as far away as Springfield.
Maybe even Chicago. But Larson Caves Park just outside Tolstone wasn’t what she had in mind.
It was just far enough away from civilization that she forgot they were only ten miles or so from town, but still close enough that if a serious emergency came up, Dominic could be packed up and back within a few minutes.
With the bed of the truck loaded down with a tent, a couple of sleeping bags, and the minimal supplies needed for a day or so of roughing it in the woods, Erica wasn’t all too sure about this plan.
She had never been camping before and didn’t know the first thing about wilderness survival.
Then again, she had a wolf shifter with her. How lost could she possibly get?