Chapter 19-Honor
Eighteen minutes.
That’s how long it takes from the moment I hang up on Tommy—Timmy—whatever the hell his name is, to ripping through a shower, pulling on clean clothes, and driving like a man possessed straight to Furry Smiles.
Eighteen minutes should’ve been fast enough.
Apparently, it wasn’t.
I pull into the lot too hard, gravel crunching under my tires as I jerk the truck into park.
My heart is already pounding like it knows what I’m about to see before my eyes do.
I scan the lot.
Once.
Twice.
No purple Jeep.
No familiar splash of color.
No Sunshine waiting by the door, arms crossed, giving me that look like she’s trying to decide whether to forgive me or kick my ass.
She’s gone.
Poof.
“Fuck,” I breathe, the word scraping out of my throat.
The realization hits hard and fast, a cold punch straight to the chest.
The air feels thinner all of a sudden, like I can’t quite get enough of it into my lungs.
And inside me—my Bear goes nuts.
He roars so loud in my head it feels like my skull might split, like he’s clawing at my ribs from the inside, furious and frantic and wild with loss.
Gone.
She left. Here. Me. Both.
Find her.
My hands curl into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms as instinct surges, raw and undeniable.
Every part of me—human and Bear alike—is screaming the same thing.
Get her back.
I throw myself into the truck without thinking, phone already in hand as I pull up Miles’ location.
He’s on a job.
Mrs. Seder’s place. Again.
Of fucking course. That woman is a small business’ worst nightmare.
I drive like the road owes me something, tearing through Barvale’s back streets and main drag until I screech up to her overgrown driveway.
Ten minutes flat. Not bad.
But probably not good enough, either.
I don’t even bother knocking.
I round the side of the house instead, looking for my brother-in-law when the she-devil herself comes clicking down her cracked porch steps like she’s about to lay into someone.
“Well, nice of you to show up. You know I’ve been waiting three days for you to—” she stops mid-rant.
Sniffs the air.
Then grimaces like she just got a whiff of burnt toast and disappointment.
“When did you get mated?” she snaps. “Ugh. Forget it.” She snarls and spins on her heel, stomping back inside with a loud slam of the door.
I blink.
“What the hell?”
I sniff myself and then pause, the realization slowly dawning.
Mrs. Seder isn’t human.
She’s like me.
Different. Other.
Shifter.
“Yep,” Miles grunts as he comes around the side of the porch, measuring tape in one hand and a power drill in the other. “That one’s a Shifter. And she’s been looking at you like a ribeye steak ever since your first day on the job.”
“She’s gotta be at least—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” he warns. “Anyway, maybe now she’ll shut the hell up about her ‘spiritually uneven’ porch. I barely had time to be with Hope before she called screeching like a Banshee.”
“I knew there was something off about her damn complaints—wait, are Banshees real too?” I mutter the question, rubbing the back of my neck.
My crash course into the supernatural world is far from over and I have a million questions.
“Yeah, they are. And, well, it’s good now I don’t have to filter myself in front of you. Welcome to the club, fuckface.”
He gins and nods like I’ve just been officially hazed in.
Weirdest induction ever.
“So, why are you here?”
“I tried to find Rosie,” I admit. “She’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“I went to the animal shelter to find her.”
“Maybe she wasn’t in today.”
“I called first.”
“She talked to you?”
“Nope, but she was there before I arrived. And when I did, there was no sign of her or purple Jeep. She was just gone.”
Miles winces.
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit.”
He sets his drill down and crosses his arms.
“Hope said she was pretty wrecked that night. Thought you bailed. Walked out of her life. Probably thinks you hate her, man.”
“What? No—hell no—I didn’t reject her! And I don’t fucking hate her!” My voice cracks like I’m seventeen again, and I wipe a hand down my face, guilt crashing in. “I thought I was protecting her.”
“How do you figure?”
“My Bear wanted to bite her,” I blurt. “Like, I could feel it—he was ready to scar her, man, and I thought I’d lose control. I thought—”
“That you’d hurt her?” Miles finishes.
“Yeah. I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t understand what mating was until Marcus explained afterwards in the woods.”
Miles laughs—laughs—like this is some kind of sitcom.
“You fucking idiot.”
I scowl.
“Thanks for the support.”
“No, really. You know what that means, right?”
I shake my head, and he claps a hand on my shoulder.
“Your Bear didn’t want to hurt her. He wanted to mark her again as his mate. Your mate. That wasn’t aggression. That was him saying, ‘Yeah, this one’s mine—lock it in.’ That’s what we do when the bond’s still new and the instincts are strong.”
The weight of that crashes over me like a tidal wave.
“She thinks I didn’t want her? She thinks I rejected her,” I say softly.
Miles sobers, nodding.
“Sure seems like it.”
“Well, she’s wrong,” I growl. “I want her more than I want my next breath.”
“Then you better tell her.”
“I will.”
“If you can find her,” he adds, rubbing salt in the wound.
“Fucker,” I grunt.
“Start with an apology,” he adds, cocking an eyebrow. “Just a suggestion. Don’t lead with the whole ‘my Bear wanted to bite you again’ thing. Ease into it.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” I mutter.
But inside?
I’m spiraling.
Because how the hell do I apologize to the woman who means everything to me for making her think she meant nothing at all?