25. Henri
Chapter 25
Henri
Where the fuck are my suppressants? I know I picked up a bottle. I’m positive I had the shipment sent to the pack house for delivery, and I brought half of them home like always.
They weren’t in the bathroom cupboard with Nathan’s aspirin stuff. Not in the kitchen cupboard where I had the last bottle. Drawing a deep breath, I dump my purse out on the dining room table and look at the contents. Maybe I hadn’t put them away yet?
But I’m positive I did. It doesn’t make sense that I wouldn’t have, at least by now.
The purse definitely does not contain the amber bottle they come in. I open all the side pockets, even though they’re too small for the bottle, just to be sure.
Maybe I left them in the car?
Grabbing my car keys, I head to the garage. Today was a clusterfuck with my meetings with Cade and Deacon, and then Deacon taking a week off . Now this?
Could today get worse ?
“Henri, where you going?” Nathan calls.
“I’m just looking for something.” I leave the door open behind me so he can hear that I’m, in fact, not leaving for a random excursion he didn’t get advanced notice of. I learned that lesson.
I check under the driver’s seat and am walking around to the passenger side of my car when I see him standing in the door. I give him a small smile.
“What are you looking for?” He leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms in front of his broad chest.
There’s a dark look in his eye. The look he gets before things get bad.
My wolf cowers.
“My heat suppressants.” I shrug, trying to brush off his dark gaze, and open the passenger side door. “I know I picked up a bottle. But I can’t find it.”
“I tossed them.” Nathan’s nonchalant words stop me cold.
Standing here, with the door to my car open, all I can do is look at him. Dread coils inside me, and I stare at him, hoping it’s a lie.
“Why would you do that?”
Nathan sighs and rolls his eyes. “You don’t need them. Remember?”
I draw a deep breath. “Uhm, could you remind me why I wouldn’t need them?”
“Well.” He pushes off the doorframe and steps toward me. “We talked about this last night. I’m going to service you through heat. You don’t need a wolf to help you through them, baby. I’m man enough for you.”
I shake my head. This isn’t about him. Maybe if I reassure him, then it’ll be okay, and he’ll give them back. “Nathan, this doesn’t have anything to do with you being able to service me through heat. My heat doesn’t make you any less good enough for me.”
Nothing can stop the panicked beating of my heart. My wolf thrashes inside me, upset by the fear flooding my system.
“It’s not natural to be on those things. Who knows how they affect your body? Maybe it’s why you’re not feeling good enough to come to the gym with me.” He keeps advancing toward me.
He closes the car door. We’re nearly chest to chest.
“Nathan, I need suppressants so I can work.” I shake my head, looking up at him. I soften, trying to give him puppy eyes. “Heat is a little over a week of unproductive time. You wanted to be saving for a vacation, for my birthday next month, remember? If we take that time off now, that could mess with the trip.”
“You said we could go away for the weekend now that your job is settling down again. You said your boss is giving you time off. Now’s the perfect time to do this.” His hand comes to the side of my face. “You want to have fun with me, don’t you, baby?”
“Of course I do, but heat isn’t just a long weekend.” I try to explain. “I’m going to start having symptoms, and it’s going to make other wolves want me. It’s going to make it hard to work for a few days until I go fully into heat, and then it’s a week of heat and a few days of recovery afterward. Not just a couple of days where I’m going to be horny. It’s not simply a weekend in bed. I would need someone to be with me all the time.”
“I trust you, baby,” he says. “You wouldn’t let anyone sweet talk you into bed. It’s like you’ve said, you’d never cheat on me. Especially not with your boss.”
My wolf pushes a picture of Deacon forward. His beautiful wolf. Oh, yes, we would.
“It doesn’t work like that. This isn’t something I can push through. I don’t need to be around people. I would need to be with you, my partner, the entire time from when I started having symptoms until I was done.” I draw a deep breath, pushing her wants out of the way. “Nathan, this isn’t safe. I need those meds.”
Instantly I know those words didn’t come out appeasing enough. My frustration and fear bled into my tone, and I offended him.
Nathan shoves his hands in his pockets and works his jaw. “They’re gone, Henri. I flushed them.”
My wolf’s thrashing in moments like these has always been driven by her anger, and my reaction has always been fear. But for the first time, that’s flicked off like a light switch. Rage replaces fear.
“No.” I shake my head, jaw clenched together.
He’s gone too far.
Cade and Deacon’s concern slams into the forefront of my mind. Cade warned me not to wait too long before making a decision.
Nathan killed her. Cade and Deacon weren’t lying. He killed her, and I sure as fuck won’t let him kill me.
Retreating away from him, I walk the long way around the car. Nathan’s heavy footsteps follow me, but I barely hear him over the pounding of my pulse. I practically sprint into the house and slam the door in his face between us. With shaking hands, I scoop my purse off the table and haphazardly throw everything in it just as Nathan comes through the door.
“What are you doing?” Nathan’s voice rises and falls with the question.
I can’t answer him. I’m too angry to even open my mouth. I storm to the bedroom and pull out an overnight bag. Grabbing things from hangers and drawers, I stuff clothes in until the bag is full .
When I snatch it off the bed to storm past him, Nathan grabs the bag, trying to stop me. “Henri! What the fuck are you doing?”
“Leaving!” I snarl back.
My wolf rises to the surface, and despite shifting yesterday, she could almost burst from within.
Seeing her in my eyes causes Nathan to drop the bag.
I grab my purse and work bag and head out to my car as quickly as I can without running. I shove everything in through the driver’s door, not wanting to take any more time.
“You can’t fucking leave me!” Nathan screams. “You don’t get to leave me.”
He’s almost caught up with me, almost. But I slam the car door and manage to shove the key into the ignition despite the tremors racking my body. When I crank it, the beater purrs to life like it has for the last six months, and I back it out of the garage as fast as I dare.
Nathan bangs on the hood, screaming at me.
I make it down the block before tears pour from my eyes. I wipe them away, alternating hands on the steering wheel as I navigate out of our neighborhood. I attempt to take a steadying breath, but it doesn’t do much to soothe me.
The photos Cade showed me barrel into my mind.
Fuck, should I even be driving this car? My hands are still shaking when I look at the steering wheel. But I’d only been home for like five minutes. The car got me home... It’ll get me wherever I need to go.
Where am I going to go?
My wolf instantly brings up the Wisconsin house. The living room chats with Deacon, lying on the couch, looking at the ceiling.
Deacon doesn’t want to be bothered. I shut that idea down. No. His bike was in the garage when I left work. He’s not there anyway .
Going there without him no longer feels right either.
Back to the pack house? A hotel?
I draw a ragged breath and head north back to the pack house, back to work, and back to Cade’s offer. Subsequently, back to where Deacon is too.
Embarrassment heats my face again as I relive yesterday evening and the shame from this morning. It washes over me, sending shivers throughout my body and blurring my vision.
My phone is blowing up with dozens of message notifications and phone calls. The incessant buzzing in my purse is driving me nuts but also has me pressing the gas pedal harder as I pass exit after exit.
By the time I get to the front gate of Pack Alden’s property, my phone has either died, or Nathan has given up. It’s a welcome reprieve.
“Henri, you’re back?” the guard at the front gate questions. “Are you okay?”
“I’m...” I shake my head, feeling incredibly awkward. Clearly, I look like I’ve been crying. My voice trembles. “I’ll be fine. I’m just, I’ve gotta meet with Cade.”
“Absolutely. Sorry!” He jogs away from my car to open the gate in a hurry.
The guard ratted me out. I know he did because by the time I make the short two-minute drive to the main house, Cade is leaning against the garage.
I pull my car off to the side space in front of the house, where I usually park during the daytime. It’s not like I’ve never been afraid of Cade. I was terrified of him in the beginning, but in the almost year I’ve worked with him, I’ve come to learn that Cade’s ‘intimidating presence’ is really the work of me meddling with the media to get him to appear larger than life, along with wolf traditions and lore working in my favor.
That doesn’t stop me from feeling like a disappointment to my superior. I draw a deep breath, my shaking finally subsiding. Forcing down all the negative personal feelings, I put forward my best professional self before opening the door and walking around the car.
With his hands tucked in his pockets and a soft smile, he doesn’t seem so intimidating. There isn’t an ‘I told you so’ look of superiority.
Thankfully Cade doesn’t make me say it.
He gestures to the car with his elbow. “Can I help you carry anything in?”
“I can get it.” My voice cracks pathetically, and I brush more tears out of my eyes.
I’m trying so hard to hold it together. But... I’m alone.
The suddenness of that thought setting in stings. All the people — friends and my adoptive parents—I’ve lost touch with over the years catch up to me at once.
Cade steps forward and unexpectedly wraps his arms around me.
My muscles lose some of their tension, and my wolf settles. I don’t feel completely better, but I don’t feel so alone.
“You’re gonna be okay.” Cade’s voice rumbles through his chest. “It’s been a shitty twenty-four hours, but we’ll get you settled in for the weekend, and come Monday, it’ll be better.”
I nod, stepping away from him, and wrap my arms around my middle.
Cade heads to my car and looks in the windows. He opens the passenger door and grabs my bags from the front seat.
“I’ll coordinate with security and the sheriff. Don’t go get your stuff without them.” Cade warns me. “Lauren’s making up a suite on the second floor.”
“He’s going to want the car back.” I look at the silver car behind me.
“Good.” Cade smiles, and I almost swear he laughs. “ Deacon’s gonna be so fuckin’ glad this thing is gone. I’ll get a vehicle on order for you tomorrow. You can use Lena’s red one in the meantime.”
I manage a small laugh. It’s not like Deacon’s distaste for my little car has been a secret, but I think Cade probably heard more about it than I did.
When we walk into the house, it’s alive with activity.
“We’re about to have dinner,” Cade says, kicking his shoes off and setting my bags down. “If you’d like to eat with us, you’re more than welcome to.”
Shame heats my face, and I feel conflicted. I’m starving, not having eaten since lunch, but what is everyone going to think?
“Henri!” Lena shouts from the kitchen. “Finn is making that thing with the sauce that you like.”
“So descriptive.” Thalia giggles.
Cade leads me around the corner, and I see the two of them sitting at the countertop, watching as Finn commands the pans on the stove.
There will be perks to being single. I can make whatever I want, I lament, watching Finn.
Then hope flutters in. I can find someone who cooks for me now.
My wolf looks for Deacon in the opposite way I am. She longs for him, but I’m dreading facing him. I know it’ll come sooner or later.
“Stay with us and eat,” Finn says as he starts dishing up five plates. “Deacon isn’t coming down anytime soon. I saw him cart what I’m pretty sure equates to seven days’ worth of junk food up to his room this afternoon like he’s some sort of rodent.”
Thalia snorts. “I think we should probably send up some actual food over the weekend.”
“If we don’t, it makes him come out when he’s really hungry.” Lena disagrees. She pats the stool next to me. “Come on. If you don’t sit and eat, I’ll eat your portion for you.”
Part of me wants to decline the offer, but the normalcy of them all together feels good, and my empty stomach demands food. There’s all weekend to mope.