Chapter 15 #2
“Any time I close my eyes, there’s a fifty-fifty chance I’m going to open them again to find myself up on that motherloving roof.” He pulled on the blanket, and this time she let him take it. “When I’m asleep, I can’t control the monster.”
“What monster?”
He shot her a look as he wrapped the blanket more securely around his waist. “You know damn well what monster. You’ve seen the cursed thing, after all.”
It genuinely took her a moment to connect the dots. The winged wolf had been breath-taking, all brightness and power. Even in her shock, it hadn’t even crossed her mind to be afraid of something so purely magical. How could anyone call it a monster? Let alone Buck himself?
“You mean… you shapeshift in your sleep?” she asked, still not entirely sure she was understanding him correctly. “And you’re not aware of what you’re doing while you’re transformed?”
“What it’s doing,” Buck corrected. He rubbed absently at a prominent scar on his bicep. “I can keep the thing stuffed in its cage during the day. Most of the time, anyway. But I can’t stay awake twenty-four seven. Not that I haven’t tried.”
Honey remembered the odd, heavy steel link bracelet she’d noticed around his wrist at their first meeting. Not a bracelet after all. A chain . He’d had a chain padlocked around his arm. And his feet had been bare…
“This happened the morning that we met, didn’t it?” she said. “That’s why you had that chain around your wrist. You were trying to keep yourself locked up, but it didn’t work.”
“Damn thing can bite through anything short of a solid wall, it seems.” Buck scowled.
“And even if I bricked myself in a basement, it would probably chew its way out just to spite me. Pretty sure it leaves my clothes behind deliberately, too. Since it’s technically a type of hellhound, it should be able to bring my pants along when it takes over. Furry asshole.”
That would explain the ‘naked’ part of ‘naked under her bed,’ she supposed. Though not the more important part, which was why he’d been under her freaking bed.
“Hang on, how did you even get in my room?” she said. “I’ve seen your other form. I don’t think you’d fit through the window, let alone under my bed.”
“I was back in control by then.” Buck grimaced. “I woke up naked on your roof. I was trying to sneak back to my cabin when the morning bell went off. Let’s just say that several significant lapses in judgment were made after that.”
“No kidding.” Something else occurred to her. “Wait. You said this has happened before? Waking up on the roof, I mean.”
“Yeah. Few times, now. Damn monster’s obsessed with this place.”
“Why?”
“No idea.” Buck slapped irritably at his scar, as though an insect had just stung him. “Zeph has a theory that the cursed beast is lonely. Wants to be part of a pack, or some such nonsense. Load of bull. Son of a bitch just likes to screw me over.”
Honey blinked, taken aback by the undisguised venom in his tone.
From everything she’d learned about shifters so far, she’d had the impression that their animal was central to their identity.
I’m a wombat, Flora had said; not I turn into a wombat.
Archie, Estelle, Finley—they’d all spoken of their animals in the same way, as part of themselves.
But Buck was talking about his as though it was some malevolent creature, entirely separate to himself. As if it really was a monster.
“How long has this been going on?” she asked him.
He shrugged, still rubbing at his arm. “Couple of weeks, maybe. Ever since the fire crew kids started hanging out here.”
“Could you control your shifting before that?”
He let out a quick, harsh laugh, like she’d inadvertently made an awful joke. “Didn’t have to.”
“Why not?”
“Because up until recently, I was the same as you.” Buck’s mouth curled in an ironic twist. “One hundred percent human.”
“But I thought you said shifters were born that way.”
“Most are.” Buck tapped the scar on his arm. “Not hellhounds, though. They can turn regular folk. Just like the old tales about werewolves.”
She stared at the scar, properly seeing its shape for the first time. Four deep, puckered puncture marks, spaced wide apart; smaller jagged indentations linking them in two curving lines. The whole formed an uneven circle, like…
“A bite,” she breathed. “You were bitten?”
“Yeah. By one of my own damn fire crew, for maximum irony.” Buck rolled his eyes. “Motherloving shifters. Other people get a cheap watch or a tacky mug as a retirement present. Me? I get goddamn lycanthropy.”
She barely heard him. Her mind was too busy racing ahead, down unexpected avenues of possibility. If what Buck said was true… this was it. The solution to all their problems.
“Buck.” She grabbed his arm, heart thudding with excitement. “Could you bite me ?”
She’d seen many expressions on Buck’s face.
There were the infinite shades of his scowl, from ‘mildly irritated’ to ‘ready to fight the world.’ She’d seen his lips draw back in feral rage, and quirk with slight, secretive humor.
She’d seen those black eyes soften with protective tenderness when he looked at the kids, and narrow in suspicion at the dragon’s arrival.
Now, however, his face went utterly blank. It wasn’t incomprehension, or confusion, or even wariness. He had the complete lack of expression of a sheer stone cliff.
Her rising hope broke against that impassive wall. She let go of his arm, stepping back.
“I’m sorry,” she said, mentally kicking herself for being an idiot. “That was a stupid question. Obviously, if that was a possibility, you would have suggested it the moment you found out I wasn’t a shifter.”
His expression cracked, just a little. He looked down at his scar, his fingertips tracing the ridged mark.
“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said. “Honey, I was a hotshot firefighter, and a Marine before that. Not to go into any details, because I don’t want to give you nightmares, but I’ve been through a lot of shit. And this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Being able to turn into a magnificent winged creature sounded wonderful to her , but there was no denying the pain in his voice.
Honey tried to set aside her own feelings, and see it from Buck’s point of view.
He was always so thoroughly, confidently himself .
She could only imagine how hard it must be to have all that self-control ripped away without warning.
“You said the hellhound who bit you was one of your firefighters,” she said. “Why did he bite you against your will?”
“To save my life.” Buck’s mouth quirked, a little more expression returning.
“Heart attack. Hazard of the job. You spend a few decades breathing in burning forests on a daily basis, crap tends to build up in your chest. It’s why I retired when I did.
Advanced cardiovascular disease. Prognosis: Don’t bother to renew your insurance. I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Zeph.”
She didn’t have to ask why. She knew. It was the same reason she put on a smile and a cheerful voice for her own kids, when they remembered to call. Me? Oh, I’m fine.
“You didn’t want anyone to worry,” she said. “Especially not your family.”
He met her eyes, and she knew he understood everything she’d never said. He nodded; a slight, brief gesture of acknowledgement.
“Didn’t see the point in people making a fuss.” Buck looked away, rubbing his scar again. “Figured I’d retire, get my crap in order, and drop dead in peace. Almost got away with it, too. Five more minutes, and I wouldn’t have had to deal with any of this. Motherloving shifters.”
No wonder he fought his animal so hard; why he went through the world like he had a personal grudge against every breath of air.
He was a man who’d known the way ahead, even if it had been short and bleak.
And here he was, forcibly shunted sideways onto a different path, all that certainty ripped away. She knew how that felt, all too well.
“I understand,” she said. “You didn’t ask to be changed, and you would never do the same thing to anyone else. But Buck, I am asking. If that’s why you didn’t suggest it—”
“It’s not,” he cut across her, harsh as the fall of an ax. “Look, when you were face to face with the monster, did it try to bite you?”
She remembered winged wolf’s bright, attentive gaze. “No. It wasn’t aggressive at all.”
“Huh.” Buck sounded surprised, and more than a little suspicious.
“Well, given the teeth on the thing, let’s both be grateful it didn’t decide to try to Turn you.
Maybe it can’t, on its own. It’s a creature of instinct, and I’ve been told the bite has to be done purposefully, with conscious intent. ”
Now she understood the problem. “And you don’t stay conscious when you shift.”
“Right. I can’t bite you, because I’d have to do it when shifted, and doggy instincts take the wheel the moment I drop to four paws. So it’s not an option.”
“But if you did learn to control your shifting,” she started.
“Woman, do you think I enjoy waking up with roof tiles up my ass?” he snapped. “Believe me, I’ve tried to control it. If I had a way to muzzle the damn mutt, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. Speaking of which, will you please let me get some motherloving pants?”
The reminder dragged her back to reality with a bump. The kids must be wondering what on earth was taking her so long.
“I’ll fetch some clothes from your cabin.” She pulled on her shoes as she spoke, hastily tying the laces. “Someone might still be around, and Leonie’s already got the wrong idea about the two of us.”
“Good thinking. Thanks.” Buck hesitated. “Honey?”
She paused in the doorway, looking back at him. The dim half-light filtering through the curtained window painted his body in shadow.
“Even if I could turn you, I wouldn’t,” he said softly. “I’m stuck in this motherloving freakshow, but you aren’t. You’ve got your own life waiting for you, out there in the real world, when summer ends. You don’t want this. Not really.”
She thought of her grotty apartment in the bad part of town, so different from the cozy family home she’d worked so hard to make.
The long, silent hours in her classroom, finding excuses to stay long after the students had gone.
The thought of going back to that cold, lonely life, now that she knew there was magic in the world…
But he was right. She didn’t belong here.
And if there was one thing she was good at, it was hiding her feelings.
“No.” She even managed a smile. “You’re right. I don’t.”