Chapter 6 - Harper
Everything hurt.
My palm stung from where I slapped Alex. My arm hurt from the demon’s blade. My entire body ached from whatever spell they had cast over me. But mostly, my heart ached, looking at him.
At Alex—with those dangerous eyes and a slowly reddening cheek from my blow. My hand slowly slid from my mouth. Had I really just slapped him? Shit . I needed to remember who he was: a killer, both as a human and as a wolf. Because that was what he was: a wolf shifter, and if he thought I had forgotten that, he was mistaken.
Apologize , I told myself. Apologize to him. Once, I would have never wanted to say a jokingly nasty word to him. Now, I had slapped him. But perhaps he’d deserved it…
“How could you think that?” I asked, incredulous. “How could you honestly think, Alex, that you have fatedly come to this island to protect me?” My words were a snarl of my own, angry and harsh. That apology rose to my mouth—a girl raised in a Puritanical household should always apologize and seek forgiveness—but I let myself bite it back again. He didn’t deserve my apologies. I was still waiting for one from him.
“Of course, I would think that,” he told me. His tone dropped into an almost growl as he blocked me in once again against the beach’s fence. “It’s been four years—”
“Thanks to you,” I spat.
“I know, Harper, I know.” He swallowed. “But after all this time, why else would we have suddenly found one another again? You can’t tell me it’s not fate?” He shifted, stepping closer. “Why won’t you let me protect you, Harper?”
“Because I don’t need it,” I whispered, losing a grip on my resolve. What I didn’t say was: because once I thought you were protecting me and I can’t make that same mistake again. I don’t trust you to keep your word. I don’t trust you to not hurt me again, so how could I trust you to protect me from the hurt of others ?
“I think you do,” he answered. Alex lifted his hand to brush the back of his knuckles down my cheek, and I almost leaned into it, nearly letting myself give in, but I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
“Until my team finds out why there’s a revival of demon activity here after being dormant for years then yes , you do.”
“No!” I cried, shoving past him and walking away. I needed to focus on that : the demon attacks, telling Adalyn, and working on our own protection with her, not with Alex. “No, Alex. Just—have your damn vacation. We don’t need your team swooping in wanting to save the day.” I turned to face him; my hands balled into fists. “This is my home, my island. You don’t get to play hero here. I don’t need you.”
A muscle in his cheek twitched, and I knew he was not used to me turning him down. Once, I had giggled on his arm, practically hanging off his every word. A lovestruck college graduate thinking the charming, dark-clad stranger on the bike thought her worthy of his attention. Now, just the sight of him made me boil with rage.
Like this, with the night sky pressing in around us, I couldn’t think clearly. Not when the lights of boats docked nearby reflected in those dark eyes. Not when I could tell he’d freshly buzzed his hair, and it only made him look sharper and more dangerous— more handsome . Not when he wore a white t-shirt that hugged every muscle, he’d worked endlessly hard for, and it was the first time I’d ever seen him in a light color, and was taken aback by the effect.
“I don’t need you,” I whispered, trying to convince myself I didn’t want him either. In actuality, I wanted him. I wanted him as badly as I had that first night we had met in Haystock. He had taken me on every surface, in every room, in the apartment he’d been staying in, until it felt like ours . For weeks he had been my secret until my town had found out I was having a forbidden relationship with him and was going against my parents’ wishes for an arranged, good, clean marriage.
I wanted him to tell me he loved me while I told him I hated him, love, and hate clashing and meeting, a dance of their own, while we tangled in one another.
I blinked, and calmed my burning face down.
No .
“Leave me alone,” I told him again. Better to distance for good instead of risk temptation. “Leave me alone, Alex. I’m serious. Vacation here if that’s what you want, but leave me out of it. I don’t want or need your protection. Even putting this island between us isn’t enough distance from you.”
Alex reared back as if I had slapped him again. His brows twitched, pulling together.
“You don’t mean that,” he murmured.
“I do.” Tears of anger and hate stung my eyes. “I really do because what else do you expect? You left me in the middle of the night with—”
With your own children on the way .
I stopped myself. He caught it again, and looked like he wanted to press me.
“With consequences to face alone,” I finished miserably. He would never find out about my children. He’d had his chance to be a part of their lives and mine, but he’d squandered it.
Alex’s agitation rolled off him waves, almost palpable. He had tells when he was annoyed and tried to reign it in: he rocked on the balls of his feet, and, despite all his military training, he couldn’t help but clench his fists over and over. Clench, release, clench, release. And when he realized he was doing it, his hands always slammed right back to his sides, as if forcibly making himself go still. That old familiarity struck me.
“Harper, don’t walk away from me,” he said when I stepped back towards town. “Put this whole damned island between us if you want to, but that won’t stop me from trying to protect you.”
“No,” I said, preparing another sharp barb. “But maybe I should figure out what I did last time so you could leave me alone.”
He flinched, his lip curling. I wasn’t afraid of him. I never had been. Instead, I only burned with more anger because he thought he was so entitled to be my protector. I would never have come to Azure Cove if it hadn’t been for him and his careless actions.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t been there tonight?” he challenged.
“Nothing, Alex!” I cried. “I’d have done nothing because if you hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have left the bar to get away from you.”
“Harper—”
“I’m not defenseless or useless or whatever the hell you think of me,” I snapped. “I have my ways to protect myself. This island has ways of protecting itself.”
“And look how well that’s fucking working out!” he yelled. I startled back, still not afraid, but more surprised by the intensity he came at me with. Why was this so important to him?
“I’m sorry, Alex, but I can protect myself,” I insisted. “I’ve done it enough already. I’ve climbed out of one shitty situation after another. I have saved myself countless times without you there. And sometimes, you were the reason I was in those shitty situations. So, no, I really don’t need your protection. I don’t need a wolf shifter to swoop in and save the day.”
“Harper,” he said. There was a drop in his voice that made me pause. “What… I mean—you’ve changed.”
I laughed, genuinely laughed, and he didn’t like it. I saw his eyes darken. “What, did you hope I was the same simpering girl who fawned all over you?”
“I didn’t hope for anything,” he answered bitterly. “I didn’t even expect you to be here. I know what I did, Harper. You can stop throwing it at me.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think I will. I get to have that right. You hurt me—you hurt me more than you can imagine—”
“Really?” he snarled. “More than I can imagine?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because you were the one who walked away,” I told him. “Because you had to know how you would leave me feeling, and you had to be okay with that enough to leave. And for that to happen, I think you felt like your pain would be less.”
He didn’t answer. He just kept clenching and relaxing, arms to his side, and then repeating the process. Alex had always possessed an excellent poker face. When he was happy or feeling cocky about something, he always made sure I knew, but the days when he had dealt with things inside of his head? Those days were when I couldn’t tell what was happening behind closed doors.
“It was one summer,” I told him, my voice cracking. “Don’t mistake that for anything else. I owe you nothing.”
With that, I turned on my heel, not fully remembering when I had even taken off my shoes, and walked off the beach. I headed back towards the Swinging Boot but paused in the murky reflection of a store window. The town was entirely dead. No music, no talking, no people. I stopped, scanned the shadows, but nothing else seemed amiss. It was like a soundproof barrier was over the entire town.
But as soon as I fixed my hair, adjusted my dress, and hoped the graze from the demon’s knife wasn’t as glaringly obvious as it was to me, I pushed back into the bar. Alex’s group of men had vacated, but Adalyn was still living it up on the bar, cheering and laughing, swinging her hips in a way that had every jaw going slack as they watched her.
This was my night. Or it should have been.
I hung by the door, hovering. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like partying anymore.