Chapter 12 - Harper
The tapping of Adalyn’s nails on the counter at the grocery store where we worked made me raise my eyebrow at her.
“You know,” I said, smirking, “If you want to know something, you can ask. Keep tapping those nails at me, and I won’t tell you anything at all.”
“Oh, you know me,” she sighed. “I love all the juicy details. Word around town says a handsome stranger stayed at your cottage last night.”
“And whose word is that?”
“Gramma’s,” Addie answered. “She said he was there when she arrived this morning.”
“He was.”
“Is this Alex ?”
She dragged out the l in his name. “It is.”
“Are you and Alex…” She pointed her fingers inwards, towards each other. Her brows rose, and a shit-eating grin widened on her face.
“ No ,” I stressed. “He slept on the sofa after I gave him the silent treatment. I told him he could protect me, but that’s all. I’m honestly surprised he agreed to stay on the sofa.”
“Mmhmm,” Addie said. “I’m sure you just happened to be thirsty in the middle of the night, wander outside for a drink, and oh , Alex is just right there , all burly and handsome on your sofa, not asleep, but awake, tormented by his thoughts. And maybe you slid right onto his lap and—”
“Hello?”
Addie jumped, whirling around. “Hello! Welcome to Joan’s.”
I recognized the man standing at the counter, pushing his glasses further up his nose. His eyes were almost hidden beneath a thick, curly brown hair. Harris, or Hayden, or something like that. He was one of Alex’s guys. I elbowed Addie, who kept smiling at him.
“I’m new in town,” he said, leaning on the counter. I didn’t miss Adalyn flicking her eyes over him in a once-over. He wore a navy polo shirt, unbuttoned, with white strips on the sleeves, tucked into dress shorts. “And I heard some legends about demons?”
I bit back a scoff. He was trying to downplay the whole shifter thing. Which made sense. Not every town was welcoming. God knew my Haystock hadn’t welcomed shifters. Begrudgingly accepted them as long as they didn’t integrate into their perfect community. It was part of the reason I had been accepting of Alex—I knew of shifters but I hadn’t actually talked to one, gotten to know one before him.
“I’m sure you did hear,” I said, unable to help myself. “I’m pretty sure you were one of the wolves who fought them off the beach outside my cottage last night.”
The man looked startled, staring at me. Slowly, recognition filled his face. “You’re Harper. I remember you from…”
“From when your leader broke my heart? Yep, I’ll bet you do. You all probably knew his plan all along, didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “No—no, we knew as much as you did. I promise.” He raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, so yes , I know there are demons, but I also know the island has its own legends, right? I was wondering if you know more information you could pass on to me. The more informed we are, the better we can patch a full report to our Commander and ensure more physical protection.”
“Physical protection?” Addie asked. “ Oh , the wolf thing. Right.”
“You’re not… Surprised?” he asked.
She snorted. “Please. There are weirder things in this place, like men who turn into wolves. It's kind of hot, I think.” She threw him a wink which he just cocked his head at.
“Anyway, she’s your girl, if you want demon intel,” I told him, pointing at Addie. “I’m sure you both will get very acquainted.”
“Hector,” he introduced himself.
“Addie. Short for Adalyn.”
She held out her hand for him to shake. She took him further down the counter while I grabbed a whole batch of frozen pizzas to restock the freezer in the corner. Addie could watch over the till for a while.
I was only halfway across the store when the bell rang again, and a cascade of voices took over. I recognized one of them immediately. Alex. I spun around, my heel slipping on the wet floor, and dropped the boxes. Before I could realize I was falling, Alex’s arms were around me, scooping me up.
“Got you,” he murmured. Then he smiled charmingly, and I fought against the allure. “ Again .”
I blushed, pulling myself away. He swooped down to gather up the boxes. He checked out the toppings.
“I’ll take six of these.” He jerked his head at the men hovering by the counter. Adalyn looked like her birthday had arrived early—slightly starstruck but confident all the same. “Hungry pack of wolves and all.”
I raised a brow at him. “I thought you had imposed yourself on my house.”
“I have, but I also agreed that I’d eat pizza with them before I came back with you. Besides, I tried to insist I watch over our children today, but—”
“ My children,” I snapped, hating how he had staked ownership on them. Yes, I wanted my children to have full transparency of their father, even if it would have hurt more if I hadn’t met him again, but they deserved that much. “You don’t get to claim them after all this time.”
He laughed. “Sorry to break it to you, Harper, but there would be no children in the picture if I didn’t provide half the DNA.”
I scowled at him. “You know what I mean. Take your damn pizzas and leave. Did you ever find out when your vacation ends?”
He grinned. “Yes, I told you. We’re here indefinitely.”
I made an annoyed sound in my throat. “Well, boats leave every day, so do consider the next departure.”
Before I could move past him, he had me cornered, pressing me back against one of the fridge doors behind me. “Harper, listen to me closely,” he purred, his voice lowering. “I’m going nowhere. Even before I knew about our children, I wasn’t going anywhere. I am staying whether you like it or not. You agreed, remember?”
“In name only, remember?” I hissed. But he surrounded every sense, crowded me in a way that made me weak. I wanted to tip my head back and have his mouth on mine—I wanted to give in, to rekindle that old spark, to know if anything had changed. If I wasn’t enough, maybe the triplets would be enough to make him stay.
But he couldn’t either way. He had said it once himself. He couldn’t subject me to a life of always waiting for him. And yet… Had I waited, in my own way? I looked up into those warm brown eyes and wondered: had I subconsciously waited for Alex, and that was why, in four years, I had never properly moved on?
His arms flexed. Bastard. He knew I always looked at his arms.
He smirked.
“Alex…”
“What?” he murmured, tipping my chin upwards. “Why are you fighting this? We were good together, Harper.”
“We were,” I agreed. I leaned in close, letting him think he had won. I leaned in until our mouths were inches apart, and I met his eyes, knowing he had always loved the color of my own eyes. “But you were the one who walked away.”
I stalked off, ducking beneath his arms—one of the perks of being shorter than him by half a foot—and returned to the register.
“I see you’ve gotten reacquainted with the rest of the guys,” Alex said. “Zeph, Hec, Fray, Sweeney, and Johnson.”
He nodded to each guy in order. I noticed how Addie’s eyes lingered on Zephyr and Hector a moment longer than the others. I recognized Sweeney—I did a double take.
“You,” I said. “You… You were—”
He looked sheepish. “Yeah, that was me.”
“What was?” Adalyn cut in, looking confused.
I set my gaze on Alex. “After he left my hometown, I kept seeing him —” I jerked my head at Sweeney, “Hanging around for about a week.”
“I had orders,” he shrugged.
“If he wanted to make sure I was okay,” I snapped, glaring at Alex. “Maybe he should have stayed to see for himself.”
“Harper, you don’t know—”
“Okay,” Zephyr cut in. “Let’s not do this in the public grocery store, shall we?”
I gritted my teeth. “I’m going on break,” I told Addie, pulling off my store vest.
“I’ll come with you,” Alex said.
“No!” I yelled. “Do not follow me, Alex, or I swear I will use that pretty knife you left for me this morning. Thanks, Zephyr.”
“No problem,” he said, tipping his head. Alex elbowed him. “What? Let the women be armed, I say.”
Addie smiled at him, a smile that expressed every desire she may have wanted. I just shook my head, unwilling to keep listening to any of this. I couldn’t keep hearing how Alex was going out of his way to ensure I was safe after he left me, how we could still be together now, how the triplets were ours despite the fact that he had never given me the chance to tell him.
“Harper—”
“No, Alex,” I snapped. Of course, he’d followed me outside. “No. I’m taking a small break, okay? Please leave me alone for that.”
“I said I’d protect you.”
“Right now the only thing I need protecting from is the threat of falling asleep. It's funny how I barely slept at all last night, considering my ex-boyfriend invited himself to live with me , thinking everything would fall back into place! But you weren’t the one left behind, Alex! You weren’t the one who woke up alone, waiting for something to explain the absence. You weren’t the one living the next few years with a thousand questions, wondering what you did wrong, or if everything was even okay! So you don’t get to make all these decisions. I’m grateful for your protection, but please , I need some time alone.”
A war was etched into his face. A desire to give me exactly what I asked for, to be respectful and honor it, and that alpha’s need to win over, to do what he wanted and thought was right. In the end, I walked away, letting him know I was making the decision.
I didn’t go on a small break.
I took the back roads through the island. Greta had offered to take the babies out today, and I was grateful. They needed to run around in the park nearby to get some fresh air, and if there was a threat of an attack, I knew Greta would be equipped to handle it. I didn’t know the extent of what she and Adalyn possessed to defend against demons, but it was real enough that she had offered to safely have my children for the day while I worked. I didn’t want Alex thinking he had any claim over them if he so much as put a coat on any of the triplets.
By the time I made it back to the cottage, I was panting, breathing heavily. Panic climbed up in my throat.
You always know what title I never dared to say years ago. Let me say it now. Let me claim you and offer my full protection. Alex’s words rang in my head, but it was strange how the only thing I feared was my heart treacherous heart wanting him back.
There was only one thing to do. One option. Alex wouldn’t give up, and part of me didn’t want him to. If I stayed on the island, then I would cave—I wanted to; how could I not? All I had wanted was a second chance, to ask him all the questions I had tormented myself with.
But I knew that I couldn’t have that. This was a vacation, and even if it wasn’t, what future did we have? I didn’t want to leave Azure Cove. He would always return to…
I stopped short. I never knew where he was from. Born in Pennsylvania, originally, he had told me, but that could have been part of his undercover story, mixing fact with fiction.
So what did I have?
Get to know him again for the duration of his being here, risk growing close again, only to watch him leave? I still didn’t know why he left last time, assuming it had to do with work. But he would have told me that… Wouldn’t he? If it had surprised him, I thought he would have immediately told me since I had seen him on the island. How could I trust him not to hurt me again?
I checked my phone, looking at my last message from my mom. A message I hadn’t yet answered. It was a picture of Diego and my mom, him holding flowers, while she beamed happily. Her red hair had faded into a silvery white, but she was still beautiful. Diego's longer hair, grown out, covered scars that ran down his face from an animal attack several years before.
Mom: We’re ready to welcome you home anytime. Diego has honored his promise to his parents, and to you. That he will continue to wait for you, no matter how long it takes.
My heart ached at the thought of going back to Haystock. I had sworn to my mom I would never return, but… Did I have another option? Alex wouldn’t leave. I couldn’t risk being hurt again. And what of my triplets? What if I did decide to trust him, and they grew to know him, only to watch him leave, too? I couldn’t put them through that.
With tears in my eyes, I did the only thing I could think to do. Pack my things. Leave while everybody was out of the cottage or busy. I would let Adalyn know once I was on the plane, but I didn’t want anybody to talk me out of it.
I couldn’t stay. Every option of saying was soured, wrong. It all tasted like temptation and hurt like damnation. I couldn’t take any of those risks. Not even for Alex.
I went into my bedroom. I had packed light from Ohio, but over the years, I had collected things: pens, trinkets, belongings that I wouldn’t be able to cram in one suitcase but things I didn’t really want to leave behind and forget. I would pack the triplets, a backpack each and pick them up. Greta would be the only person who knew why I was leaving.
The decision came so easily. I had lived most of my life prepared to skip town, wanting to travel. Maybe now that I’d lived in Azure Cove for years, then, returning home wouldn’t be so bad.
Opening up the pink suitcase I had packed to come here with, I began opening all the drawers in my bedroom, throwing in anything I found and leaving things I thought I could live without until I re-bought it. But as I pulled open the bottom drawer in my bedroom’s armoire, I found a pile of Alex’s clothing. T-shirts, shorts, underwear. A pair of shoes tucked into one side, a bottle of cologne.
I grasped hold of the bottle, smelling it. It was the same one he’d worn the night we had met again—the very one that had covered the t-shirt I had worn for nights and nights after he had left, convincing myself that he’d return.
The smell now brought too many memories. My eyes filled with tears that I fought off. Looking at his belongings in my own bedroom… This was the life I had dreamed, cried for. I now had it, even if it wasn’t exactly the way I had pictured it. The circumstances were all wrong, but when I was twenty-one, all I wanted in life was a cozy home with Alex, our respective lives coming together to fill one combined space. Alex, me, and our triplets, under one roof.
I sat back on the edge of my bed, dropping my head into my hands.
Was I better off just never leaving Haystock in the first place? I had been made an outcast due to my relationship with Alex once word had spread about his shifter genetics. Rumors had circulated viciously once my pregnancy had been uncovered. Some had said I carried the devil’s spawn, others had claimed he’d taken advantage of me, while many said I needed to see the pregnancy through, even if they believed that a shifter’s baby would tear right through a human.
Well, it hadn’t.
I had birthed three healthy, beautiful babies. Not the devil’s spawn, or clawed and fanged beasts hellbent on destroying me.
The thought of returning to such a narrow-minded, old village made me feel sick, but I couldn’t risk my heart being battered and toyed with once again by staying. Either Alex had to leave in the next day, before I got used to having him here— before my triplets saw too much of him—or I had to leave. And I knew he wouldn’t—I had already asked him to, and he’d refused.
He was a distraction, a temptation I couldn’t afford to risk. Alex inviting himself to live in my home made everything even worse. What I needed was more distance. Control. A way of me being the one to push him away, rather than the other way around, and if returning to my hometown was the way to do that for a while, then so be it. In true Alex fashion, he never left a number to call, an address to write to, or social media to look up—nothing ever came up for his name that matched him—and if I left. He had no way to contact me, then that was his own fault.
But now that he knew about the triplets, things could be complicated.
I couldn’t bear to see my children gain a man they would learn was their father and then watch him leave.
Perhaps I would write him a letter. It was more than Alex had done for me. But he would chase me, wouldn’t he? I wouldn’t feel hunted so much as found, simply found.
I shook my head. No, I had to give myself and my babies a chance to not be hurt. Sat on the edge of my bed next to my suitcase, I booked us on the next flight back to Ohio, a redeye flight that would take a couple of hours. It flew out in five hours. It would be just enough time to pick up the triplets, get a boat back to the mainland.
I could do it. I had fled a home once before. This one would just hurt a little more to say goodbye to.
***
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep on the sofa until a light blazed behind my closed eyelids, startling me out of a dream. I also didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep in Alex’s t-shirt, the one he had left, that I’d thrown at him the night before. It was white, with a band logo on the front that I never knew or listened to, but it was oversized and comfortable.
The good thing about having a boyfriend with big muscles is that your t-shirts fit me well , I had laughed to him once.
He had paused on our way into a coffee store. Boyfriend, huh? It had been the first time I had used the term to describe him. We hadn’t talked about it but I had dared to use the title. I had always known back then he wanted to use a different one for me than girlfriend, but he had never pushed.
Also, what’s with you and my muscles?
I laughed. Aside from them being crazy attractive? I’m a curvy girl, Alex. I like that you don’t make me feel heavy, and those help . I smiled indulgently, remembering wrapping my fingers around his biceps back then. Then I woke up properly, thinking Alex was back and I had missed my chance to sneak out unnoticed.
But when I opened my eyes, it wasn’t to the overhead light being switched on. A portal was opening directly above me on the ceiling, and I stared up at a demon’s hollow face staring down at me.
My heart pounded, and my flight instinct immediately kicked in.
A light shriek sounded, a laugh—a demon knowing it had caught me in a trap. I let out a whimper as I looked around. My new knife was in the bedroom. Fuck. Why hadn’t I stayed in there?
The demon hung from inside the portal, its body swinging out of the ceiling. It leaned down, right towards me, and I jumped up, throwing my arms over my head, letting out a cry as I fled the living room. I only thanked any higher being that my babies were out with Greta—until the doorbell sounded on the cottage.
“Harper?” Greta’s voice called through the door.
“Greta! I’m in here—there’s—keep the triplets away!” I yelled, my chest tight with panic as I edged towards the door. The demon didn’t follow, but I cried out as another portal opened on the stairs. Two demons stepped out of it, their eyes on me. That blueish light washed over the entire downstairs of the cottage, making me shudder.
I felt the strangest sensation, like my entire blood boiled. I moaned in pain, in pleasure, in anything—until the feeling cut out immediately. Greta stood in the door, her face hard with determination. Her palm was outreached for me. Behind her, my triplets huddled like ducklings, peering around Greta’s skirt.
I understood then: Greta might not be able to dispatch demons like Alex and the wolves could, but she could prevent their spells from taking effect and provide safety barriers. I noticed the hazy shield around the triplets. It was the only reason I wasn’t screaming for them to be taken from the cottage.
“I met the shifters,” Greta called, her hand twisting. The portal above the sofa began to thin down until it snapped shut. “They’re following behind me.”
I nodded. For a second, I grieved my failed plans. There was no way I could sneak out for that flight any longer. I wanted my babies safe—away from any demon activity. I would risk them being raised in Haystock over this, even. I would get them away from any evil in the world.
“There are two more upstairs,” she said, eyeing the ceiling. Sure enough, I saw blue neon footprints stamped along the white ceiling. “If you’d like, I can put the triplets in their room and seal the door protectively. Then I can focus on protecting you until the shifters arrive.”
She said it so calmly, and it struck me that she may have done this more often than I realized. I rushed to her side, clasping my babies. They flocked to me, their small faces pale with fear. They likely didn’t understand what was happening, but they knew there was fear in the air to pick up on. Hallie kept tugging on Marie’s braids, and I pulled her hands away.
“Keep things calm and normal for them,” Greta told me in a soft voice, nodding once at me. “Can you do that?”
I nodded. I took Joseph’s and Marie’s hands, while Hallie clung onto the back of my t-shirt. Alex’s t-shirt . With the living room free of demons, I herded my babies into their room thanks to Greta's shields.
“I need you all to be good and stay in here, okay?” I asked.
Three pairs of eyes blinked owlishly at me. Then Hallie nodded and took the hands of her siblings.
“Mommy,” she whispered. “There was a big dog by the park.”
“I know, honey,” I said, smiling softly. “The big dog will protect us, okay?”
“Go, big dog!” Joseph cried. I laughed around my fear and nerves before standing to my feet. I kissed their foreheads before I backed out of the door and closed it behind me. Greta was immediately there, her palms forming shapes over the door.
“The whole room is safe?” I demanded.
“No demon will get in there,” she confirmed. “Not through the window, portal, door, or any other means.”
I was about to embrace her and thank her when two things happened at once:
An outpouring of demons came from the stairs, and lunged for me. Greta was knocked to her feet, but the triplets’ door held firmly shut. I screamed as one of the demons dragged a claw down my forearm. It snagged on my t-shirt collar and began pulling me towards the portal.
I screamed and reached for Greta’s hands, but the demons moved too fast. A portal opened up behind it, and I was getting closer and closer to that shimmering cobalt door that led to God knew where.
And the second thing: the front door to the cottage burst open, and Alex, in his human form, threw a knife across the room, burying it in the chest of the demon that had hold of me.