Chapter 17
While towel-drying my hair in the heat house bathroom, I quietly mulled over the day’s events.
After Scott left, I returned to the art room and worked on my project in silence.
Everyone stayed outside late, and when I started hearing the pack trickle in through the back door, I made a hasty exit through the front to avoid Salem.
The evening wind whistled against the heat house. When the glass in the skylights began popping earlier, I opened the front door and was met with a blast of frigid wind. A cold front had moved in, and the temperature was dropping fast.
Great weather for hot soup, so I enjoyed a bowl of chicken noodle before my shower. My day had started out wonderfully, and now sadness and guilt tarnished everything.
When I pulled open the bathroom door and walked out, I slammed into someone. It startled me so much that a feral sound ripped from my throat as I staggered backward and grabbed a weapon.
Then I realized I almost massacred Salem with lemon-scented moisturizer.
“Sorry.” He backed up and sat on the edge of the bed, his fingers laced, his shoulders as stiff as one of Scott’s ironed shirts.
Since the bedroom corner lamp was on, I switched off the bathroom light. “You can’t just walk in on a girl like that.”
“You didn’t answer the door. I was worried.”
“That seems to happen a lot. Remember how it turned out last time?” I leaned against the doorframe. “I wish people would stop worrying about me.”
“That’s impossible when you care about someone, don’t you think?”
“I’m sorry about causing a scene earlier and ruining your winning play.
That wasn’t my finest hour.” I rounded the bed and sat with my back to Salem.
While I studied the romance titles on the bookshelf, wondering which was everyone’s favorite, I found it impossible to start the conversation Salem so desperately wanted to hear.
“It’s cold in here,” he remarked.
“Something’s wrong with the heater. It clicks on, but the air coming out of the vents isn’t warm. Maybe you have a defective thermostat.”
“I really don’t want to talk about the thermostat right now.”
“You brought it up.” I swung my legs onto the bed and rested my head on the pillow.
He looked over his shoulder at me. “Is it the same disease your father had?”
“Uh-huh.”
After heaving a sigh, he kicked off his shoes and lay down beside me. We stared up at the skylight for a long stretch before he spoke. “Your eyes changed. They’re more orange than they were this morning. Is that one of the symptoms?”
“Uh-huh.”
He turned his head in my direction. “You need to give me more than that.”
“I desperately wanted to save my father. The disease is hereditary and fatal. His mother died from it, and my great-grandfather and his three siblings died from it. My dad wasn’t certain how many generations back.
He was young when his mother died and didn’t get all the information, but he thinks it’s at least five from what his father told him.
All the kids get it, and everyone dies before the age of fifty. ”
“You’re thirty-seven.”
“My dad was lucky and made it to fifty-one.”
“Was he a Shifter or Sensor?”
“Shifter.” I pointed my toes to stretch my feet. “That might be why our wolves are so rare. I’ve often wondered if this might be a disease specific to our animal or just my family, but since there aren’t a lot of maned wolves left, it might be something else.”
“Did your ancestors ever try mating with other animals?”
“Of course, but every child was born a maned wolf, and they all carried the disease. No exceptions.”
He rolled onto his side and faced me. “All of them?”
I turned my head and held his gaze. “All of them. He didn’t want to pass it on to his kids, so he fell in love with my mom and thought they’d be spared the heartache since she was a Sensor. The odds of conceiving with someone who isn’t the same Breed is low. Why is that?”
“I guess it’s like a whale having a baby with a giraffe. They’re all mammals, but they’re not the same species.”
I smiled. “Do you think if a whale and giraffe had a baby that it would live on land or water? Would it be a fat head with long legs, or a long neck on a whale’s body?”
He propped his head in his hand and looked at me in earnest. Salem wasn’t in the mood for small talk.
“When my mom got pregnant, they hoped all my gifts would be canceled out and that would break the curse. They were hopeful for a while, but when I turned a year old, they noticed a tiny orange spot in my eye. It stayed there my whole life, but in recent years, it began spreading.”
Salem brushed his thumb over my eyelashes while his gaze shifted between each eye. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?”
Crestfallen at the concern and pity in his sweet brown eyes, I struggled to give him the truth. “Because I liked the way you looked at me. You didn’t feel sorry for me. I was just a woman, and you were just a man.”
“I’m guessing the dizzy spells and balance issues are symptoms. Based on when they started, how much time do you have?”
I averted my eyes while remembering my father’s gradual decline. “When my dad’s eyes turned completely, he only had a year. But it took several years for him to get to that point. My balance issues started in the past year. The fainting is new.”
“What else can we expect?”
“Well, my dad experienced seizures. Then weakness in his limbs. Eventually, he couldn’t walk or feed himself, but I told you about that already.
After both his eyes turned orange, he lost his vision.
My mom and I watched him waste away. He never had trouble breathing, and sometimes I wonder if that was a blessing or a curse because it prolonged his suffering.
I watched the strong man I loved my whole life disappear.
” I rolled onto my side to face him. “That’s another reason I left.
Part of me hoped by running away, I could escape my fate.
I can’t put my mom through that again. Marrying Scott would only make it real, like every day was marking off one more box on the calendar. ”
“You can’t wish away your disease.”
I pinched his grey sweater and studied the weave.
“When I came here, I had to start over, and it was exhilarating. Suddenly, it didn’t feel like the end of my life anymore but the beginning.
I had things to look forward to: a new house, new friends, future commissions.
My life is full of possibilities when I’m here, but when I’m around people who know about my sickness, it feels like all hope is lost. Like I should just lie down and wait for death.
Maybe the truth isn’t as important as how you feel about your life. ”
“Is that why you’re running from him? Now I understand why he wants to take care of you.”
“I don’t want someone to hold my hand while they wait for me to die!
” Incensed, I sat up and jumped to my feet.
“I want someone who gives me hope—someone who can’t wait to give me another day filled with love and laughter and memories.
If I marry Scott, I’m not taking a husband; I’m taking a caregiver. There’s a difference.”
He sat up. “Really? Because I would wager most of my packmates would gladly be a caregiver for their mate if they fell ill.”
“It’s not the same.”
Salem stood and reduced the space between us. “Why not?”
“Because they love each other. I don’t love Scott like that, and I know for certain he doesn’t love me in that way. He cares for me as a friend, but he has mother issues.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“For some reason, I remind him of his mother. Not me—the whole situation. She died, and he wasn’t there for her, so when he saw what happened with my dad, it triggered him.
He always felt like a bad person because he wasn’t there for his mom, and now he thinks if he can take care of me, it’ll prove he’s not.
” I raked my hair back and sighed. “He has no idea what he’s walking into.
What if the responsibility scares him and he bails?
Then it falls on my mom again. Who will take care of her when I’m gone?
I just want to live, Salem. Whatever’s left, I want to savor every second of this beautiful life. ”
He cradled my head in his hands and pressed his forehead to mine.
I clutched his shoulders. “You said you wouldn’t lie about us being mated, but earlier on the deck, you told Scott I was yours.”
He drew back a little but held my gaze. “I didn’t lie. I never said I was your mate, only that you were mine.”
“You can’t mean that.”
“If you’d asked me a month ago, I would’ve told you love is a chemical reaction.
That a couple has a better relationship when they treat it like a business transaction.
But I can’t explain what’s going on inside my head.
” He enfolded me in his arms. “I thought sex would help me forget you, but you’re all I think about. Especially when we’re apart.”
I smiled wide and snuggled closer. “You think about me when you’re alone? Like what?” I tickled the back of his neck and then slowly removed that pesky elastic band from his hair. “Do you think about kissing me?”
“Yes.”
I softly stroked his cheek. “Touching me?”
“Yes,” he breathed.
“Do you think about how amazingly talented I am in medicine?” I teased.
He gave me a skeptical look. “You were brave to help me with that Mage, but I wouldn’t use the word talented.”
I chuckled and swayed in his arms. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re being literal or if that’s your dry humor, but I like it. As flattering as this is, it’ll never work out between us.”
“Why not?”
“Well, how could I ever be with a man who won’t try the snake soup?”
“I’m serious. Why wouldn’t it work out between us?”
I lowered my arms and hugged his middle. “Because you can’t love a woman who doesn’t have a future.”
He tilted his head to the side. “Says who?”
“Salem—”
“You don’t love me,” he said as if coming to a conclusion.
“Do you have a middle name?”
“Benjamin.”