Page 75 of Rocky Top

“You’ll be a gray.”

“Alien?”

“Wolf.”

I looked away. “I thought I was finally putting my life together. Now I’ve gotta learn how to leash my inner werewolf.”

“You don’t gotta leash nothin’,” he said, voice rough. “You’ll learn to live with it. I’ll help you. But you can walk away, Birdie. I’ll understand.”

I met his eyes then. “Can I?Walk away? Where to?”

He looked like he’d swallowed glass. “Truth? No. The bite’s permanent. You’re one of us now. You can’t walk away. But I won’t force nothin’. Not your friendship, not your trust, not your… feelings.”

A silence stretched long. I could still feel his arms around me from the other night. The heat of his body. The panic in his voice when I’d gone limp. And yeah, the sharp, searing pain of his human teeth breaking skin.

But there was something else now. Something crawling under my skin like a slow storm brewing. A heat. A longing I couldn’t place.

“You’re mark going to make me want you?”

He laughed. “If only it worked like that. No.”

“I don’t know if I’m angry, scared, or… just plain confused.”

“Probably all three,” he said softly.

I laughed. It cracked halfway out of my throat, part sob, part dry humor. “Well, ain’t that a first for Birdie Mae. Speechless.”

He smiled, just a flicker, then nodded toward the side door. “Wanna come in?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

His expression didn’t fall, but the hurt was there, raw in the lines of his face.

“I just need time.”

“I’ll give you all you need,” he said, backing away. “But Birdie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not letting you outta my sight. But I’ll watch from a distance. If you ever need me, really need me, I’ll be there. No matter what.”

And I believed him. That was the worst part. Ibelievedhim. Regardless, I let him have it. “Leave me alone, Rocky. Haven’t you done enough?”

That night, back in Eliza’s house, she brought me a hot cup of chamomile and a fuzzy blanket.

“How’d it go?” she asked, curling up next to me.

I didn’t answer right away. Just stared at the flicker of the candle she lit on the coffee table.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I whispered. “But when he looks at me… it’s like heseesme. Even the parts I didn’t know existed.”

Eliza smiled gently. “Then maybe this is the beginning of something.”

I swallowed hard. “Or the end.”

She rested her head on my shoulder. “Only if you let it be.”

And for the first time since the bite, I didn’t feel entirely out of control.

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