Page 29 of Wolf's Providence

“Caleb, are you listening?” Her voice was soft, but there was a touch of steel underneath. “How did you know your blood would save me?”

I didn’t. That was the truth. I hadn’t known anything in that moment; all I’d had was the desperate fear of losing her and an old cautionary tale from a grandmother who walked too closeto the wild side for my mother’s comfort. A spell so old and forbidden that only the old ones knew of it.

“I didn’t know,” I told her quietly. It wasn’t even a lie. I had been clutching at anything to keep her with me. I hadn’t even known I remembered the words of the incantation. I wouldn’t bet my life on remembering them now. “I acted recklessly.” Also true.

Willow blinked, her surprise flickering across her face. I could tell she hadn’t expected that answer. Hell, I was no longer sure what she did expect. But she deserved the truth, as much as I could share, and no one ever claimed the truth wasn’t ugly.

“You didn’t know.” Her voice trembled slightly, though she was doing her best to keep it steady. “You didn’t know it worked?” Her eyes took on a harder edge. “When you left, you didn’t know I was still alive?”

I ran a hand over my face, the familiar burn of guilt settling in my chest. How did I explain it to her? How did I tell her that I was lost to the darkness and no longer in control? That the beast within me had been on the verge of taking over?

But…she wasn’t asking me about that. She was asking why I had given her blood, why I had made a decision that was contrary to everything she knew and had been told about shifters.

“I had no choice,” I told her honestly. My voice sounded rough and I hoped she didn’t hear the self-loathing that haunted me since that night. “You were dying, Willow. I couldn’t let you die and do…nothing.” I looked up, my eyes locking onto hers, hoping she understood. “I wasn’t thinking straight, I just knew…”

“Knew what?” The steel was in her voice now, and I deserved it.

“I knew I couldn’t lose you.”

She flinched, looking away from me, but not before I saw the confusion in her eyes. The uncertainty.

I felt the flicker of something deeper, the unspoken connection between us that had always been there. Not the bond, or the link, or whatever the fuck we were calling it today. The more basic connection, the attraction.

“Did you know your blood wouldn’t change me?” she asked me suddenly. “That I would still be human?”

“Of course.” This part, I fully understood. You couldn’tturnsomeone; that was a Hollywood storyline, not reality. What you could do was tie their life to yours. I’d be damned if I told her that, though. “You have to remember,” I told her, stepping closer, “it wasn’t just my blood, Willow. The connection between us is the Will of Luna, and there was more than my blood at play that night.”

Willow was watching me, studying me, probably trying to sniff out any of my usual bullshit. I watched her back, calmly, watching the frown line deepen as her confusion grew.

“You believe your Goddess stepped in and that I’m here as some form of divine intervention?”

Divine intervention, and some really dark blood magic.

Despite that, I nodded. “I do.”

Willow sniffed. “The shaman believes your Goddess is behind all this.” She looked down at her pants legs, smoothing them over her thighs, distracting me slightly. “He says that the blood and the bond are what healed me. He says because I’m human, it’s why Luna chose me. He says I ground you when a pack cannot.”

I knew I was frowning. “The shaman says a lot,” I mused. “So, he told you that my blood healed you because of the bond, and it’s what the Goddess wants?”

I watched her nod, her movement hesitant, as if she was picking up on the fact I may not be a believer. “You’re an alpha,”she whispered. “Your bloodline is important. The Goddess doesn’t want to lose that.”

And how in the hell did tethering me to Willow preserve my bloodline? Seriously, was anyone buying this shit? I saw her eyes widen, doubt swirling in her green eyes as she tried to tell me that there was some greater reason behind all this than the actual truth.

“Is it not true?”

How did I answer that? Truthfully? Fuck no. “I don’t know.” Whichwastrue, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that it was bullshit. I also wasn’t one hundred percent sure it wasn’t. “I know that you’re alive”—I gestured to her midriff—“and healed. And that’s all that matters.”

“That’s all that matters?” she asked skeptically.

I held in my sigh. I wanted to tell her I’d been asking myself the same thing. I wanted to tell her none of it made sense. That we were even connected to begin with still made no sense to me. I wanted to tell her that the pull I felt towards her, the need to protect her, tobewith her, was stronger than anything I had ever felt in my life.

And that feeling terrified me.

“You being alive, unharmed, is all that matters,” I told her instead. “I won’t ask for forgiveness—I don’t deserve it—but I want you to know that I am so thankful that you are.”

“Thankful.” Her gaze hardened. I saw the way her shoulders straightened, the way her eyes narrowed. “You’rethankful.”

Fuck. What had I said wrong this time? “You think I’m not grateful?”

---