Page 48 of Healing Fate
I needed to punch something. I needed to yell and scream, but I couldn’t take out my frustration on her. Not now when I knew she was scared and vulnerable. I was shaking inside, furious, hurt, and a little terrified I was going to lose her for moving too quickly.
Without another word and with tears starting to burn my eyes, I nodded and turned and walked out the back door, leaving my car there in her driveway. I shifted not even caring about destroying my clothes and then I ran.
My wolf stopped at the edge of the woods and turned back to the house one last time. Just like that first day when Vada had run outside, I saw Lucy’s shadow in the window watching me.
My wolf sat and raised his nose towards the sky letting out the most soul crushing howl I’d ever experienced. He wanted his mate as much as I wanted mine. We’d never even seen her wolf, but I knew he could feel her presence because I could too.
I tried to force him to leave but my heart wasn’t in it. Instead, he took control and peed a perimeter around her property warning off every other wolf in the Pack and marking her as ours because in human form, I hadn’t been able to do the same.
It started to rain which seemed fitting for the melancholy feelings I was experiencing. Still, we stood there watching, knowing she was watching us back.
When the house went dark at last, my wolf finally turned and ran all the way home.
The second I was back in my skin, I wanted to call her. I needed to hear her voice and have her tell me everything was going to be okay.
I knew she was scared, but so was I, more now than ever.
I’d royally screwed things up just when I couldn’t imagine life any more perfect.
*****
The next morning, I awoke after a restless night feeling like I was hungover, only I hadn’t drank a thing. My head was pounding as I stumbled to the bathroom to find some Tylenol. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken the stuff for myself, but I kept it here for emergencies.
“You just never know when you may need it, son,” my father would say, so I had the stuff at the house, my car, the clinic, most anywhere there was a bottle on standby. This morning I was grateful for it.
I spent the bulk of the day sulking. I knew it too, but I wasn’t going to stop it. Wallowing in self-pity seemed like a good idea for the moment. She had asked for the weekend. I had to give it to her, but I felt completely lost and hopeless without her.
It rained all day long only contributing to my foul mood.
I almost wished there was another baby ready to enter this world. I’d even take another breech one without complaint right about now. Anything to keep my mind off Lucy.
As night fell, I forced myself to go to bed for another restless night’s sleep.
Sunday appeared to be much of the same, though the rain had stopped, and the sun rose high in the sky. I think I preferred the rain.
I was pacing a bare path in my carpet until at last my phone rang in the late afternoon.
“Lucy?” I asked without even looking at the caller information.
“No, it’s Kyle.”
My heart sank.
“Oh. What’s up?”
“There’s been a rockslide out by the old prison caves. Some teens were exploring up there. You know how intrigued they are by that place. We have two still missing and several injuries.”
I sighed. I knew the place well. Even I had spent time exploring the caves our ancestors had used to constrain troubled wolves or punish them. The place gave me the creeps yet that’s what kept people coming back to it. Some tried to say it was haunted. I knew it was mostly just a sad place.
I scoffed at the irony. A sad place for a sad pathetic wolf like me.
I grabbed my emergency bag and then realized my car was still at Lucy’s. If the mud was bad enough to cause a rockslide, I knew it was better to use my truck anyway. I didn’t drive it often, but it was there for emergencies just like this.
I drove over as close to the caves as I could get knowing I’d have to hike in the rest of the way. There were already a dozen or more trucks lined up. At a time like this, the Pack rallied together.
I jumped out, grabbing my med bag, and jogged the rest of the way. My boots were caked in mud and up ahead I could see Kelsey working on someone. I quickly ran to her side.
“What do we have?”
