Chapter 5

His brows pulled tight. His lips pressed into a flat line.

A pair of dark eyes pushed down on me, heavy as the cloud cover before a storm.

The pain crackled across my whole body. I curled in on myself. My mind was starting to blur.

The next second, the world flipped upside down. He'd thrown me over his shoulder.

He carried me out hunched, as if he was carrying something he could barely lift. We left the bar.

I fought him, told him to put me down. He held on tighter.

The streets rushed past me backward. They started to look familiar.

When he finally set me down under a tree, I recognized it.

He'd brought me back to the orphanage.

He climbed the tree and pulled down red berries. He gripped my jaw too hard. My mouth opened by force.

He crushed the berries and squeezed the red juice into my mouth. From a distance, it would have looked like I was drinking his blood.

"These cancel wolfsbane." His eyes dropped to my throat. He smiled coldly. "Sometimes I really do want to bite right through your neck."

I shoved his hand away and steadied myself against the tree.

This tree stood here the way it had always stood. Quiet. Indifferent.

Two names had been carved into the trunk, in a child's hand. A heart drawn between them.

We carved that when we were small.

Seven years. The cuts looked fresh, as if someone had kept retracing them.

Following the old lines, over and over. Never able to go back.

I hadn't carved them. That left only Theodore.

I touched the letters. My hand jerked back as if I'd been burned. The tears came anyway.

I turned my back to him. I wiped my face. I took a breath. I shifted.

My claw dug into the bark. I dragged it through our names until they were gone.

When I was done, I shifted back. I turned around. I forced a smile.

"Theodore. Stop chasing me. Please. You found your fated mate. Isn't that enough?"

"You thought waiting for me would move me? I already have a mate. Our pup is almost seven."

"Stop being so sentimental. So stupid."

Theodore stared at the place where our names used to be. Then his face twisted with rage.

He shifted. His claws caught my wrists. He slammed me against the trunk and lunged for my throat.

His fangs broke the skin. Then he stopped. His whole body was shaking.

"You're lying. I don't believe you…"

He jerked his head up. He roared like an animal caught in a trap. "Prove it. I demand you prove it!"

I looked at the side of his face and, for a second, I drifted.

Fourteen. The night he took me out of the orphanage, he'd looked exactly this furious. Exactly this stubborn.

That was the year my body started to change. The headmaster, that filthy man, had started reaching for me.

Theodore shifted that night and attacked him. He grabbed me, and we ran.

The headmaster came after us, shouting, "Come back. You're children. You'll never survive out there."

Young Theodore turned and snarled, "I'll protect her. I'll take care of her."

He held my hand so tight.

His hand was dry and warm and full of strength. His hand was the only thing in the world I was tied to.

I followed him. I followed him into the endless dark without looking back.

But in the end, moonlight didn't drive out the dark.

I looked into his eyes. I said quietly, "All right. I'll prove it."

I took him to the healing center.

We stood outside the room. Through the glass, I pointed at the pup reading quietly inside, and I told Theodore:

"That's my son."

The little wolf was called Lucas. He looked like me. He had Theodore's temperament.

He had inherited all the best of his father. He was such a good boy.

But he was sick. His body was failing him. And still he was so well-behaved it broke my heart.

Theodore looked at the pup. Then he laughed.

The laugh started low, then grew, like a small flame catching dry wood.

He couldn't stop. He laughed until he was crying. His whole body was trembling.

Then, all at once, he swallowed it down and walked away.

His footsteps fell behind him and drifted off into time.

He hadn't recognized him. I didn't tell him.

Lucas was his son.