HAVEN
Wesley pulled his sweatpants off, and then, with some snapping and cracking of his bones, he changed right before my eyes.
Changed from the Wesley I knew into a large, dark gray, humanoid beast.
I screamed. Screamed the loudest, most bloodcurdling scream I’d ever made in my life.
I turned to run away, to run back into the safety of the house, so I could lock the door and protect myself from the monster in front of me, but I ran straight into Nolan’s chest.
His hands grabbed my upper arms, and he glared over my head at the beast standing where Wes had been moments before.
“You couldn’t have waited like two more minutes?” Nolan yelled at it. “Nolan, let me go!” I cried. “I need to get inside, get away, and—”
“No, Haven,” he said, turning me around so I faced the monster again. “If you run, he’ll think it’s an invitation.”
“An invitation?” I squeaked.
“Yes. To chase you and mate with you.” “Mate?”
“Have sex. Claim you as his.”
“You mean that-that thing would try to have sex with me?!” I screamed, my heart climbing into my throat.
“What? No, no, we don’t do that,” he said, shaking his head with his nose wrinkled.
“We? You mean, you’re like that too?” I asked, pulling away from him and trying to escape again.
He grabbed me again and pulled me back into his space. “Yes. Well, sort of. We all are.”
I stood there in front of Nolan, staring at the gray creature in front of us as it breathed in and out heavily, its eyes dark and narrowed on us. Or me. I wasn’t really sure.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Nolan grumbled, dropping his arms and stepping back from me but still staying close. “I know, I know!” he exclaimed. “I’m not trying to claim her, Wes. She’s like a sister to me. She was supposed to be my sister,” he continued. “My girl, my Rachel, is right here, see? You asked me to bring her with me for this exact fucking reason.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see him embrace a cute woman with long, medium brown hair and light brown eyes, his lips pressing a kiss to her forehead as she leaned into him.
I swallowed, terrified again with the absence of Nolan’s calming demeanor near me. My whole body shook, and I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to stem the shaking and the nausea threatening to consume me.
That thing in front of me was Wes. I had seen with my own two eyes that he had been there one minute and then changed into a—a—
“Werewolf?” I whispered, meeting his eyes nervously.
He shook his head and stepped closer, and I took a step backwards without even thinking about it. His low growl stopped me in my tracks, and I froze, too afraid to do anything else.
My throat tightened, and my eyes itched, but I held still, waiting to see what he would do next, waiting to hear what else Nolan or his girlfriend had to say to me.
“What did he say before he shifted?” Nolan asked. “He said ‘Don’t freak out.’”
“And…?”
“And that was it.”
“Mother fucker,” he groaned, then came to my side. “I’m not going to touch her!” Nolan grumbled, lifting his hand that wasn’t holding Rachel’s. “Haven, Wes is a lycan.”
I stared at the beast in front of me again, studying it, and noticing how it stood on two legs instead of four, how it still had human-ish features. How its eyes were the same dark brown as the man I knew and loved.
“Lycan?” I repeated, and Nolan nodded. “That’s… that’s sort of like a werewolf, right?” I asked, trying to remember the vague bits of knowledge I had about supernatural and mythological creatures.
Creatures that were, apparently, not mythological but very real.
“Yes and no,” Nolan explained. “They are stronger than us—than other werewolves. Selene, the moon goddess, created them to be our leaders or alphas.”
“So Wesley is your alpha?” I asked.
“His dad is, yeah. Wesley will be eventually.”
“And all of you are werewolves?” He nodded again. “Maya?” I asked, and he nodded. “Jack? Shirley?”
“No, they are not. And they don’t know what we are. We’re not supposed to tell humans except for… under special circumstances.”
“And I’m a special circumstance?”
Nolan chewed on his answer, looking at Wes and Rachel. “That’s complicated.”
I blew out a breath, trying to process everything he’d told me and everything I’d just seen, trying to reconcile the beast in front of me with the man who’d made me so blissfully happy, who’d held me in his arms all night both at the beach and in his bed.
The beast—lycan—in front of me took tentative steps forward, and I held firm even though every fiber of my being, every naturally ingrained survival instinct, told me to turn and run. He stopped a foot away from me, looking down at me, looking at me the same way Wesley always did.
But he wasn’t Wesley. He was a lycan. An animal. A beast. A monster.
“I—” I shook my head and took a step back, closing my eyes. “I can’t. I can’t do this,” I repeated.
My hands covered my face, hiding my trembling lips and teary eyes from the lycan, Nolan, and Rachel. It was too much. It was all too much to take in, to handle, to even comprehend. My shoulders shook, and I covered my mouth, trying to stem the sound of the raspy sob escaping me, but it was pointless.
“Haven…” Wesley’s voice murmured.
I peeked through my fingers to see him reaching out to me with one hand, back to his usual human self, but I stepped back again out of his reach. My
body still shook, and I couldn’t tell if it was from nerves or fear or the chill in the air. I couldn’t tell if I feared him or just the monster he could turn into.
What if I made him mad? Would he use his lycan to hurt me? Would he try to control me, too?
“I need some space,” I blurted out, cutting my spiraling thoughts off before they could drag me down that all-too-familiar path. “I need… I need to think about all of this,” I told him, my voice heavy, tired, and shaky.
He dropped his hand and clenched his jaw, but he nodded. “I understand.” “I’ll call you. When I’m ready,” I told him.
I turned and ran into his house before he could say anything else to me or try to convince me to change my mind and stay. I grabbed my purse off of the entry table and then left through the front door. My feet were bare, but I couldn’t even remember what I had done with my shoes the night before. And I didn’t have time to search for them.
I got into the car and started it, peeling away from the curb before I even had my seatbelt on. I had to get away, get out of there so I could think, so I could process all I had seen without Wesley right there, hampering my critical thinking.
I turned onto the main highway, then reached for my phone to call Maya. Fuck. Maya. She was one of them, too. She had known all along what
Wesley really was. And I lived with her.
My hands shook as I gripped the steering wheel. My whole body shook. I couldn’t drive in that state.
I pulled over near an overlook area and sat in the car, breathing deeply, my head resting on the steering wheel. I didn’t know what to do. The two people I trusted most were not who I thought they were—what I thought
they were. I couldn’t talk to either of them about my dilemma because they were my dilemma.
“Fuck!” I yelled, banging my forehead softly on the steering wheel.
The hot tears on my cheeks told me the frustration and confusion I’d been holding back had finally spilled over. I wiped at them and sniffed, trying to keep the snot in my nose and the water off my cheeks, but it didn’t matter because as soon as they were gone, more fell to take their place.
I stayed there, sitting in the car on the side of the mountain road, crying, until I was calm enough to drive again, until my hands no longer shook and tears no longer fell from my eyes.
Just as I was about to start the car again, the bushes nearby rustled, and I turned to see a rusty-colored wolf’s face staring at me from within the forest greenery. I froze and stared back at the hazel eyes that were more human than animal, taking in the fact that this wolf was much larger than what an actual wolf would be.
I don’t know how, but somehow, I knew the wolf in front of me was Nolan. Maybe it was the eyes or the calm aura, but I knew it was him.
I waited for him to move forward, to attack or pounce or… something… but he just sat back on his haunches and watched me, like he was waiting for me to drive so he could follow. Like he was protecting me.
With that realization, I started the car and pulled back onto the highway, watching Nolan out of the corner of my eye. He stayed in his spot until I started down the road, and then he disappeared into the forest.
I didn’t see him at all as I finished driving to my apartment. But somehow, I knew he was there the whole time, following me, watching me. I don’t know if Wesley had sent him after me or if he’d come on his own. Still,
either way, that thought conflicted with my fears that Wesley or his lycan form would ever wish me harm or do anything to hurt me.
Hadn’t he shown me he wasn’t like that? He was bossy and dominant and possessive as fuck, but he did it to protect me, to take care of me, not to control me. He did it because it was how he showed me I was important to him. And it was almost playful, the way we would banter about him bossing me around and me not listening to him.
But that beast. The lycan. How much control did he have over it? Could he keep it from hurting me?
Maya. She was one of them, but maybe that was a good thing. Maybe she could help me, talk me through all of my doubts, fears, and worries. She’d be able to answer all my questions and give me more information.
Nolan had told me what he could with the time we had in Wes’s backyard, but I knew there was more he didn’t say, more I needed to know, things we didn’t have time to discuss. Crucial and critical information that would help me in sorting out all the thoughts and questions in my head.
With new determination, I jumped out of the car and made my way inside our apartment.
“Maya!” I called out as soon as I walked through the door. “Maya, I NEED to talk to you!”
I hung my purse on the hook by the door and waited for her to come into the living area, but the apartment was silent. Too silent. Maya always had music or the TV on, saying the noise was necessary for her to feel like she wasn’t alone.
I checked my phone, but during my drive home, it had died. Not surprising, since it didn’t get charged overnight. I was too distracted by other things to plug it in.
I went into my room and plugged it in, then went into the bathroom while I waited for it to charge enough to turn back on.
I turned on the shower, and stared at myself in the mirror, taking in my wild hair, my red-rimmed eyes, and puffy cheeks. Then my eyes landed on my shirt—Wesley’s shirt—and I groaned out in frustration, turning the water off.
I didn’t want to shower or change. I wanted to stay in Wesley’s shirt, breathing in the scent of his cologne lingering on the fabric. I didn’t want to wash off the remnants of our night, even though I more than needed to after we fucked that many times.
I went back into my bedroom and looked at the phone, now back on, reading the texts from Maya there.
Maya: I had to go home to Crescent Lake. Family emergency. Not sure when I’ll be back.
Damn it. I needed to talk to her. There wasn’t anyone else I could talk to. And I wanted to sort out my feelings before my birthday on Tuesday when we would have dinner together with Jack and Shirley. He’d agreed to give me space, but I knew him. He would show up because he wanted to be there for every moment he’d missed after Jack’s stroke.
I dialed Maya’s number, but it went straight to voicemail.
“Damn it!” I exclaimed, tossing the phone to the side and flopping back onto my pillows, the heels of my hands pressing into my eyes.
There were too many thoughts running through my head to make sense of any of them. My brain was tired, and my heart was heavy and hurting, and I couldn’t think straight. A yawn pulled at my lips, and I curled myself onto my side, letting sleep pull me under, hoping some rest would help me come to a better understanding of everything I had just learned about Wesley.
