He sniffed the air as he looked down at her.
Her cheeks got red. “I’m ignoring it. I can’t help it if you’re gorgeous.”
“I think I just thought of a fourth option of things we could do.”
“What? Now?”
“Why not?” He ran a hand down her arm and she shivered.
She stood up. “Because you’re stalling and much as I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than roll around on the grass with you like randy teenagers, we need to go into that house.”
In her head she heard him make a grumbling noise. “Someday I’m going to get you to waste time.”
“Maybe you will.” As she said it, she doubted it. She’d been moving, running, or focused on escape since she was six years old. It wasn’t likely she would suddenly get lazy.
She took his hand, pulling him to his feet. His callused hands felt good in her own.
Parker made her feel small in the best possible way. He was her gentle giant and she was going to protect him from anything that might hurt him. The only way she could be sure she could do that was to get the pain that seeing the inside of his house would cause him over with.
Otherwise it was going to be this big looming problem over their horizon for all time. Even if they left Westervelt and never came back, they’d always remember they hadn’t done this one thing.
Problems didn’t go away if you ignored them, they only got bigger.
Parker sniffed the air as they approached the house and she squeezed him tighter.
“Smell like home?”
“No. I don’t have any sensory feelings for it at all. This whole thing feels like I’m watching it instead of going through it.”
“Really? That’s weird.” She wished she could be more articulate. Weird was the only word she could come up with.
“I know.”
They were about to go up the porch stairs when she pulled to a stop. This was huge, momentous, that Parker was coming back here. Something had to be said.
She opened her mouth and he waved his hand to stop her.
“Let’s just get it over with. You want me to go in the cabin; I’ll go in the cabin. Fine.
I don’t need a whole production about it.”
Without another word, he stormed up the stairs in front of her.
Huh. She hadn’t seen that outburst coming.
Chapter Ten
Parker knew he had been surly with Angel. He stomped up the stairs, throwing open the door so roughly it shook from its already loose hinges. Not wanting it to break on some unsuspecting person trying to walk through it, he ripped the door all the way off, loving the way the wood groaned when it did so.
It felt good to destroy something. This was, after all, where his life had been destroyed.
“Parker.”
Angel’s voice grounded him. Immediately the anger he’d felt when he entered the house deflated.
“I told you I was dangerous.”
But even he could hear how tired, rather than angry, he sounded.
“You’re like a little boy having a fit. We don’t have to do this. Step outside. What do I know, anyway? Maybe this is a bad idea.”
He sighed closing his eyes. All he had to do was step through the threshold of this cursed place.
Was it cursed?
He grimaced. He’d kind of hoped his wolf was leaving him alone after dragging him here against his will. It felt like there was this mass conspiracy between his wolf and Angel’s wolf to make him deal with things he preferred to leave in the past.
Because I remember a lot of laughter. I remember the way your father loved your mother before Kendrick’s curse ruined everything. I remember a father who spent hours sitting out at a lake with a little boy who liked to hold a fishing pole.
He wished he could make his wolf stop talking, he wished he could force him to stop.
They had wonderful wolves. I can’t imagine they’d want you to remember them like this…
Just stop! He shouted through his link to his wolf, not caring if he accidentally broadcast to Angel, not caring if he accidentally let the whole world know how he felt.
He didn’t want to have to remember them. Running a hand over his face, he realized his breathing was labored. He had spent so much time forgetting.
“Parker.” Angel’s voice was gentle as she grabbed his arm. “Let’s go outside.”
“No.” He shook his head as he forced himself through the door. His mother deserved his remembrance. He would go to where she died. He’d loved her—both of them—too much to hide from this anymore.
Eyes forward, he crossed the front hall fast before taking the stairs to the upstairs two at a time.
Twice he nearly hit his head on the low ceiling. It was a good thing he hadn’t stayed here until adulthood; he would have hit his head everywhere he went. Angel followed right behind him not saying a word, which he appreciated. He wasn’t sure he could handle any conversation at the moment.
He rounded the corner and came face to face with the scene of his worst nightmares.
The door was open and even though his parents’ bodies were not strewn bloody across the floor, they might as well have been. Although it had been thirty-five years since their death, he suddenly felt like he was a child again.
He slapped his forehead and tried to get some perspective. He wasn’t a child. He wasn’t stuck as a child. He’d left here. How that happened he wasn’t exactly sure. Did he swim to the mainland? Had he gotten onto the ferryboat? How could he not remember?
Angel put her hand on his back. It was a lifeline back to the here and now. Perhaps it didn’t matter how he’d gotten off the island. In all the chaos, it would have been easy to disappear, especially for a young boy traumatized by what he had seen.
“She died here.” He pointed to the bed. “She tried to fight back but she was so stunned and he was so much bigger than she was. Also, I got in the way.”
“You were a child and this was a bad idea.”
He looked around. “Why do you say that?”
“Because clearly this is too much for you.”
He shook his head. “You were right. I needed to do this. I’m already trapped in my own head.
Only you can hear me. I can’t be trapped in the past too.”
An unfamiliar scent wafted through the air and Parker turned around to regard Angel.
“Another shifter is approaching.”
She nodded. “I can smell him too.”
Parker immediately became aware of his mate’s nakedness. His own didn’t matter.
He looked around. There wasn’t much to cover her but he rushed over to the old dusty floral bed cover and wrapped her in it.
Angel choked as dust flew, covering her mouth. “This is worse than being naked.”
“Humor me.”
“It’s like a hundred years old.”
He rolled his eyes. Sometimes Angel was such a princess. “Not quite that old.”
“I bet it’s infested…”
Footsteps charging up the stairs stopped her mid-sentence.
Alpha!
His wolf shrieked lowering his gaze while Parker struggled to hold his own. Tristan wasn’t his Alpha, he hadn’t sworn allegiance to him and wouldn’t if Angel didn’t want him to. Whether they stayed or went was really up to her. He wanted to be where she was—end of story.