There was no Christmas the next year. I assume Christmas still occurred in the outside world, but at Stonehaven, it passed unnoticed. I'd barely got out of the cage by winter. Clay was still banished. Logan came to see me, but I drove him away, as I'd driven him away the half-dozen other times he tried to visit. Nick sent a gift. I threw it out unopened. Before Clay bit me, I'd met both Logan and Nick, had even started considering them friends. Afterward, I blamed them for not warning me. So, Christmas came and went and I barely realized it.
The next year, Clay was still banished. I was well on the road to recovery by then. I'd forgiven Logan and Nick and even Jeremy. I'd started getting to know Antonio and Peter. I was coming to accept life as a werewolf. Then came Christmas. I expected it would pass again with little fanfare, like the year before. Instead, we had a full-blown Christmas, complete with presents under the tree, colored lights sparkling against the snow, and a turkey on the table. The whole Pack came to Stonehaven for a week, and for the first time, I knew how hectic, stressful, loud, and wonderful a family Christinas could be. I thought this was how the Pack normally celebrated Christmas, when they didn't have an angry new female werewolf to contend with. It wasn't until January that I learned the truth. Clay had contacted Jeremy and asked him to do this for me. That was his gift to me. My gift to him was to ask Jeremy to repeal his banishment.
For every year after that, we had a full Christmas at Stonehaven. The Pack indulged my fantasy completely, without ever making me feel that they were only doing it to humor me. I can't say that every Christmas was a good one. Sometimes Clay and I were getting along, more often we weren't, but we were always together. If this last Christmas away from Clay had been hard, one thing had made it bearable: knowing he was out there, somewhere. As I stared at the pile of presents in his closet, I realized this applied to my life every day of the year, not just at Christmas. Somehow, knowing Clay was there, waiting for me should I ever return, gave me a cushion of comfort in my life. In a perverse way, he was the most stable thing in my life. No matter what I did, he'd be there. What if he wasn't? The thought filled me with something so icy cold that my breath seemed to freeze in my lungs and I had to gasp for air. I hadn't lied to Jeremy the night before. This wasn't one of those fairy-tale romances where the heroine realizes her undying love for the hero after he's placed in mortal danger. There were no heroes or heroines in this story and there would be no happily ever after ending, even if we got Clay back. I still couldn't imagine living with him, nor could I envision my world without him. I needed him. Maybe that was unspeakably selfish. It almost certainly was. But it was honest. I needed Clay and I had to get him back. I looked at the gifts again and I knew I wasn't doing enough.
"I'm going to Bear Valley," I said.
It was the next day. Nick and I were on the back patio, lying on lounge chairs, luncheon plates on our laps. Jeremy and Antonio had left an hour ago. Since then, I'd been trying to figure out how to tell Nick what I'd planned. After a half-dozen false starts, I went with the blurt-it-out approach.
"I told Daniel I wanted to see him," I said.
"Is that what was in the note?"
When Antonio and Nick had gone to deliver Jeremy's latest missive to Daniel's post office box, I'd slipped Nick a note to add to Jeremy's. Nick hadn't asked what the note said, probably because he didn't want to know.
"Yes," I said. "I'm meeting him at two o'clock."
"How'd he get back to you?"
"He didn't. I said I was meeting him at two. He'll be there."
"And Jeremy's okay with this?"
I could tell by Nick's tone that he knew perfectly well I hadn't mentioned it to Jeremy. The question was his way of prudently broaching the topic. Or maybe he was just hoping against hope that this was something I'd already planned with Jeremy and we'd both somehow forgotten to mention it to him.
"I'm not sitting around anymore," I said. "I can't do it. I tried, but I can't."
Nick swung his legs over and sat on the edge of his lounge chair. "I know how hard this is for you, Elena. I know how much you love him-"
"That's not it. Look, I've already been through this with Jeremy. We need Clay back. Whether or not you want to help is up to you."
"I want to help get him back, but I'm not going to help you get yourself killed doing it."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Just what it sounds like. I saw the way you were a few days ago-"
"Is that what this is about? Because I flipped out three days ago? Look at me now. Do I seem flipped out?"
"No, and that probably scares me more than if you were."
"I am going," I said.
"Not without me."
"Fine."
"But I'm not going. So neither are you."
I got up and started for the back door. Nick leapt to his feet and blocked my path.
"What are you going to do?" I asked. "Knock me out and lock me in the cage?"
He looked away, but he didn't move. I knew he wouldn't do anything. If it came down to it, Nick wouldn't use physical force to stop me. It wasn't in his nature.
"Where's this meeting? he asked at last. "Is it in a public place? Because if it's not-"
"It's in The Donut Hole. As public as I can make it. No matter what you might think, I'm not doing anything that might endanger myself. I wouldn't do anything to endanger you. The only risk I'm taking is in breaking Jeremy's orders. And I'm only doing that because he's wrong to exclude me."
"So you'll meet Daniel in the coffee shop and I'll be there. We'll park right out front. We won't go anyplace with him, even for a walk down the street."
"Exactly."
Nick turned and walked to the house. He wasn't happy, but he'd do it. I'd make it up to him someday.
As I pulled into a parking spot in front of the coffee shop, I could see Daniel through the window. He was sitting in a booth. His shoulder-length auburn hair was pushed back behind his left ear-his only ear, actually, after that little biting mishap a few years ago. His profile was sharp, high cheekbones, pointed chin, and thin nose, not unhandsome in a feral way, but his looks were more fox than wolf, which better complemented his personality.
As I got out of the car, his green eyes followed me, but he didn't acknowledge me in any other way, having learned long ago that I didn't respond well to fawning. His body was lean and compact. Standing, we'd be on perfect eye level, making him no more than five feet ten. Once, when I'd needed to meet Daniel to deliver a warning from Jeremy, I'd worn two-inch heels and had quite enjoyed the sensation of talking down to Daniel, until he told me how sexy I looked. Since then he'd never seen me in anything but my oldest, grubbiest sneakers.
Today Daniel was wearing a plain black T-shirt and blue jeans, which was pretty much what he wore all the time. He copied Clay's monochromatic, construction-worker-casual wardrobe as if it would lend him a certain cachet. It didn't.
Marsten sat across from Daniel. As usual, he was groomed and dressed like he'd stepped from the pages of GQ, which only made Daniel look like a slob in comparison. Okay, Karl Marsten made everyone look like a slob.