“You didn’t tel her about the voices when your dad died?”
“No. I didn’t know what they were, what they meant. Not until years later.” Not until Mil ie had told her. By then it was too late. Far too late for any of them.
“How did she die?”
Such a simple question, and such a complicated answer. “There was a storm. A massive storm. It knocked out our electricity and phone lines, washed out the roads, made mud slide down the mountains, and left us total y stranded.” She pul ed in a slow, deep breath. “So, when Mom slipped and cut herself while she was chopping some kindling, there was no way to get help.” Her laugh was dry, painful. “If I’d known then what I know now, if Dad had stil been alive, my mom wouldn’t be dead. But there was just so much blood, and it happened so fast, she was gone before I real y understood what was going on.”
And she’d been alone with a dead body that used to belong to her mother. She didn’t tel Merek how she’d huddled in the corner of their living room, too scared of the blank, staring eyes of that corpse to move.
How she’d vomited at the smel . How she’d sobbed until there were no more tears left, but she was trapped for two more days until the storm passed.
Even when it was over, no one came for them. No one knew they needed help. No one cared.
“I went for help, but the storm had washed away trees and rocks, so the landmarks were al wrong. I got lost. When night came, it was pitch black because there were stil too many clouds to see the stars. It was so dark, and I was so alone.” Over and over again, she’d gotten lost in the gloom of that alien landscape.
For as long as she lived, she’d never forget the utter sense of aloneness, of isolation. Her stomach turned, but she forced back the nausea. “Ophelia found me there.”
“Ophelia was in the woods?” The question, quiet as it was, startled her back into reality. For a few moments she’d been so lost in the tel ing, she’d forgotten he was there.
She cleared her throat. “Yeah. She doesn’t like the wilderness any more than I do. I don’t know how or why a Siamese purebred familiar got al the way out there. Al I know is there was a bear, and I got between it and its cub by accident. It was going to tear me apart.” She snorted, shook her head, and smiled. “Then there was this mangy, half-starved cat attacking the hel out of that bear’s face while I ran.”
“Suicidal cat.” But his tone was almost admiring.
“Yeah, wel . I named her that for a reason. She caught up with me after she was done with the bear, and she’s been with me ever since.” Chloe rubbed her nose, remembering the freezing cold at night, the meager warmth of Ophelia’s skinny body as they curled together in the blackness. The hunger and terror.
Those details she kept to herself. There was only so much she could strip bare for anyone. No one real y wanted everything. She picked up a twig and spun it between her fingers. “It took me another two days to make it to town and another week for them to track down my next of kin.”
Both she and her familiar had been malnourished and dehydrated when they’d staggered into the sheriff’s department. Chloe had almost thought it was a delusion, final y reaching light and warmth and people.
People with food and water.
“Mil ie came and claimed you.”
“She did.”
“And you’ve been in Seattle ever since.”
“No, I went away to col ege and med school. I didn’t come back until I did my residency.” She’d had to get away or she’d known she’d never be able to. For years, she’d had nightmares, terrified of being alone in the darkness. She’d clung to Mil ie like the lifeline to sanity she’d been for a broken young girl. It would have been too easy to let her aunt shelter her, coddle her, protect her from life, but she’d never have been a whole person. The thought of needing anyone as much as she’d needed Mil ie then stil had the power to terrify her.
She’d had to prove to herself she could be alone, that she could cope with the night, even if it meant sleeping with a lamp turned on or getting up to stare at the mil ions of twinkling lights of the city around her to remind herself she was not lost in the woods anymore.
She’d made her own way, such as it was.
Merek stood up and walked around to her side of the dwindling campfire. “You’ve always been in big cities since then though? Until now?”
A smile twisted her lips. “Yeah, I’m a wimp like that. City girl al the way with my cute clothes and nightclubs, like you said. Los Angeles and New York for school. I did a year of foreign exchange in London.”
She shrugged, looked away. “Lots of people and lots of light, even at night.”
His hand appeared in her line of vision, his fingers offered in invitation. “Come on.”
“I think I just want to sit here for a while.” She felt... drained. Emptied out after tel ing him al that she had.
As if she had nothing left.
He just reached down and scooped her up to carry her to bed. She stiffened for a moment, wrapped her arms around his neck for balance, but then went limp against him. He felt so good, so warm when she was frozen inside. She wanted to tel herself it was the dip in the icy lake, but she hadn’t the energy left to lie to herself. For once, she didn’t want to be brave. She wanted to let him hold her and make her feel safe in this nightmare she was reliving, but she couldn’t.
With Alex sharing their “room” tonight, she was sleeping alone. Best get back to sucking it up like a big girl and dealing with the darkness. She’d done it for years, and the last thing a man like Merek needed was a clingy woman. The last thing she wanted was to be that kind of woman.
She’d stand on her own two feet, no matter how much it scared her.
Gods, seven years old. Merek shook his head. She’d been just a baby. Emotion he didn’t want to feel, let alone put a name to, banded so tight around his chest he couldn’t breathe. He swal owed hard; he didn’t ever want to put her down, wanted to make sure she never went through anything like that again.
And yet she was already going through it again. Voluntarily. For Alex. So he could be safe for his ful moon Change.
Merek closed his eyes for a moment, feeling that band tighten. He’d seen a lot of shit in his life, had been through more than his fair share, but it made his hands shake to think of anything else happening to her, even with his intimate knowledge of just how many things could go wrong for people.
Al he could do tonight was make damn sure that she didn’t have to be alone in the dark. Hel , if that was the worst of the fears she’d come out of al of that with—he shook his head again. He’d thought it was the worry and maybe nightmares from being tortured that kept her awake at night, but now he wasn’t so sure.
Maybe it was al of those things, but he’d never met a stronger person in his life. She humbled him.
“I don’t need to be carried, Merek. I can stand.” She wriggled to try to get down when they got inside the tepee.
He tightened his arms and kissed her forehead, savoring the feel of her against him, vital and alive. It so easily could have been different. He could so easily have missed out on the chance of ever knowing her.
The thought hit him like a blow. “I can’t stay with you tonight, but you don’t have to go to sleep alone. We have some time before Alex gets back from his nocturnal activities.”
A breathy laugh escaped her. “Nocturnal activities, huh? Is that what they cal it these days?”
“That’s right.” He let her feet slide to the floor, but kept her snug against him, so she was stil on her tiptoes with her fingers linked behind his neck.